GBXM "World Tour" 2012

[DR1665]

One of the things I find most appealing about the concept of overlanding is how it brings us together on a global scale. It's the spirit of adventure and exploration, where the things we have in common empower us to realize the full potential of our differences. I love how just about everyone in this community shares in that general sense of global citizenship, wherein geo-political lines fade into the background and we come together as human beings.

My own "expedition" involved five countries over just ten days, but also a Virgin Atlantic 747, a FWD Mitsubishi press car, and a Volkswagen rental from Avis. Hardly the typical fare in this part of the forum, but I hope the things our journey has in common with traditional overlanding - exploring new places, meeting new people, experiencing new cultures - all brought together through a shared automotive passion - warrant the humble submission of my modest, 10 day adventure here amongst the exceptional tales which serve as inspiration during my lunch breaks in a bland, corporate cubicle.

If I have learned just one thing from my time lurking about this community, it is that you don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars upgrading a brand new Range Rover or spend years on the road if you want to explore the world. You just need to get yourself out beyond your comfort zone with little common sense and a willingness to experience the strange and foreign.

(Special thanks to the guy who flew into Phoenix, rented a Jeep, and went exploring Arizona a couple months back. If you hadn't shared your story, I might not have had the courage to share mine, here, among so many truly epic adventures.)

8 June 2012: Day 1
I spent a tremendously hectic morning getting my international driver's permit secured from the local AAA office and my Android data plan adjusted at the T-mobile store in the two hours before my father-in-law ran his nearly-four-months-pregnant daughter and I to Skyharbor to catch a flight to LAX. Fortunately, these were two very minor crises to sort the morning of our departure.

We would board a Virgin Atlantic 747 named "Mustang Sally" soon after, headed for London-Heathrow.

The flight was just over 10 hours non-stop, flying up and out of the US somewhere over Montana, crossing the southern tip of Greenland, and dropping down over Glasgow, before touching down in London on a bright, sunny morning, but we stepped out of our bright blue taxi at SMC Mitsubishi in Hillingon, and wheeled our massive American suitcases onto the showroom floor.

Note: Since I don't know how how much text is allowed per post, I'm going to post this here and begin another. Thanks.

 

[DR1665]

9 June 2012: Still Day 1
Does it seem as bizarre to you, reading this, as it does to me, relating it, that we stepped off an international flight to the other side of the world and our first stop was a car dealership? The reason for this is that this entire trip was the result of our decision to attend a Mitsubishi meet in Germany. In the early days of planning this little adventure, I discovered it was more than US$1,000 cheaper to book our flights into London than it would be to Frankfurt. From there, it was merely a matter of reaching out to people I only know on Twitter to see who lived near London and could help us plan.

Enter Cat. I met Cat through Twitter and interviewed her for Gearbox Magazine* a while back. We've kept in touch. She works at a fairly well-known race track and co-drives a Mitsubishi Lancer Evoution II rally car with her fiance Andy, who is a professional driving instructor. Now, I'm a Mitsubishi enthusiast, Cat & Andy are Mitsubishi enthusiasts, we were going to be meeting a bunch of UK-based Mitsubishi enthusiasts, and ending up at the biggest Mitsubishi meet in Germany, enough people vouched for us that Mitsubishi UK provided us with a brand new ASX4 (aka: Outlander Sport) for our time in the UK.

I've never had a press car before, so this was pretty special. Barely had 1,200 miles on it. (That's not a typo.) Here in the States, this little guy comes with a non-turbocharged version of the 4B11 four pot, same engine found in the formidable Lancer Evolution X, a US$50,000 super saloon. It's mated to either a 5-speed manual or one of those darn CVTs that make any car sound like a vacuum cleaner.

The UKDM ASX4 we got had a 1.8L turbo diesel routing 52% more torque through a super nice 6-speed manual gearbox. The steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car, but wow. What a fantastic way to get out and learn how to drive all over again in a foreign country. We didn't beat on this thing, but we didn't hyper-mile it, either. 828 miles on the first tank of diesel, which came out to 64mpg. That tank of diesel ran me over US$115, but I'm pretty much sold on ditching the gas engines in both my old Mitsubishis at this point.

