Above is the Fairfield Inn, Lauren, where we stayed last night.

Today was the day we tried out the satellite navigation for the first time. We should have used it earlier, but kept forgetting it. Not like ours at home, it’s a cell-phone with a GPS receiver. You phone up and say where you want to go and the directions are then downloaded to the phone and displayed, with computerised voice directions. It was very helpful in several situations, and my only complaint about it was at the end when it said “your destination is on the right” when in fact it was on the left.

Marianne was delighted to find some Earl Grey tea at a service area half way between Baltimore and Philadelphia. Her experience of American tea so far is not a good one. Most often she has had Liptons with ‘half & half’ (yuk!), but the Tetley is more recognisable as tea, though uncommon. Most often, though, she is offered iced tea and there is no tea in the rooms. I think she’d sympathize with Arthur Dent’s problems in getting a drink made by pouring boiling water onto chopped and dried leaves from the computer on the Heart of Gold (Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for those who don’t recognize the reference).

The last 30 miles of the journey were along the New Jersey Turnpike. I asked Marianne if she was counting the cars. She looked at me blankly. Her knowledge of 60’s popular music is sadly lacking. For those who also don’t understand this, it’s a line from Simon and Garfunkel’s song America on the Bookends album from 1968. It’s about a trip from Pittsburgh to New York on a Greyhound bus by Paul Simon and his girlfriend. You can find the full lyric at http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/america_20124598.html. Almost the last line of the song is “counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, They’ve all come to look for America.”

Tomorrow we hope to have fellowship with the people of Mount Laurel Evangelical Presbyterian Church, whose pastor mentions Whitefield’s and Wesley’s labours in his latest blog.