Into town...

Wendy, Zoe and ran a few errands today and drove into Newport, which is the capital, or county seat, of the Isle of Wight. I learned something new this trip about English roads...before I just thought they were stretches of asphalt that led to pubs. All roads are graded according to type. If you are on the M25, you are on a motorway...the equivalent of our interstates. After motorway, you have a dual carriage way which is kind of like Riverside Drive. You have two lanes each way, that are divided. After that, roads are like typical two way streets that are graded by type...A or B. A12 or the A21...you get the idea. The road above is supposed to be a B road, but after driving on the mainland, it is more like a D road. The roads literally cut into the lay of the land. Because of the uniqueness of the English countryside, the construction of new motorways take into account the scenery. To avoid being an eyesore, most new motorways are constructed at a lower grade so that someone looking across a field would never see it. There are no motorways and only one dual carriage way on the island.

Once in town, we did some quick running around. We grabbed lunch at the Wheatsheaf Inn and Wendy snapped a picture. You will notice the rack of heads above me. Nice.

While the ladies did...well lady things, I perused a few shops. I found this product in a drugstore. The name says it all...I'm fairly certain WalMart wouldn't stock this. Although, Zoe thinks she has seen them in the states before. Bob says I should make my own brand and call it Ashol.

The morning was wrapped up with a quick stop at Tesco. Tesco is the English equivalent of Meijer...albeit on a smaller scale. One of my biggest problems with Tesco is their shopping carts. Study the picture and let me know what you notice about the wheels. If you guessed, hey they all can spin different directions, than you are right! I managed to use muscles I never knew I had just trying to keep the damn thing going straight.

Outside of running into things, the other funny part was trying to take this picture. I was trying to find a cart in motion and for some reason, I didn't think people would be too thrilled of me snapping photos. This was like the 6th attempt and only because I found it parked. Sorry there is no video...maybe next time.