Without incident, we made our way to Delapre Abbey, where Cat lives. This abbey was built in 1145 and was one of the places where Queen Eleanor's (wife of Edward I) funeral procession stopped on its way from Lincoln to London in the year 1290. Cat lives in what used to be the gardner's quarters for the walled garden at the Abbey. Above is the view out our window. Incredible to be lie in bed and think about what took place in that very room 200 plus years before anyone even knew your country existed.

*I am also sharing this story on Gearbox Magazine in greater detail, but am not here to market my site (thus the lack of any hyperlinks). Two slightly different audiences, imo. Two slightly different stories based on the same events. If you would like to see all the mundane details of a brain dump, Google is but a click away.

Next: Day 2

 

[DR1665]

10 June 2012: Day 2
When I think of England and food, I think of "fish and chips." Most people do, but this was the first I'd heard of the classic, British fry-up, the "Full English." Oh wow. What a great start to that first, jetlagged morning in a foreign country. I know a lot of folks here start with oatmeal and coffee (or tea!), but this was a welcome change from single-serving, in-flight meals and airport food.

Since I was still quite jetlagged and a complete rookie at left-hand driving, I handed the ASX keys to Andy and we set out for Stonehenge. I think we were on the M1, but it might have been one of the A-roads. In any case, it was raining cats and dogs and there were all kinds of strange new cars to ogle from the front seat, which felt a bit odd at times, given there was no steering wheel in front of me.

As strange as it might be for me to say this as someone who lives in Arizona and has seen the Grand Canyon multiple times, Stonehenge is a lot like the Grand Canyon. For starters, it's incredibly old, not as old as the Grand Canyon, but whereas the GC was formed over millions of years, Stonehenge was created by man something like 5,000 years ago. Now, I don't know about you, but the oldest man-made thing I've ever seen in person was the Abbey where Cat lives in Northampton, maybe some faint hieroglyphs on a rock on the edge of town, but I don't think I've ever seen anything 5,000 years old before - at least not on this scale.

You can't walk up to it anymore (thanks to lowlife scumbags, no doubt), but just standing out there in a field in the middle of nowhere on a chilly, wet afternoon, with so many different languages filling the background (it's a huge tourist attraction, remember), you just get this feeling of awe at what it takes to make something so intricate and detailed, yet so resolute and permanent.

 

[DR1665]

10 June 2012: Day 2 continued...
You drive out to the middle of nowhere to see Stonehenge. You do the tourist thing and buy the overpriced souvenirs in the on-site gift shop, telling yourself the proceeds go toward the preservation of such important landmarks rather than inefficient bureaucracies. Then you get back in the car and someone says, "Now what?"

Well, it's a lovely day for a drive, and we've got a fantastic car for it, so let's see what the satnav brings up. Oooh! Devizes Castle! Let's go there! Not long after, we found ourselves willfully ignoring the sign at the turn clearly stating Devizes Castle is a private residence and traffic is not permitted up the (ahem) driveway, but our guide was a local, thought nothing of making a quick jaunt up the lane, and managed to get us up to the gate for a peek beyond at what is actually an interior designer's home. (She's done some work for high rollers in Dubai or something. I'm in the wrong line of work.)

As we pulled away (we were only there for perhaps a minute, tops), the security guard arrived at the gate. This is when I learned some clever new, local hand gestures! Hooray! Culture! Gotta figure, you buy a friggin' castle and have a giant drawbridge at the end of your driveway, you have to expect people to show up like that. Ah well.

Back on the B-roads, we passed through countless villages; places where thatched roofs are replaced with new, thatched roofs, and every pub has a clever name like The Hammer and Spanner or The Cock and Pullet or The Whatshisname Somethingorother or even The Straight and Uh-Oh.

Seriously. Sunday afternoon. Guy pulls out of the pub parking lot like a boss, only to run straight into the building across the street. #facepalm

We found ourselves in a small town on the banks of the Thames well outside London and had a walk around. Most of the shops were closed, but we found a pub open to air the game and opted to pop in for fish and chips. Unfortunately, they only had fish cakes and chips. It was okay, but it wasn't what we expected and, well, we really had no other choice. Still, it hit the spot and got us back on our way, so no complaints, really.

