Thanks Be to God!

I decided that if God preserved my life today that the first thing I would do when I got back to the hotel (IF I got back to the hotel) was to post thanks to Him!

He must have had His protective hands around my car throughout the whole trip.  And I am so grateful!

Some of you more adventurous folks may think I'm being dramatic, but I don't even like driving back at home in the states where everything is familiar and where I know the lay of the land and the rules of the road.  I don't like driving THERE - but HERE I had a car where the driver's side is on the right rather than on the left, I had to drive on the left rather than the right, I had to go through round-abouts clockwise (looking to the right), the territory is not familiar at all, the streets are so narrow most places, left-hand turns are the easy, safe, little ones and right-hand turns have to be BIG, and I was alone!

In the parking lot at Woolsthorpe (Newton's home) - note configuration of car!

I only got honked at 3 times (maybe 4).  The scariest moment was when I was going to turn right onto a street leading to the parking lot I needed, and as I began to turn I saw only one lane and traffic filling that lane and coming at me!  I swerved past that street and onto the wide sidewalk corner - totally unsure of what my next move was going to be.  Once that street emptied of cars, I backed up onto my original street and went up what I thought was the wrong way on a one-way street - only for about 20 feet - in order to get to the parking lot entrance, because I didn't know what else to do (wouldn't have been as simple as just going around the block back home, and there was road construction nearby).

Guess what?

It wasn't a one-way street at all.  It was just so narrow that it appeared to be one!  It pretty much had enough space for one Mini Cooper to occupy it width-wise, but it was a two-way street!

Anyway - quick wrap up of today - I'm in Lincoln because of mathematician George Boole who was born here and opened a school here - am also using Lincoln as a "staging ground" for the sites I went to today related to mathematicians Lady Ada Byron Lovelace and Sir Isaac Newton.  Each of these other sites is 40 miles away from Lincoln - one to the west (Hucknall) and one to the south (Woolsthorpe Manor).  Mission accomplished, and write-ups on those last two mathematicians are forthcoming, but probably not until late this month when I've seen other sites related to their lives in Cambridge, Oxford and London.

Again, thanks be to God for traveling mercies granted me today, and thanks to all of my friends and family who prayed me through this!

POST SCRIPT: When I picked up my car from Budget Rental, the guy got in with me to show me how to use the navigation system.  He commented on what a BIG car it was and how he liked to drive large cars too - felt more safe.  What was coming to my mind as he was saying this was an image of all the huge SUVs in the church parking lot back home - and even my own, much larger than this MINI-van!  Here is my LARGE car:

In the Market Place Car Park beside St. Mary Magdalene Church, Hucknall, England