DLTK's Blog
LANE!
DL minus TK travel series.
"Ohhhh, lane honey. Lane!" I exclaimed in as calm a voice as I could.
Darren glowered at the narrow road ahead and clenched his jaw, "I AM in my lane. If I move over any more, we’ll be hit by oncoming cars."
"Honestly, you aren’t. Your brain is tricking you."
The lane departure warning in our Toyota Rav 4 chose that moment to blare its warning and we felt the now-familiar rumble of our tires crossing the white line that marked the shoulder of the road.
Darren sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat and edged the SUV a little more to the right, effectively silencing his nagging wife, nagging vehicle and nagging rumble bumps.
I remembered this problem from the last time he’d driven on the left side of the road - in Wales a few years back - but it had definitely gotten worse and I was reminded again that aging has its downsides. As we both approached the mid century mark, we were noticing more and more situations where we didn’t adapt as well as we had a decade ago.
I smiled wistfully, grateful to be married to a man who was willing to tackle a few adventures with me while we were still able.
Our Australian road trip started off pretty shaky and I regretted booking the car from downtown Sydney.
"We should have taken the train back to the airport and picked up a car there. And I shouldn’t have booked such a big car. Sorry honey!" I confessed.
Darren smiled, the tension melting from his face. Eyes still fixed on the road ahead, he replied, "We’ll know for next time. I wish I was doing better at this. I’ll get the hang of it yet."
And he did. Darren’s a great driver but the combination of city driving, unfamiliar traffic signs and driving on the opposite side of the road almost proved too much for him.
We made it to the Hume Highway — an amazing, comfortable, road. The eight hour, blissfully boring drive between Sydney and Melbourne was exactly what Darren needed to reset his brain and get comfortable behind the wheel of an Aussie vehicle.
The only thing he was never cured of was flicking on the windshield wipers (almost) every time he made a turn — the wiper stick and the turn stick were reversed on the steering wheel. Darren cheered out loud when it started to rain because it acted as a cover for this embarrassing little habit.
Disclaimer: As always, my opinions are my own. Car companies don't give me free rentals. No one involved is ever even aware I’m doing it.
You might also enjoy visiting these sections on DLTK's Sites:
About Leanne:
Wife, mom and the woman behind the scenes of the DLTK's Crafts for Kids websites. The websites are a terrific hobby -- run by (me) Leanne, a mom with two girls as my official craft testers and my husband as my technical support. DLTK are the first initials of each of the people in my family (I'm the L!). Whenever we send out little cards or whatnot, we sign 'love DLTK' ... when I started the website I used the initials. Had I known the website would get actual strangers visiting it, I would have picked a less mysterious name but we're all stuck with it now!
You can view my other blog posts here.