It was the place across the river from me when I took this picture.

We made our way to the Cotswolds for a look around. I forget the name of the village as I write this (lesson learned: carry a notebook and take notes every day), but the town was dead silent. Even the police station was closed!

I took the opportunity to engage in more "gearhead tourism," snapping a picture of one of my favorite things - a Mitsubishi L200 Warrior/Triton. The only truck I saw more often in England was the Land Rover Defender. I probably saw a dozen of these every day, which is more than I saw of the Hilux too, come to think of it. Really wish we could get these in the US, but then the Big Three might have to actually compete on quality. Can't have that! Hey look! China is manipulating their currency! Those dirty communists! :rolleyes

It was getting late (though you couldn't tell - the sun doesn't set over there until something like 10PM in the summer), but we thought we should at least roll through Oxford on our way back to the Abbey. It was neat seeing all the college kids walking about, as well as all the expensive luxury cars parked in front of all the small apartments near the campus.

After a quick discussion of academics and student loan debt, we decided it was time to hit the pub back in Northampton and we walked into The Malt Shovel down the road from the Abbey around 930PM. I had a couple super nice pints of something called "Silverstone Pit Stop" bitter, which I've since tracked down online and have sent an email regarding a possible shipment to Phoenix.

The Malt Shovel closed the front doors and we bid the staff goodnight as we made out the back way and called it a night.

At this point, this thread is ahead of the stories on Gearbox (shh). I've got to collect my thoughts around Day 3 and organize the pictures, but I'll be back to update this thread in the next day or so. I know it might seem a bit thin so far, but we were just easing into things in the first day after landing. A glimpse into what's to come...

Day 3 had us all over central London, underground, on the river, and getting robbed.
Day 4 we took a private tour of Mitsubishi's rally facilities (formerly RalliArt) and met another online friend for the first time.

Hope someone reads this and decides to reach out to online friends about meeting in person for the first time on a similar adventure. We needed no winches, we slept in real beds, we ate real food (well, not counting fast food), but the point is that anyone who can scrape together a couple grand to play with a vehicle can land in another part of the world with a basic support structure in place to make exploring fun and exciting.

Be back soon. Until then, go fast with class and press on regardless.

 

[timaus13]

Spiritual Lift

Well done I say and Thank you for sharing your Adventure, I enjoyed reading about your trip very much, It is Marvelous to be part of the Global online Community.

Cheers Mate :coffeedrink:

 

[DR1665]

Thanks for the support, mate. (And the reminder to get back and update this. Put in almost 10,000 words documenting this trip last week and hit a wall!)

I'll be back to add to this soon. Trip was barely begun at this point...

 

[DR1665]

11 June 2012: Day 3
Months earlier, my wife and I were sitting at a computer, trying to come up with ways we might save a couple bucks by paying for this or that in advance. Hotel: check. Rental car (Mitsubishi couldn't let us take the ASX out of the country): check. London Duck Tour: check.

Looking at Google Maps, central London seemed like it was a little more than an hour from Northampton to the pickup location for amphibious vehicle tour of the city. We booked it for something like 10AM. That should give us plenty of time to wait out the morning rush and get into the city. HA!

It was raining. Cat advised we would need to leave by 0700 at the latest if we were going to have any hope of making it on time. We piled into the ASX and hit the backroads, avoiding the stopped-up motorways like the plague. We made our way to an Asda (eg: UK Wal-mart, ugh) parking lot, stashed the Mitsubishi, and ran to the Docklands Light Rail (DLR) half a block away. We made the platform just in time to see our train pull away.

Cat had a pre-paid rail card, but V and I had to buy tickets. Unfortunately, both automated kiosks were out of order and there was no manned ticket booth. The conductor approached us and suggested we board (this was a terminal stop, he was stuck there for 15 minutes). When we explained the kiosks were down, he told us to board anyway and resolve the ticket matter at our next stop. Cool. We were on our way.

We took the DLR in to Canning Town, where Cat was able to exit the station (we couldn't, without tickets) and get us day passes, allowing us to ride any and all trains across London that day. It was super cool. We jumped on the Tube (aka: Underground, "subway"), the Jubilee Line to Waterloo Station, and tumbled into the Duck office 30 minutes late, only to find out we'd actually booked the 11AM tour and now had 45 minutes to kill. Sweet!

