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The trip to the UK came together suddenly, very suddenly! We had already planned a 10 day trip to Seattle and Portland, had booked the frequent flyer tickets for Lyn and Jesse, had ordered the Marriott coupons and had several nights already on reservation, had the rental car arranged, and had put in for the week's vacation had it already approved and scheduled. Then the roof caved in. In late May, my schedule changed to show the week prior to the Seattle trip as a one-week engagement (actually four days, Monday through Thursday) in Linlithgow, Scotland. The initial thought was for me to simply cover it and then fly from the UK to Seattle and deal with the jet lag during the vacation. But we certainly had to investigate the possibility. We called Delta, and could get NO frequent flyer flights from Florida in or out of London, period, from that June until after September. The closest we could get was Manchester. We had to look up Linlithgow, and found it located between Edinburgh and Glasgow, very pretty country. Actually, flying in and out of Manchester might make good sense, but we would probably not have enough play time to go all the way down to London. We would probably be able to only enjoy the northern districts of the UK. I had my passport for years, but had never actually used it. My previous company had an extended project in LeMans, France and everybody (except me) had gone over for no less than two weeks. One guy stayed for eight months and one relocated to a flat in Paris for almost two full years. But I stayed in Detroit, and that was that. A matter of fact, that passport had actually EXPIRED unused. My current employer encouraged me to renew it, and cheerfully paid the fees. But Jesse and Lyn had no passports, and no particular plans to get any. That was that. As soon as we even considered a UK trip, I had Lyn and Jesse rush order passports, regardlessly. If this fell through, we would surely go again later. That took a couple days work over the next week, all the while that we were supposed to be getting ready for Seattle. We looked at a map of the UK, and immediately talked about renting a car and doing a "circle tour". This had evolved to our favorite kind of trip, seeing a lot of countryside and not backtracking on yourself. The Seattle, Vancouver, Portland trip had already evolved into one for us. Lyn found a deal for us with Marriott. For 150,000 points, you could get a 7 day UK "hotel hopper" pass. You could stay 2 days, 2 days, 3 days at any UK Marriott during that summer. This is unusual as a 2-day pass is usually restricted to only Friday / Saturday stays. The 7 day hopper would work perfectly. We were also surprised to learn that several Courtyard hotels were located over there, near Birmingham, Lincoln and spread generally around the midlands. We went to Barnes and Noble and bought Rough Guides for London and for the UK. We bought several fun books, one on British idioms and one on the Kings and Queens of England. We checked out several books from the library, and recorded Rick Steve's videos on his trips around England (that happened to be showing at the time). We watched them in total fascination, seeing the one on Cotswolds and deciding that it would be too cool to go. We read everything we could and you could watch our excitement rise out of sight. We reserved flights in and out of Manchester, and really looked at the Marriott plan, but were hit with very bad news. We did not have enough points in either account. However, our unused Seattle coupons, if redeposited (with $50 in fees) would put us back over the top. What to do? We would need to commit one way or the other a lot earlier than usual. The engagement would not firm up. This is always a bad sign. I began writing E-Mails, trying to get hotel information, contact names, etc and the local UK people were completely mum. This usually means that I am being leveraged, but that they intend to deliver the service with local people. It usually foretells a cancellation. So I talked to my boss. I would like to keep the vacation, but take it to the UK instead. I could book a fairly cheap ticket (cheaper than Florida to Chicago) if I did so right away. Also, I would not redeposit all the coupons, pay the fee, only to regenerate them again. I made this deal with my boss. If the class was going to cancel, it would need to do so by a certain date. I informed everybody and struck this bargain: if they cancelled after that date, I would like the previous week (reserved for the UK client) as a second vacation week. Don't release my week, and I will use and bill my plane ticket to my previous and following week (it was still cheaper than normal). Once I "pulled the trigger", it would be expensive and stupid to try to go back. I wrote to the UK, several times about the commitment, yet they would neither provide confirming information or cancel. Wednesday was my day, and at 5pm I left a V-Mail for my boss and had Lyn get cracking. She FedEx'd the returns, ordered the new coupons, and cut the plane tickets. Sure enough, Friday morning at 6am I received the E-Mail that they cancelled the engagement. I forwarded it with my vacation request and we were suddenly going to the UK for SIXTEEN days. Yikes! We immediately ordered additional Marriott Courtyard coupons, as many as we could afford including rerouting points from other programs to Marriott. We started to buy additional maps, and thumbtacked one to our small corkboard so we could sit back and do planning. We were still only thinking of a clockwise trip, from Manchester to the non-existent Linlithgow week, down to the south as far as possible, then back to Manchester. I put thumbtacks for the Marriotts (Red), Courtyards (Green), Destinations (Blue), etc. I kept staring at it, trying to figure out what to do with SIXTEEN days to see it.
We started watching every video we could get from any of the three
nearest library branches and read with vigor the books and tourist
guides and rough guides.
