Day Fourteen July 9, 1998 Edinburgh, St Andrews, and Lochearnhead Thursday We woke up somewhat early, but I was nearly delerious with exhaustion from driving all night. Lyn was ready to go, and for some reason, Jesse was excited about our planned visits today. I attribute their excitement to their viewing the video 'Braveheart' about six months before our trip and their being aware of the fact that we were in "William Wallace" country. Sure enough, we were. We would be staying the night here in Stirling, so today was to be another 'circle tour'. It was nice not to have to pack, check-out and load the car this particular morning. During our early planning stages, we had discussed many different size circles of Scotland, including the thought of driving all the way to Inverness and 'Loch Ness'. However, these larger loops would have required spending the night somewhere in the north. We eventually agreed to do a smaller circle, including Stirling, Edinburgh, and heading up the North Sea coastline maybe as far as Aberdeen. This smaller circle seemed small enough that we would see plenty of Scotland and still have energy left for tommorow's drive down to Manchester. The hotel was located next to a Safeway shopping complex, and we swung over to give Lyn a chance to pick us up a resupply of snackies, more batteries, etc. They had a laundry as part of the complex, and we contemplated having a load or two run for us while we did our one day circle drive, but then changed our minds. We had literally packed JUST ENOUGH clothes for the trip, with the only exception being that I was running out of socks (of all things) to wear with my sneakers. Lyn asked the clerk at the in-store laundry about places in town to buy socks for me and the 'missing Wal-mart' quandry raised its head again. Britian, without a doubt, has the worst most inconvenient shopping of anywhere we had ever been on earth (meaning, of course, the USA). We decided not to wash socks in the sink, but to instead stop by 'the mall' in downtown Stirling (I wanted to see a 'mall' anyway). We set the GPS and headed straight out to the preserved battlefield of the famous battle of "Strirling Bridge". The battlefield, of course, is now just a grassy field, overlooked by a most magnificent statue of Robert the Bruce on horseback. We stopped and took some pictures of the statue, then slowly came to realize that we were completely surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere we had ever been. We shot half a roll, the three of us with whispy foggy tree-covered hills that surround Stirling in all directions that day. Adjacent to the battlefield is a local musuem dedicated to the battle. Lyn was tired and it seemed likely to be a simple 'pass through' affair so Jesse and I paid the admission and walked through it. He got a big charge out of the full sized helmet available to try on and posed for a couple of delightful pictures. Of course, they also had the requisite 3D diarama of the battlefield made up of the little HO scale soldiers that accompany everybody's basement train set. And, of course, it did a good job of laying out the issues, the history prior to the battle, the main players, and the mechanics of the actual battle day. All in all, a nice little museum. Of course, the mannequin in full battle gear, holding a sword aloft was also a big hit with the 11-year-old, and several more pictures ensued. From the museum, we headed to downtown to find 'the mall'. The city of Stirling is overlooked by 'Stirling Castle', an historic residence of some fame, that had been kept repaired and was availbable for touring. Of course, we had by now long figured out that we had no interest in that kind of visit. Downtown had a small mall, connected to a parking ramp. I have encountered this type of 'city-center' shopping mall in many medium sized cities across America, so it felt rather comforting. We took the PCD's and split up. I walked the stores quickly by myself while the other two were directed to a men's store for the all-important socks. I was impressed that it was, essentially, an American style mall, with mall stores. I did check out the one American-style "Sports Appearal" store, to see if I could add to my collection of UK Soccer-team wear, but everything was way-too-small. I constantly felt like I was 'Papa Bear' from Goldilocks, as everything was 'too small' for me. Now I know that I have seen beer-belly hooligans hanging out of their favorite UK team jerseys, where did they buy them? I'll never know. With the socks in hand, and a couple of pictures taken, we were back to the van and on our way. We stopped for a few minutes in Linlithgow (on the way to Edinburgh) as it was the site of my original business meeting, the one that was cancelled resulting in us taking two weeks of vacation instead. I wanted to see the building, and imagine how the trip might have gone if I had to work for 4 of the 16 days. We tried to gauge if Lyn and Jesse would have been able to get on while I was in meetings (in case another business trip ever arises), and we agreed that together they would be just fine next time. We also stopped by a pharmacy and bought some more film, again. Next it was Edinburgh, and it was a visual delight. As we drove in from the outskirts, we encountered many city blocks of rowhouses with a character subtly different from those in England. Many were very very dark with soot, I think, but it may have been the color of