Unfortunately, due to the weather, they had all the plastic, roll-up "windows" rolled down, so the best pictures I could get were out the front windshield of the 70 year old truck-boat.

We drove past pretty much everything a Yankee tourist would want to see in London - Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the place where Churchill bought his cigars, the place where Charles had his "stag do" (aka: bachelor party), and so on. Our guide, Neal, was very personable and had a lot of neat stories to tell, pointing out things we'd never heard of, like miniature ships atop specific street lights all in line with where someone on a monument was pointing, for example.

We eventually crossed a bridge, made a left turn into a gated driveway next to SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as "MI6." Were we not expecting to drive into the river at some point, I suspect we might have thought ourselves about to be detained. As it were, our tarmac driver stepped off for a cigarette and a sort of harbor captain took the wheel, er, helm. He shifted into 6HI, then into 6LO, engaging the propeller under the rear, and we crawled into the river.

(Below, MI6 center, dirt ramp into river to the left of it)

On the water, people started unzipping and rolling up the plastic windows (as they made picture taking nearly impossible). Our guides, likely expecting us to do so, said nary a word. It was brisk out on the water that morning, but it was worth it. The Duck had a draft of something like 6ft. The base of the "windows" was above my eye level on the street, so easily 6ft, but you could reach out and touch the water while sailing.

After more than an hour on "Beatrice" the Duck, we disembarked around the corner from where we boarded and decided to do a little shopping. Back underground we went.

Where we caught the Tube.

Where someone nicked my wallet.

They got a $10 bill, a £5 note, 3 paid-off credit cards, my Arizona driver's license, and my social security card. (Stupid, stupid, stupid.)

Fortunately, I left my passport back at the Abbey that day. Fortunately, I had my phone in-hand most of the time taking pictures.

I've read - right here on ExPo - of the importance of carrying photocopies of important documents while out and about, keeping the originals locked up and secure where thieves and ne'erdowells are less likely to get them. On the scale of things that can ruin a holiday, this is getting up there, but it's still nothing what can't be handled with a cool head.

We grabbed a payphone (how quaint) and called up the bank to cancel my debit card. Piece of cake. There were no pending transactions other than the one I'd made earlier that morning. Unfortunately, my wife didn't have a copy of the other card I'd lost, so we had to find an HSBC branch (we got lucky), and I had to go upstairs to the private, VIP banking area to ask a proper banker (3-piece suit, exceptionally professional) to help me cancel my other card.

Had I walked into a bank in the States, I'd expect a 21 year old in Dockers and a polo shirt to give me all of 15 seconds of his time before telling me there was nothing he could do or give me a phone number to go elsewhere and call. This gentleman leaned into his computer, found the obscure sub-division of HSBC carrying my card (which had just been sold off to Capital One), picked up his phone, dialed the number, and handled the automated prompts until it began to ring, then handed me the phone.

Disaster averted. Wish I could remember the guy's name, but where I see a lot of stories on this board about scammers and con artists, it seems like everyone in London is on the up-and-up.

Still reeling from the adrenaline rush of being robbed so early on the trip, and due in part to my own stupidity, I sat down with V and Cat at the nice restaurant in the Theatre District, ordered a bacon cheeseburger and a Mexican beer. I needed a little comfort food.

We stepped off the DLR back in Beckton and arrived back at the Abbey just before sunset (so something like 1030PM). After enjoying some local cheese and biscuits (crackers), with a couple more beers and some wine, we were ready to hang it up for the night.

Tuesday would prove to be a monumental day...

 

[DR1665]

12 June 2012: Day 4
As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, the best part about getting out and exploring the world is the new friends we get to share those experiences with. Within two hours of landing at Heathrow, we were having a chat with new friends Cat & Andy, who would prove invaluable to us in our adventure. Scarcely more than two days later, we were parking the ASX at a McDonald's in Rugby, where we would be meeting more new friends.