We cruised the web, trying to find a UK equivalent for the
DeLorme "Map and Go" software I used on my laptop. After
some searching, we found a Microsoft product called AutoRoute UK
(which came in a pack with a free copy of AutoRoute Europe). The rental car would be a problem. Because it was no longer a "business trip", my corporate insurance would be covering the car. Also, we checked with State-Farm and AAA and neither provided coverage overseas like they did for our domestic vacation car rentals. This policy was new and had been in effect for less than three months. The rental car insurance provided by Hertz was astronomical, even compared to the US prices. We started to investigate local car rentals in Manchester (via the web) but it was not looking very good. We were about to get soaked for an extra $1000, due to this recent policy change.
I had talked to everybody I could about my fears of traveling internationally. I was petrified (pointlessly). We had never traveled as a kid farther than Toronto. I had all these visions of "boarder guards" and being refused entry. I was a nervous wreck. To satisfy my own worries, I asked about the electronic gizmos we would be taking (laptop, GPS, Walkie-Talkes, etc). What if they accused me of buying them overseas? Would I have to pay taxes and fines? The last thing we did on the last Saturday before departing was to haul the bag of goodies down to the customs office at the airport and have a customs guy formalize that we owned the items (with their serial numbers). He kept giving us weird looks and, of course, the exercise was a total waste of time. Nobody questioned us (disregarding the scene from "Airport" with Lloyd Nolan at the US Customs) and in retrospect nobody ever will. We were so young and inexperienced at that time and worried too much about the wrong things! Lyn saved the day for us on the rental car with a stroke of part luck, part genius. She found a web-quote from an independent car rental that would beat Hertz on price (for a car we didn't want) and their charge included insurance. We offered it to Hertz, and they agreed to match it. We ended up with a Hertz provided Toyota van, a nine-passenger model, with lots of room for our stuff, and for Jesse to lay down. It was perfect for us, even though every time we passed one in the UK it had no less than seven adult passengers, and one time had nine! But the three of us tooled along in typical American class and style, all thanks to Lyn. About this time, I shook the preconceived notion, and reversed the circle tour direction. We decided to go counter-clockwise, departing from Manchester to the west into Wales, south to the Channel, east to Dover, then up through London all the way to Edinburgh, west to Glasgow and south to Manchester to fly home. We could get a good mix of Marriotts and Courtyards and see everything we would want. We would have 3 days in London, and be there over the 4th of July. I had been hoping to go all the way north to Loch Ness or farther, and by doing the Scotland potion last we could decide as we sat in Lincoln and York on day thirteen if we were feeling more adventurous or exhausted. It would be perfect. Lyn had most of the hotels arranged, but we were stuck for our first night upon arrival. We would be staying somewhere generically in Northern Wales and it was not looking good for us. The area is devoid of chain hotels, and stocked full of Bed and Breakfast inns. It would have been perfect for us, except for the little guy. Each place could provide a room, but had no "cot" to speak of or other method to handle the third one in our party. Each wanted to sell us two rooms, at full price, for the three of us to share. Not only that, but as we dallied and ran up international long-distance charges, rooms were beginning to run dry. At the last day, she talked one B&B into discounting the second room (a little), and it was the best we were going to do. She got directions to Bryn Bella in Betws-y-coed, and that was going to be that. The rest of the trip would be a piece of cake as far as hotel arrangements.
On Thursday afternoon, I received the voice mail message that Lyn and Jesse left home for the airport. We would miss each other on our layovers, but leave V-Mails, and then arrive in Manchester (them thru JFK, me thru Atlanta) within an hour of each other. My last day finished a little early, and I was out the door and on my way to DFW. This trip was going to be a memory to last each of us for a lifetime. |
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Copyright, 1999, all rights reserved |
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Originally Written November 1999 |
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I
was worried about visiting Scotland, wanting to go all the way north
as far as Inverness and Loch Ness, but not wanting to become too
exhausted or too rushed to make it all the way to London or to
accidentally have to give up part of Wales. That is when staring at
the map paid off! Since the business trip to Linlithgow was off, it
was no longer necessary to go north from Manchester. With less than
two weeks before departure, I figured out we could switch the circle
direction and go counter clockwise. We would go west from Manchester
to Wales, then south to Exeter and Lands end, east to Dover, then up
to London, Lincoln and York, and all the way to Scotland. This way,
at the end of our trip (instead of the beginning) we could decide if
we wanted to see more or less, longer or shorter, faster or slower.
We would leave the "last three days" very loosely planned,
and decided what to do in Scotland when we got there. That was a
great relief and Lyn could now start making somewhat rational hotel
reservations that we could fine tune over there once the trip started
and I could go back to work.
I
packed the GPS and left for Dallas on Sunday night and
was out of my mind being giddy for four straight days and nights.
Before I left, we stopped in the airport exchange kiosk to
"buy" some Pounds, just in case. We split up about $25
worth, with a good mix of bills and coins for both of us, so we would
have some "pocket money" when we arrived for a soda or some
tips. We would load up on UK cash, at considerably more favorable
exchange rates, from the first ATM we saw.
