Entered on 2002-02-25 at 8:51 a.m..

Weekend with the Waites -- Part 1

Part 1: The journey there

This weekend I spent roaming around the Nofolk coast -- Norfolk, UK that is. I found the geography very similar to the Nofolk that I am used to. I could just picture Norfolk, VA looking exactly like the old world Norfolk in the early to mid 1800s. Very flat, marshy and rural. In Norfolk, UK the principle crops are sugar beets and potatoes for McD's fries.

For those of you who would like to picture where I was in England you can click here. This map is zoomable so you can zoom down and see where I was exactly by following the circle.

The trip there was fairly un-eventful even if I did end up going through Bedford instead of around it. I was doing really well until I turned off the main road around Norwich into the country roads towards Honing. My biggest problem was that I thought I was only had to go 5miles and about 10 more minutes. When in reality I had about 20 more miles and 40 more minutes to go. Every 10 mintues I would pull over somewhere and call the Waites sure that I had missed my turn. Everytime though I had not gone far enough. When I turned off the main road it was dusk, by the time I got near Honing it was pitch dark, and as I came over the last bridge on my journey, I found myself in a pitch black forest on a single lane road, just wide enough for my car. I was supposed to take the next 4 consecutive rights, but all the roads crossing the one I was on looked to me like one way roads as there was a yeild sign on right in the middle of the lane, not facing the way I would drive down them. This was my big logical mistake. At this point I decided to call again, only my phone was out of service area.

Brilliant.

So I kept driving. A few hundred yards on I could turn right and drove past some houses. I turned right again, and again, but found myself facing the word slow written on the road, only in the opposite direction than I was driving it. At this point I decided to go back to the houses I had just past and borrow a phone. I ended up getting directions from a nice man who had lived in Honing for the past 70 years. He didn't know the Waites, but knew where they lived and gave me my final directions.

In all on my trip I avoided hitting, 2 phesants and one small deer.

More tomorrow...

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