Darin runs the Lancer Register, a UK-based, international Mitsubishi enthusiast community. Of all the enthusiast sites I've ever come across, Darin is the only person I know who's made it a full-time job. (Clearly, ExPo seems fairly similar, but I'm still a newbie here and don't know it well enough to make a qualified comparison.) He has one of only 3 Ex-works Lancer 2000 rally cars in the world (the two being in Mitsubishi's museum in Japan and Andrew Cowan's personal collection elsewhere in the UK), a Lancer Evolution VII or VIII (not sure), and this incredibly decked-out Shogun.

Anybody here familiar with a TV show called "Long Way Round" with Ewan McGregor and some other dude riding bikes around the world back in 2007 or something like that? Darin's Shogun was one of the support vehicles for the film crew. Today, it's often packed with motorsport goodies, but Darin tells me much of the dirt under the seats is probably from the Sahara and there are Nepalese prayer flags in the glovebox. He bought it as-is.

After a quick brekkie of Egg McMuffins (I think V & I grossed them all out by actually EATING McDonalds) we made a run up the road to MML Sports, formerly Ralli//Art, home of Mitsubishi's World Rally Championship factory teams, where we got a private tour by the Malcolm, right-hand man to John Easton, who ran Mitsubishi's program back in the day, and continues to run this business with the same facilities and staff.

Walking past a mostly empty office (they were in the process of relocating), we entered a magical room...

Not a Mitsubishi, but a customer sent them his old Ford and a five-figure check to have a full restoration and prep done. Absolutely immaculate. The attention to detail was incredible. You could eat off the engine in this thing.

Malcolm didn't rush us at all. This tour went forward at our pace. Every question was answered. We even got to see the original, carbon fiber scale model Mitsubishi used for wind tunnel testing when they designed the WRC04 cars.

If I haven't mentioned it yet, let me be clear - I am a dyed-in-the-wool Mitsubishi freak. I am scarcely interested in motorsport outside of rally. This isn't to say I don't also enjoy other makes, models, and pursuits, nor is it to say I feel Mitsubishi is superior on any specific grounds, but it is the brand which has brought me together with what I consider my global family, so for me to find myself touring the facility where the likes of Tommi Makinen, Richard Burns, and Andrew Cowan once walked, and brought home World Rally Championship trophies - and where I could stumble across ideas which might help me build my own Mitsubishi Galant rally car back home - I was simply in heaven.

I mean, I have a Mitsubishi rally car on jackstands in MY garage in Phoenix too! (Disclaimer: My "rally car" is basically a gutted, 91 Galant VR4 with a partial roll cage collecting dust in Glendale.)

We saw everything. Everything. From the room where the entire wire harness for the race car is built from scratch and tested down to the lights and wipers...

To the room where they assemble the race engines...

(Including the toolboxes with the same sort of decals and vehicle badges I have on my own back at home!)

To the room where they chop, cut, and rebuild ordinary, econobox Lancers into fire-breathing, 300hp world class race cars, including this one which Francois Duval put into a concrete telephone post at something like 100mph back in 2009, ripping the driver's rear corner completely off the car. Nearly four years later, the chassis is on a jig, the damaged bits being cut away and replaced. This is whole new level of motorsport.

I'm used to seeing rally cars that run in Ridgecrest, California, or Prescott, Arizona, but to see actual world rally cars that have seen action all over the world (seriously, these cars have seen more of the world than most people), was just incredible.

Stepping out of the chassis room, we found ourselves in a giant warehouse full of spare parts and materials. Bumper covers, doors, brake rotors, wheels, tires, and more. This pretty much bone stock, US$40,000 Lancer Evolution is kept around for use a recce car, when a driver needs to drive the stage roads the day before the race with his co-driver and make note of each and every corner and bend on the road.

After what had to have been a solid three or four hours, we thanked Malcolm for his time and made small talk. I gotta tell ya, if this guy wrote a book, I would pre-order it immediately. He said they used to have so many people and so much equipment on the move during the day, the whole team wouldn't actually get back together until the hotel at night, where they would bring each other up to speed with the day's stories. Yeah. I'd buy that book in a heartbeat.

And, just like that, we were back out in the cold. The tour was over.

