Scotland 2006

The Royal Arms of Scotland:

We took a leap and jumped to Scotland this summer, a place we’ve been wanting to visit for the past year or so. A lot of people have asked, “Why Scotland?” I guess the answer is based on cultural influences (some of Andrea’s favorite authors, both modern (Andrew McCall Smith) and classical (Robert Burns), a band we’ve been digging recently, Franz Ferdinand, etc.) and the beauty of the highlands (as I experienced hitchhiking through Scotland in college). And the deeper we dug into Scotland the more we liked. So… off we went.

The Flag of Scotland:

We avoided any kind of rigid planning and scheduling, going with a minimal structure of booking the flight and car rental, locking in where we would stay, ensuring there were vegan food options, and winging it from there. Any less planning would have had us in some tight corners, I think – you HAVE to book early to stay in castles, or major cities during any kind of festivals – and any more planning wouldn’t have allowed us to follow all the wonderful recommendations we received. But enough about what’s to come, let’s take it step by step! :>
Here are the places we planned on spending the night, anchoring our trip:

• Glasgow
• Edinburgh
• Edinburgh
• Dalwhinnie
• Lairg
• Lairg
• Onich
• Campbelltown
• Minard
• Glasgow

WARNING: All our big trips start out with a last-minute disgusting catastrophe, the classic example being Owen eating then throwing up a full load of cat poop… inside the van… just far enough down the road that we couldn’t return for cleaning supplies… with 14 hours more to go, in the van, to get to Florida… oh, in the pouring rain… and the Scotland trip was no different. You have been warned…

So, first, the outbound flight… The flight left at 6pm, I had pushed up our departure time from the house to 3:30pm, nervous about getting through security. Just before that time, literally at 3:25pm, I was standing in front of the TV, catching a last minute or two of the England vs. World Cup game, and heard a waterfall in the downstairs bathroom. When I went in, I was surprised to find that the toilet had turned into a fountain! I threw towels down and started plunging, to no avail. Where the heck was all this nasty toilet water coming from?? I had to start bailing the toilet with a tupperware bowl into the sink, gross!! I ran outside and found the sewer riser at the top of the hill seeping water. After more furious plunging, I managed to blow the top (and a handrul of wet wipes – which apparently never decompose – and other unmentionables) off the sewer riser in the middle of the back yard hill. Well, a phone call to Holly Springs Public Works had them out quickly (I actually called three times but they were out in half an hour). No luck! The clog was between the middle riser and the one at the bottom of the hill, just out of their jurisdiction. Mr. Rooter to the rescue! A couple hundred bucks and an hour later, we were finally good to go, and managed to make our plane (minus a pound or two of sweat).

The first plane (Raleigh to Toronto) was a tiny puddle jumper, but Toronto to Manchester was roomy. Still nearly impossible to sleep. Groggy and scummy, we gathered our 11 bags and found the Alamo rental counter. We were told an hour wait was in store for us – I think after they saw our pile of bags. We asked if there was any way to speed things up, and were told we could have a manual transmission car (my first choice, Andrea’s second) “straight away”. So we opted for that, and after a couple laps around the parking garage (and no dings and only one stall), Andrea was begrudgingly convinced and we were on our way.

That’s when the full-body sweat really kicked in