After leaving Stonehenge around 1400, we headed north to Scotland. Our first stop would be Roslin, where the historic Rosslyn Chapel stands. The drive per Google directions was an expected 7-plus hours, so we were prepared for a long journey. I was driving and Heidi was navigating, with the help of our Motorola Xoom’s GPS. Because of all the round-a-bouts, merging or spiraling onto the correct freeways was proving to be difficult. The signs were rather confusing and I took us down a few of the wrong roads, which was extremely irritating mainly because I didn't want to get to Roslin in the dark. I was also concerned about the battery life of our navigation, and most importantly the price of using more fuel.
Here in the UK, fuel costs are £1.42 per liter. Sure it sounds cheap, until you do some conversions – how many gallons in a liter, how many British pounds per gallon, and how many US dollars in a British pound? Allow me to do the math. There are 3.785 Liters per gallon, which equates to £5.37 per gallon. So now let's convert our £5.37 into US dollars. By the way, our dollar is currently pretty worthless compared to the British Pound Sterling. Now that S&P might drop the USA’s credit rating, it could get worse. Good thing we are leaving the UK in 10 days. OK, back on track…so converted, this fuel costs us $8.86 per gallon! That is $8.86 per gallon! Holy shit! That is highway robbery! We have a rule that will come into effect when we return to the states … NO MORE WHINING ABOUT USA GAS PRICES!! Even when they are “high” they are cheap in comparison to this. J
Luckily our little Chevy Spark got 42 mpg. Too bad you can’t buy this car in the States. In fact, the Spark got rather poor mileage compared to many cars here in the UK. When we were shopping around for cars we found that most of them are diesel, getting on average about 50-plus miles per gallon. Many of these cars are the same model as their petroleum counterparts sold in the USA. But we don’t have the option of buying the diesel version in the states. If we did have the option, we’d love to buy one. It’s funny how the Toyota Prius is the gold standard for economy cars in the US; we used to see them everywhere on the roads. Here we've maybe seen one or two. These little cars with a 3 or 4-cylinder diesel engine would crush the mileage of the Prius by 5 to 10 mpg, and at a fraction of the cost. OK, I’m finished ranting about that.
We drove up the western-most motorway in the UK, passing through Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and a few other cities. Three hundred or so miles later we finally exited onto a dark, two-lane road, which was going to take us to Roslin. It was near dark and we were getting very close. Luckily, we had plenty of power on the Xoom left. Once we were on this little country road, we stopped for a bodily waste fluid deposit break, also known as a country pee: ) It was extremely quiet out there, which was very peaceful and could also be spooky if your mind wanders in that direction.
At 23:15, after driving a few more miles, we reached the village of Penicuik and decided to get out of the car to stretch. We parked in the town square, and noticed a pub was open across the street. Success! We ordered a Guinness for me and a chardonnay for Heidi. About 10 minutes later the bell rang, signaling the closing time warning. We threw back our drinks faster than usual and prepared to leave. I noticed a small flyer on the wall promoting a rather popular band in the US, Kings of Leon, were going to be playing there in a couple weeks. Too bad we won’t be able to stay for the show.
Back to driving … per the Xoom we were very close at this point. A few miles later we rolled into historic Roslin, Scotland.
I was tired of driving, and couldn’t wait to find a dark corner of a parking lot or side street to park and go to sleep. We had decided to sleep in the car, since there were no Servas hosts available here and we forgot to check with Couch Surfing before we left London. The Chevy Spark Hotel and Suites – Our single room in this hotel was not very comfy. We each had our own bed, which was a stiff foam filled bucket-seat; at least they reclined to nearly horizontal. It was about 00:30 and we could still see a faint light in the sky. It doesn’t completely get dark this time of year. There was also a full moon that added to the sky’s overall brightness. To darken our hotel windows we opened the umbrellas in the car and placed them over the upper half of our bodies to block the light. This worked surprisingly well. Before we left London we knew we’d most likely be sleeping in the car, but for some reason we didn’t think to bring a pillow, or blankets. It got cold, so we turned on the heater. Heidi couldn’t stop laughing because she had never slept in a car up until now. She insisted that we keep our little “camp-out” between us and not include it in our blog. Obviously she changed her mind. It was part of the adventure. Aside from sleeping in a car for the first time, Heidi also conquered her fear of peeing outside on this little road trip. I even snapped a picture of her squatting, which will not be included in the blog. I guess some of our adventure should be kept between us.
Cheers!
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