 

[DR1665]

12 June 2012: Still Day 4
After our tour of MML Sports, we made our way out toward Rockingham, where Cat works, stopping along the way at a small pup in the neighborhood for a proper fish and chips (and mushy peas). Best way I can compare it for my American friends would be to imagine the crispiness of Long John Silvers fast food, only lighter and far less oily, over fresh Cod. Chips are fries are chips are fries, and mushy peas are just that -mushy. Drizzled with malt vinegar and paired with a local bitter, it was good times.

(So good, I forgot to take a picture.)

After lunch, we dropped in at the race track, where Cat gave us a tour of where she works (right next to a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking an active racetrack, I might add). Andy had been down in the paddock since we left MML Sports - working, of course! He was showing automotive journalists around the active course before they took turns making timed laps in the new Vauxhall Astra VXR (aka: Opel Astra, aka: hotted up version of the Buick Verano).

We made our way back down the stairs and to the infield, where we got a quick look at Cat and Andy's Evo II rally car, currently being rebuilt in a shed at the track. Considering we never got the Evo II (or III, or IV, or V, or VI) in the US, I was pretty excited to see one up close for real.

Once Andy was done for the day, and the journos all went home, we stayed to watch the Vauxhall marketing crew line up 12 of the 13 VXRs they had on-location for a fancy picture on the track. They also had every previous generation of hot Vauxhall Astras, but decided not to use them in the shot.

Convinced we'd killed enough time, we made our way to the Castle Sleeper, a little Italian joint down the road, where we were expecting to have another meet-n-greet, this time with members of the Lancer Register. Sadly, none showed. I chalk it up to the cost of fuel in thirsty, high performance vehicles. Still, We had a lovely evening, easily spending six hours at the Sleeper talking cars and culture with new friends before we decided to call it a night.

(Below, Mechell, Darin's site admin and second in command mid-story.)

It's uncanny how much daylight they have there this time of year. The sun was up before 0500hrs, and didn't seem to set until nearly 2300hrs, which was when our group decided it was finally time to call it a night. Came to find out Darin would be dropping Mechell off on his 2.5 hour drive back home to Bath. What a guy. This is why I consider him both a friend and a mentor.

Our drive back to the Abbey was well less than an hour, and I remember feeling a sense of regret at not being able to get over there more often.

Wednesday would be our last day in England before departing for Germany. It was also our flex day, with only a lunch date (yet another online friend to meet for the first time) blocked out. What would that day be like?

Until next time...

 

[AFSOC]

Nice place. Great to see your pics.

 

[DR1665]

Nice place. Great to see your pics.

View attachment 108778

VERY COOL.

You know, this is exactly how I met Cat, actually. Once upon a time, I had a series of pictures in rotation on the header of my personal blog. Turns out one of them was a Galant VR4 belonging to a friend of hers - same registration plate - and we began talking Mitsubishi and rally on Twitter. Small world, isn't it?

Thanks for the comment. Glad you like the pictures, mate.

 

[DR1665]

13 June 2012: Day 5
Wednesday was our flex day. There is never enough time to see everything you can plan and there is a good chance you'll come upon things you didn't even know existed which you would really like to see while you have the chance. This is why I always try to play things loose. Andy gave us a ride to the local train station in Northampton and we took a LondonMidlands train into town.

Cat said we were lucky to get a brand new train, but this thing was spotlessly clean and quiet. You could have a conversation with someone across the table from you or across the aisle without raising your voice. AND NOBODY WAS TALKING ON THEIR CELLPHONES. Well, I did hear *one* guy take a call, but he quickly told the other party he was on a train and would return his call as soon as he reached his station. IT WAS GLORIOUS.

We found ourselves at Euston Station, which was very nice; like a very busy, municipal airport back in the States. Travelers with luggage and commuters blended almost seamlessly here. Despite the hectic pace of everyone trying to meet their connections, it was still very clean and orderly. We stepped out into a lovely morning and began walking toward St. Pancras Station, which Cat said we had to see.

After a quick stop at the London Library, where we got to see the Magna Carta, some of Shakespeare's notebooks, and original sketches by Da Vinci (see what I mean about flex time - had no idea - unfortunately, no photography allowed in the FREE exhibit), we rounded a corner and found ourselves face to face with an incredible piece of architecture - St. Pancras Station.

