My dad decided to tackle the driving, oh what a brave man. It’s hard enough to drive on the left side of the road with a small automatic car; I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to drive a bus with a stick shift on the left side. Every driving instinct he had needed to be ignored and full concentration was necessary to drive us around safely.
As my dad drove us out of the rental lot, Kate and my mom sat shotgun watching the windshield wipers move wildly. The placement of the wipers and the turn signals on that English vehicle were very confusing to an American driver. The wipers were located in the American car’s turn signal position and turn signal in the wiper’s position. Every time the car made a turn those damn wipers went on, needless to say cuss words out of my dad’s mouth became commonplace during the unforgettable driving experience. I don’t think that our semi muted chuckles helped the situation either.
Oxford was our first destination, so at least my dad had time to practice his shuttle bus driving skills on country roads without too much traffic interference. And it was not always pretty. He was so focused on the road and shifting that he often neglected to notice tree limbs that were hanging over the road. Soon we would find ourselves naturally drifting to the left only to hear the sound of branches viciously scraping the side of the car. The sound of those branches would alert my dad causing him to panic then to quickly turn the wheel right, shaking up the luggage and all of us.
We all felt so out of control which made everyone, except my dad, laugh uncontrollably. We could not help it. Nothing about the car ride was normal and apparently living on the edge in a beast of a car was humorous to us.
My dad eventually lost it, looked into his rear view mirror and yelled, “This is not funny!” Unfortunately for me, the mirror was pointed in my direction so I received his glare along with his frustrated words. I remember a dead silence for a few seconds and then Shelly blurted, “Dad yelled at Ang.” We all looked at each other desperately trying to hold back smirks but we could not compose ourselves and soon burst into laughter. Apparently, if a group of travelers compile jetlag, crazy driving and a beastly car into one experience, the end result is delirious laughter that cannot be controlled.
After our laughter subsided, my dad immediately apologized for snapping at me then asked us to assist him with his English driving skills. He encouraged us to yell at him if he was getting too close to the side of the road, a random bush or tree limbs of any kind. He said that this would be the only time he would ever ask us to yell at him, he just had way too much to concentrate on with the car itself and needed more eyes to keep us safely on the road without incident.
As we traveled the countryside, my dad white knuckling it at the wheel, Shelly, Lora and I laid down in the back and slept. With sixteen seats back there, we had plenty of room to stretch out. While our dad fought the difficulties brought on by the shuttle bus, we actually enjoyed the many perks it had to offer.
Kate and my mom continued to sit shotgun and once the chaos settled down, my mom found some time to daydream about her parents. They had planned on making the trip with us, but because of my grandfather’s heart condition they had to cancel their tickets and stay home. That upset my mother very much and she later spoke with us about her sadness. Of course, we all agreed, that the car ride alone would have given both of her parent’s heart attacks so her sadness about their absence quickly faded.
With luck on our side, we reached Oxford in one piece, thank God. The town was so beautiful but unfortunately for us, most of our concentration was on the size of the roads compared to the size of our vehicle. Our tour bus gave us no room for error, yet error we did. My mom, the designated co-pilot, accidentally misread our map so we found ourselves unexpectedly traveling down the wrong street. Now in any other vehicle the wrong street would not have been a big deal, but that street ended in a dead-end and turning a sixteen passenger vehicle around the parameters of a dead-end was not going to be an easy task.
As my dad pondered his driving options, his mind cluttered with a million thoughts, he inadvertently hit a pedestrian in the arm with his side mirror. She shot him a look to kill and continued to stare the rest of us down as we drove by her. My dad did not realize that he hit her until we shouted, “Dad, you just hit a woman in the arm with your mirror!” He slammed on the brakes, stuck his head out of the window and tried to apologize to her. Because we were moving about five miles per hour, she was not hurt but she was pissed off. She showed zero interest in his apology and continued to stare him down as he tried to explain himself. It seemed as though she just wanted him to shut up and disappear. Of course, that was impossible for two reasons, the bus was too damn big and because we were heading into the dead-end.
Somehow my dad pulled it together enough to make the u-turn look fairly smooth but once we turned around, we had to drive back where we came from only to see the jaded woman again. We all ducked to avoid her evil eye while my dad shot her an “I’m sorry look.” That beast of a vehicle was nothing but trouble.
Fortunately, that form of transportation only cursed us and all pedestrians in our path for about a week. We eventually traded it in before heading to Ireland where we would leave the driving to the train conductor.
The final memories I have of the car are an eighty dollar parking ticket that we received from parking a vehicle with tandem wheels on a public street and a great picture of my family standing in front of the unforgettable beast.
The rental company ultimately paid for the eighty dollar ticket and the hilarious picture of my family sporting huge smiles graces one of the Haider family photo albums.
I really did enjoy the art, history and architecture of our trip as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment