The Heaton's: Leaving London

Saturday, September 2 we left London. When I reserved our car weeks ago I put our pick up time to be that morning at 8:00 am. This pick up place was just a block or two from our b&b and we had a 5 hour drive with some sights we wanted to stop along the way and see. Stonehenge was our first stop and was about 1 1/2 hours away. We wanted to be there around 10 when they opened.

So we got up a little early, finished packing our belongings and left. We walked down the street and arrived just before 8:00 am. There was only one person working at the counter and they were currently with a customer. The customer could NOT make up there mind. We seriously sat there for 30 min before we were helped. Being it was just going to be Kory and I, I had reserved a small 2 door car with GPS. After our 1st experience with the car in Scotland I was so thankful that I had reserved what I had.

We soon signed the paperwork, was given the keys to our car and we loaded up. When Kory started the car he immediately noticed a flashing light on the dashboard. While he was looking that up in the car manual we found in the glove department I was trying to enter our info into the GPS. Kory learned that the flashing light meant the car was low on blue fuel. What is that? During this time I couldn't get the GPS to work either. So Kory went back inside to get some help. Kory was told blue fuel is a type of oil, not to worry about it, the light just "probably" hadn't been re-set and that the GPS didn't work because we were in a underground parking center. So we took the guys word and drove out of the underground parking lot. As soon as we got out Kory immediately pulled over so that we could get the GPS running. We tried everything!!!! Nothing worked. The GPS was NOT working. So we drove around the block and back down to the underground. We were NOT going to have a repeat of the stress we had with our first rental car. Of course there were no more small 2 door cars available. The guy couldn't get any of the handheld GPS devices to work either and none of the cars he had available had GPS! So he called to a different car rental with the same company. They had a small car with GPS for us but it would be about an hour before we could take it. We decided we'd wait and went and got breakfast. An hour later we returned but our car was still not there. The guy helping us couldn't get a hold of his fellow employee to find out how much longer it would be. We waited another 30 minutes. When the other employee still could not be reached, the guy helping us said that while we had gone to breakfast a medium sized car had been turned in with GPS. It hadn't been cleaned yet, didn't have a full tank but we could take it if we wanted. It was now about 10:30 am. We took the dang car and left! My brother Matt was also renting a car from a different company. When he got to where his pick up was the car wasn't available. He had to rent a different car and was charged twice as much! He was NOT happy. Our rent a car experience was not the best in the UK and together we used 3 different companies!

Due to some road construction we finally got out of London about 11am.

Here are just a few pictures of things we saw along our way.

Cars pulling campers.

A horse trailer being pulled.....

I don't know much about trucks or hay or weight limits but Kory couldn't believe this guy! He said there was no way this would ever be o.k back home.

We must have been in camping territory as we saw many campers being pulled.

I liked the trailer carrying bikes on this one.

The closer and closer we got to Stonehenge the more the traffic backed up. It also didn't help that we had construction most of the way. We eventually came to a complete stop several times where we sat there for 5-10 min each time. We assumed there must have been an accident. Our GPS told us at the very beginning we would arrive in Stonehenge after about 1 hour and 35 minutes. Not!!! 3 hours later we finally arrive around 2pm! There was a huge line we waited in just to get into the parking lot for Stonehenge, then the parking lot was full! As we were directed to the additional parking the man greeting us told us that they were very busy. That there was an estimate 45 min wait just to buy tickets. Once we had our tickets we could go wait in another line for up to an hour to get bused to the formations or we could walk the 1.4 miles each way. He told us if it were him he'd come back another day. Well.... buddy we don't have another day! The past 2 weeks we had walked so much everyday that I really wasn't feeling the love for walking. And my boots had broken that morning while we were walking to breakfast. I didn't want to have to unpack our bags and find my other shoes so...... we left. The excitement I had had earlier that day to see Stonehenge was long gone. We were both still feeling the frustration of that morning with the dang car, the construction, traffic and taking twice as long hadn't helped. We were both tired, hungry and just didn't care anymore. So we left! Before we got back out to the highway were I knew we would be driving by I got my camera out with my super awesome zoom lense and snapped pictures as we drove by!

Good enough for me on this trip. When I had talked to Camille and Jonathan later that day they had also stopped. However, they had gotten there right at 10 when they had opened. It had only taken them the 1 1/2 hours to get there. They said they got stuck in the construction but traffic was not bad at all. They were able to walk right up to get there tickets and didn't have a wait to be bused out to the formations. Lucky them!!!

We still had a 3 hour drive to our bed and breakfast. This tractor was pulling a trailer with farm equipment as we passed him by.

When we stopped for gas we picked up a package of chips. I don't particularly care for chips but oh my goodness! These were the best! Since we've been home we have searched everywhere for them and can't find them!

We took a short detour to a aviation museum that Kory really wanted to check out. We couldn't buy tickets on line and their website didn't disclose how much it would be to go inside. We were a bit disappointed to discover the fee was 20 pound each! Seriously!!!! No way.... So we left again!

I love how quickly the scenic drive can change. So green, so pretty!

Finally we arrived in Cornwall!

And not to much later we arrive at the Penrose B&B in Lostwithiel, Cornwall.

The past couple of nights we had stayed in some sketchy rooms whether it was in a hotel or apartment type building. This room was absolutely beautiful to our weary, traveled out bodies!

The best part was that the bed even had sheets! That's right sheets! Not one single bed that we stayed in over the past 2 weeks had a sheet. Most of the beds had a fitted sheet or a regular sheet that was tucked under the mattress. Then all that was on top of the bed was a comforter. No top sheet, no thin blanket! It's amazing what we take for granted!

It was after 6pm. Our hosts offered to feed us dinner for 5 pounds each and so we took them up on it. Not quite ready to go to bed but so done with being in a car we walked around the block to stretch our legs.