Road Trip

Today was our day to drive down to Aprille's house near Buxton, and we set aside the whole day for it. But It proved remarkably easy. We drove out through Windermere to roads that got progressively bigger, and led us to the M6. The M6 was a road wholly unlike England: three lanes going each way, wide enough for North American standards, with a breakdown lane every where. I'm sure traditionalists would disagree, but it was delightful.

And so fast. We were circling Manchester in just over an hour. Driving from the lake Park to teh Peak Park was like driving from Connecticut to New Jersey. We stopped on the way there at a rest area, to see what those would be like in England. There was a WH Smith bookstore, a Marks and Spencer food store, a Costa Coffee restaurant, and a computer screen showing road conditions in both directions. It put to shame the Turnpikes in the Eastern US.

We wanted to have lunch at one (for novelty), and the map showed that if we took the ring road around Manchester clockwise we would encounter another around noon. Unfortunately there was construction and the rest area must have gone by without a sign. So we wound up looking for lunch in Stockport, the suburb of Manchester to the southeast.

Stockport was choked with traffic, and it took us a long time to get to the downtown parking areas. But park we did, next to a Sainsbury's. We took the opportunity to use their toilets and buy more Polar bars (our latest craze). Then we explored by lunch. Although it was a Saturday, and a market day (all sorts of stalls set up around the historic market building), there was surprisingly little street food. I think we were looking for something that was not a sit down meal: it was sunny but cool, and we wanted to be outside, and then on our way. Galen decided to try a McDonald's, which was very busy, and Will and I found chicken tikka sandwiches at a tiny place called "Porky's Sandwitches." Kate abstained from lunch, having eaten a big breakfast when we were trying to use up the remaining food in the cottage.

Back on the road (now the very ordinary A6) we covered the distance to Buxton in about half and hour, found the parking lot at Spring Garden, and did our week's food shopping at Waitrose's. The car was absolutely stuffed as we drove on to Aprille's, the kids sitting with groceries under their feet. It was great to see Aprille, and she had made dinner for us. We settled into the cottage and Galen and Will were quite excited to see the Risk game and the Derbyshre Monopoly again.

I sat in on Aprille's nightly ukelele practice, and then, because she had a guitar handy, we played a few songs together, which was really fun. She also plays the double bass in a bluegrass band, and I have to say it's great to be accompanied with a real bass!