It’s been a very full day.
Today Elihu and I drove half the length of the country, and made six stops.
We began at the tourist town of Fort William (after partially consuming a strange breakfast of sweet baked beans, broiled tomatoes, bland, large sausages with an unnervingly creamy feel, dense, bread-like triangles and a whitish mixture with no flavor at all and a texture like curdled yogurt which we could only assume by context to be eggs) before getting back on the road to Glencoe and then onward through the Highland mountains. On a Sunday there was no letup to the traffic which passed us on the other side of the tiny and twisting two lane road. More stressful than the towering lorries which whizzed by us at quite a clip (again – going the other way) were the motorcycles. It seems that bikers and their machines are quite different in this country – all of them leather-clad and having various luggage carriers on bike profiles which I didn’t recognize. No open-faced helmets on Harleys here! Riders were athletic in their presence – zooming easily past us whenever the road permitted. Often in small groups and with very loud and high-pitched engines, when they drove by en masse it was hard to keep relaxed and focused. Like I said before, driving in Scotland is stressful.
It’s late and there’s too much for me to recall now save a digest: Hairy coos (which we smooched and fed and from whom I got my first tick), a small horse farm (a random stop on a small road), Doune Castle (from Monty Python and the Holy Grail), another small farm (again, just pulled in to say hello), a pub in the town of Bonnybridge (self-proclaimed UFO capital of the world) where the locals were in the midst of a very loud karaoke night, the engineering marvel of the Falkirk Wheel lock, an Indian takeaway place where we chatted for a long time with the Pakistani/Scottish owner, then finally our hotel for the night.
Getting here involved several dozen rotaries and a good 125 miles of tightly turning roads. And we still have no phone service. But we’re here, and from what the map tells us, it’s just a few blocks’ walk to the sea.
Today’s memories seem to both of us like a week’s worth of adventures. Elihu has finished his tutoring notes for his language students, and I have jotted down what I’m able in this late hour. It’s time for bed. Til the next installment…
The Hillhouse 