Inside, we would see just how sublime rail travel can be in Europe. The entire location was covered with steel and glass dating back a hundred years or more, and high speed ICE trains sat silently at the center. There was a champagne bar right next to the platform where people in suits and ties were sitting in deep, leather booths, sipping bubbly as they fiddled with their iPads and laptops.

If you live in London, you can walk into a place like this, have a glass of champagne, and then take a seat on a train which will drop you in the middle of Paris in just over two hours for something on the order of US$100 round trip (coach). That's faster, cheaper, easier - and more pleasant - than it is for me to FLY from Phoenix to Las Vegas, which is only a 45 minute flight.

After a quick walk around at St. Pancras, we hopped a tube to Farringdon, where we would meet another online friend for the first time. Adnan is a buddy of mine who runs a car news site called CarThrottle.com. We've been emailing back and forth for something like three years, but this was the first chance we had to meet. Had I not had my own magazine idea in place back then, I might be working with him today. He had just moved into new offices in Farringdon and took us all to lunch at a 50s style burger joint in a basement. Very tasty.

Unfortunately, he had to get back to the office, but it was nice to finally meet him - and introduce him to Cat. I hope the two of them end up working together in the future.

 

[DR1665]

13 June 2012: Still Day 5
After lunch with Adnan, we continued on foot, past the Old Bailey (which I recognized from that movie where the guy in the mask blows things up).

We made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was massive on a scale I've not seen in decades.

Our camera accidentally went off whilst we were inside. No image can do this place justice. Imagine the Bellagio in Las Vegas, but 10X bigger, and 110% more real, and you might be close. There were tombs and mausoleums and all kinds of neat stuff located all around the area open to the (non-paying) public. Simply incredible to see this place.

London Taxis were everywhere, naturally, but I'd been wanting to snag a picture of this one nearly a week! Also hard to not think about the It's On the Meter guys featured here on ExPo over the last year. Much respect to those guys. That's for sure.

[img[http://gearboxmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/20120613_163827-e1341357126357.jpg[/img]

Obligatory Range Rover shot. (Though I bet it must be nice to have a private parking space in front of a building built in the 1600s in central London.)

Seeing all the suits run down the pub after work for a pint (or a glass of wine) made us thirsty.

So we stopped into the next pub we came across without a mob in the doorway smoking (they've recently outlawed smoking in bars too). Ended up a place called "The Hung, Drawn, and Quartered." Which had a noose prominently hanging over the bar. Named after the punishment for high treason back in the day, the pub was once home to a friar or monk or something who documented the atrocities of civilization taking place just outside his front door for a number of years. At least, that's what the menu said.

From there, it was a short walk to the Tower of London, which appeared completely by surprise, as Cat got us all turned around (intentionally, I suspect) prior to finding the pub. This was on our list of things to do, but we didn't know it could take a full day to see, especially if we wanted to see the Crown Jewels, so we decided it was best to just have a walk around the exterior. (There are documentaries on Netflix which are encouraging for our next trip.)

We saw the Tower Bridge, which I guess I'd kind of forgotten about, really, so it was an added bonus to see it appear as we rounded the Tower grounds to the Thames.

I asked Cat if they ever raised the bridge anymore, to which she replied they indeed did, but only for really big ships like the battleship parked across the way. What? I was so busy taking a picture of the Shard (which just opened last week, by the way, and is the tallest building in the EU at this time).

Quite a "block" to "have a walk around the" if you know what I mean.

Not our train, but neat to see.

We hopped the Underground at the Tower station back to Euston, where we switched to our Midlands train on the tail end of rush hour. It was far more packed than the train in earlier, but still quiet and clean. Well, there was one guy in a suit who looked like he was cracked out on blow, all sweaty and shaky and whatnot, but otherwise, it was cool. We ended up laughing until we were crying about something inappropriate for a family-oriented site such as this, and ended our night with a curry at a place called Balti King back in Northampton.

 

[DR1665]

14 June 2012: Day 6
This was a tough one. The weather was brilliant for the first time and we were off toward Berlin, where we knew we would be reunited with friends we'd not seen in over two years, but it also meant we would have to say goodbye to Cat and Andy, our gracious hosts in England. Without them, our trip might have been a complete disaster.

