During our recent trip to the UK, we rented a car for our time in Scotland, about three weeks, in other words. The most significant challenge for me in driving in the UK is not the shift to driving on the left but in getting out of the "Roundabout Hell" at Glasgow Airport and across the Erskine Bridge.
Last year I took my GPS, and there was not one curse word heard in the car that first day. So I used the same strategy, and in general the GPS worked well, once we had departed the rental car parking lot. "Jane" as we call her wanted us to exit the lot against the one way traffic; Karen was right, but after that Jane was close to perfect.
So while the GPS took a lot of the pressure off and improved our daily stints in the car, the best thing we did was to leave the radio off...even with the delights of BBC Radios 2 and 3 so easily at hand.
Conversation was easier, of course, but what I discovered was that I could concentrate more easily on the driving - and I could sneak a few more looks at the gorgeous landscapes through which we were passing. I began to enjoy a new sense of calm, so I slowed down a bit and found myself enjoying the sometimes collaborative process of being part of the vehicle flow.
Back home, I've been a bit surprised to find that I was using the radio considerably less, mainly to keep up with the Minnesota Twins baseball game of the day and to find out the weather forecast.
Public radio continues to be something of a distraction, but thus far I'm still more or less in control of sound in the car, except for Islay the Scottish Terrier, the observations and opinions of whom are regularly and forcefully expressed under any circumstance she deems appropriate.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
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