Road Trip from Helensburgh, Scotland to Maidenhead, England

We left Helensburgh around 10 a.m. and headed south on the M74/A74 and then joined the M6 below Birmingham. I found the journey very interesting because I think the British countryside is so beautiful. The most notable thing was the price of gasoline. MY GOODNESS!!! We stopped at the services near Gretna and gasoline was selling for 75p, 79p and 81p per liter. With help from Bob I did a little math and figured out the price per U.S. gallon in U.S. dollars. Bob's cell phone doubles as a calculator so we used it to do the conversion. We put 33.5 liters of gas in the car @75p per liter and paid a total of 24.87 pounds. Bob was the clever one who knew that there are 4.5 liters in an imperial gallon and 3.56 liters in a US gallon. Using the 3.56 liter figure @75p and using $1.66 as the exchange rate, we came up with a whopping $4.40 per gallon. I'll tell you this figure had me gasping for breath for a mile or two. Now if anyone wants to do the math for themselves and comes out with a different answer, remember we did the math while zipping down the motor way punching numbers into a cell phone.

I have been up and down the A74/M6 so many times that I ought to have every mile of it memorized. I always enjoy the drive, and I always see something new. One of these days I am going to spend some time in the borders area of Scotland. As you near the border of England, you pass the sign for the exit to Lockerbie, the site of the Pan Am bombing. I always get a lump in my throat as we pass. The start of the Cheviot Hills are off to the left, and The Pennine Way, a lovely hiking trail is also over in that direction somewhere.

Anyone familiar with regency romance novels knows all about Gretna Green. It was the Las Vegas of it's time. Gretna Green is one of the world's most famous wedding venues, conjuring up stories of romance, scandals, and illicit trysts. For 250 years, couples have traveled to Gretna Green, where they can get married with no waiting period under Scotland's lenient marriage laws. Traditionally, in Scotland, a man and woman over the age of sixteen could be married by declaring themselves husband and wife in front of witnesses. In England, such marriages were prohibited by an Act of Parliament passed in 1745. As a result eloping couples began to flee to Scotland for their marriages. Gretna Green remains a popular place to get married today. More than 4,000 couples marry in Gretna Green annually - about 13 percent of all weddings performed in Scotland. I looked it up on the internet.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Driving down the motorway at the speed Jenny drives is not the most exciting way to see England, unless like me you think that traveling at 90 miles an hours is exciting. Our pace was considerably slowed when we reached Manchester at rush hour. What a traffic nightmare that city is at 4 p.m. in the afternoon. But as soon as we got around the city it was back to 90 miles an hour. I had to look very quickly at the passing scenery or miss it entirely.

Once we left the M6 at High Wycomb and got onto the secondary roads this trip became much more enjoyable. This is such a pretty part of England. One of the first villages we went through was Marlow, which has a reputation as being the prettiest village of the many that are scattered along the banks of the Thames River. We crossed a lovely old suspension bridge, where they were preparing for a Regatta the next day. If I had to choose the lovliest villiage of all the ones we zipped through in that area I guess I would have to pick Marlow. When I checked out Marlow on the internet I discovered that it was the village where the Shelley's lived when they returned to England from the continent in 1817, and that most of Frankenstein was written there. I did purchase a post card which I have scanned to show a little of how lovely the village is.

After 10 very long hours we arrived at our destination. We got lost trying to find Dorney where Bob's father lives and where were supposed to stop first. I rather enjoy being lost as I get to see unexpected place. Over the next 36 hours we went so many places that all the little villages melted into one another, so that after a while my head was spinning. We passed through Eton, where the famous Eton Public School for boys is located. You could see Windsor Castle across the bridge from Eton but we avoided Windsor because of the royal wedding of Prince Edward..

The B&B I stayed in was in Maidenhead. The hotel is typical of the B&B's you's stay in if, like I was, you were traveling on the cheap.  It was, clean and not quite convenient. There was no shower, only a bath. I was instructed by the manager that you could only run the hot or the cold water, not both at the same time. I think it had something to do with water pressure. On the other hand, the bed was comfortable and the breakfast served in the morning was delicious. The first morning I shared the dining room with a group of very interesting ladies who "worked the tote at Ascot." They were the people who worked in the betting windows. Royal Ascot was going on right down the road.