It would also mean the end of our time with the fantastic Mitsubishi ASX4 diesel which had got at least 60mpg over the 1,000 miles we'd put on it since picking it up. I really, REALLY wish we could get these in the States.

We dropped the ASX at Gatwick Mitsubishi with a full tank of diesel and they kindly dropped us at Gatwick Avis to collect our rental car. (We couldn't take the Mitsubishi outside the UK or we would have kept it for sure!) The rental would prove a well-worn, black Volkswagen Golf TDI. At least I knew I would be driving something nice and, even if I could get one back home in Phoenix, at least I would be driving from the passenger seat, right? A new experience in a familiar set of wheels.

En route to the Port of Dover to catch our boat, we stopped for caffeine and McDonald's (quick and easy) on the motorway. That's where I ran into this guy.

Completely home made. That's a 2.0L, carbureted Ford 4-cylinder up front and it's turning an automatic gearbox (not the skull shifter). Nice to be able to just walk up to a stranger in a foreign land and have a chat without a language barrier.

We made it to Dover, parked in our lane, which then began moving almost immediately toward "The Spirit of Britain," which would be the biggest boat we've ever been on. Here's a model onboard. Apparently, it's the biggest Channel ferry in operation.

I took a picture of our dowdy VeeDub (so I could find it later).

Remembered what Cat had told us about blowing off the Mitsubishi meet to attend other automotive events in the area that weekend...

... and stepped out onto the open air deck at the stern for a nice Stella Artois and a view. Took so many pictures I'm beginning to lose track of which ones are hosted. This is the harbor wall protecting the Port of Dover from the rough seas of the English Channel. If you enjoy the TV show "Top Gear" as much as I do, then you might recall three Brits in the back of a Nissan pickup truck passing this wall on their way to France. It was pretty much smooth sailing on "The Spirit of Britain," but I can't imagine doing that crossing in anything smaller. No way. No how.

 

[DR1665]

14 June 2012: Day 6
We made land at Calais and drove into the French countryside. I don't speak a lick of French beyond what I've heard in the odd song, and I speak even less Dutch, so our goal was to make it to our hotel stop in Essen, Germany, with only a brief stop in Adenkirk, the Netherlands, to get some Euros from an ATM. I followed the signs for Bruges.

We didn't find an ATM in Adenkirk, but we did find an amusement park called "Plopsaland." Lowbrow, road trip humor ensues to this very day.

Always nice to see a fellow gearhead somewhere else in the world and know that you probably have enough common ground to overcome the language barrier.

After a botched attempt to make a quick stop in Bruges, the SatNav routed us through all kinds of tiny villages where they roll up the sidewalks at night. This picture was taken after 7PM and, although the sidewalks look like they are there, it is all an illusion. We stopped to hit the first ATM we'd seen in forever. It was behind a locked door. Ack!

At this point, we had been on the road over six hours without eating and Vanessa, my four-months-pregnant wife, was now seriously in need of something to eat. We were basically lost in Belgium, with just 10 Euros cash, no cell phone or data, and didn't even know how to say, "Do you speak English" in Dutch. Panic makes for a good teacher.

We found ourselves at a gas station, where we bought some lunchmeat, cheese, and potato chips to get us by. They were not good, but the good news was, the lady behind the counter recognized our UK license plate and instinctively spoke to us in English. She told us we were very close to Essen, maybe just over an hour. Whew!

As I mentioned, the snacks we bought were not good. My wife does not like to eat gas station food and deli products often taste funny overseas. Still hungry, very tired, and increasingly frustrated, we found ourselves arguing as the sun was setting (after 10PM) still who-knows-how-long-before-we-get-there. She was crying. I just wanted to get to the damn hotel. And that's when I saw it - BURGER KING.

They didn't take our American credit card (EU credit cards all have SIM chips in them now), and we didn't have enough cash to get what we wanted, but a revised order and a generously deep discount later, our marriage was saved over Whoppers and fries in Venlo, the Netherlands.

45 minutes later, we would be checked into our hotel in Essen, forgetting all about how rough Day 6 had been. Excited to make that final push on the Autobahn in the morning...