the limestone facing (as I am certainly no expert on that subject). We got lost, and did that drive around in circles thing until we were all getting pretty carsick. We really considered trying to find a place to park, but each time we talked about where we might walk or what we might see, we talked ourselves out of it. All the around the block circles (driven while either 'lost' or 'exploring' depending on your point of view) gave us the 'feel' for the city that we desired, and by then we had just pretty much had enough. We drove by the famous castle built on the high outcropping right in the middle of the city and visible from every place in town. We could stop and park and go and walk around, but the vote was 3 to 0 to just move on. On the way out of town, we had to cross the 'Forth of Firth', the river inlet that empties east into the North Sea. The autobridge that spanned it was rather impressive in its design, so I asked that we stop to take a couple of pictures and we bought a small snack before proceeding on. Our path was leading us to St Andrews, Scotland, the proverbial birthplace of the game of golf. As you might expect, the surrounding countryside was very beautiful, and we kept the car moving through it, pausing here and there to take more pictures. We stopped in St Andrews, taking one last chance at at a sporting appearal store and finally bought some UK Soccer jerseys. They were still too small for me, fitting like a glove, but at least they were in a 'clearance rack' and someday I may slim down into them. If I dont, Jesse will certainly be wearing them soon enough instead. We stopped at a small beach turnout. It was a very small town that we nearly passed right by. We needed some petrol, and in our search for a station, decided spontaneously to follow the 'this way to beach' sign. It was, of course, freezing (in early July) with a chilling wind blowing directly off of the North Sea. It was, of course, spectacular. Beautiful in its simplicity. We stooded on the hardpack beach and took pictures of each other and breathed in the cool salty air. We tried to imagine renting a flat among the one block long city center, and decided that it would be the perfect place to write your novel, recover from an addiction, or die of boredom. Hopefully I will never find myself in any of those three situations. We drove on north headed towards St. Andrew. We passed through tiny St Andrews, stopping to take pictures of our last British police cruiser, and to buy some take-away for dinner. By the time we hit Dundee, the city was closed down. It was past 6 o'clock and the streets and the stores were all deserted. We were so glad that we had eaten in St.Andrew. Since Dundee was a ghostown, we spun once around the city center, took a couple of pictures of some boats in the harbor, and decided we had a dayfull. We would definitly visit Aberdeen on our 'next trip to England'. It was getting late enough that we would drive no further north, and instead head ourselves west and generally back toward the hotel. We gave up distant Aberdeen, said good-bye to the North Sea for the last time, and instead drove into beautiful Scottish countryside. We picked a return path to Stirling quite randomly, using the computer mapping software to calculate time and distances for various circular return routes. We decided we would have enough time to pass through 'Long Loch' on our way back to the hotel. On the road, we stopped to take pictures of a playground field absolutely full of rabbits. It was the wierdest sight and it took me almost 5 full minutes to figure out that they were not cats, rats, or lumps of dirt. We honked the horn and started a small hopping-fest, revealing their true species. We also did the stop the car turn around and drive back when we passed a field with a famous Scottish "Highland Cow" mother and her calf. We shot half a roll of film and got a complete hoot out of the experience. It was a delightful last day in Scotland for us. A "Highland Cow" (if you did not know) is the general shape and size of any other cow you have seen, but with the general fur trim of a sheepdog. If you can imagine a 5 foot tall, 800 pound brown and tan sheepdog, you would understand why we turned around and drove back to take pictures. By now we were losing light and, although we took several more shots of the beautiful Lochs surrounded by the beautiful hills, most were too dark and did not turn out very well. We will have to rely upon our memories of the full moon rising over the hills as the road curled around Lochearnhead with the sky full of every hue of color know to the eye. It was beautiful in its peacefulness, but it was unfortunately not photogenic. Of course, you can guess that we drove the final 50 miles back to the hotel in total darkenss (what is new) with Jesee sound asleep in back. Lyn and I talked and dreamed and laughed and held hands and already started to reminisce about the UK vacation trip that was not yet even finished. What a beautiful evening. When we arrived into Stirling proper, we now understood that the 'lights' on the 'hill' we had seen the previous night were actually Stirling castle. We discussed again going to visit, but again decided that we would visit castles on our 'next trip to England'. Instead it was back to the hotel, and off to bed for us.
	Copyright, 1999, all rights reserved
	Originally Written November 1999 Original Upload January 2000 Last Update: July 22, 2001