This trip will truly involve planes, trains and automobiles. In planning the England portion of our trip, our on-the-ground travel agent here determined that renting a car would be the best way to get around England. Knowing we’d spend the next month with the vehicle, you might imagine the smiles on our faces when we had this beauty delivered to our hotel in Windsor!

HOWEVER, to anyone who tries to tell you that driving on the left side of the road will be a piece of cake, let me offer an alternate perspective – it’s damn tough! Remember back to when you were first learning to drive – trying to get a feel for the dimensions of the car (I’m convinced I’m right-eye dominant and my left peripheral vision needs more development!), while deciphering traffic signs, signals and road markings that were new to you AND while trying to navigate territory that was totally unfamiliar, streets that were unbelievably supposed to carry two-way traffic, all the while remembering that you turn left into the left lane, turn right into the far left lane and the rules of this thing called a traffic circle. This is the true experience of operating a car in the British Isles! Speaking of traffic circles, I swear that one occurs like every 300 yards or so along your route. Some traffic circles are very large and some are ridiculously small (like a 6-foot circle in the roadway), yet the rules are the same for all – you must yield to any car coming from your right. May the force be with us as we make this driving transition.