Day 5: Scotland vacation 2007

John had reserved a rental car and wanted to pick it up as early as possible, so we hustled Hannah out of bed early early and down to breakfast. John got the hot breakfast every morning we were in Edinburgh (actually, every morning but the last one of our vacation), but I often couldn’t stomach so much food first thing in the morning, so I would have cold cereal. Now, I know that in the UK, they have a slightly different way of putting things, but I was totally cracked up by the packaging for Crunchy Nut cereal: “...it’s ludicrously tasty!”

We finished breakfast, drug our stuff downstairs, checked out, and hopped on the bus. There we sat in the back row amid a big pile of suitcases and wet umbrellas (it was raining), and Hannah started to look decidedly green around the gills. I was just able to grab a plastic bag out of a side pocket on my suitcase when she started blowing chunks. Fortunately, it all went in the bag and on her hand, but I also had water and tissues, so we got her calmed down and cleaned up before we ever hit Edinburgh proper.

We hadn’t been on the bus we needed to take to the rental agency before, so we weren’t sure how far to go, but super-Mom to the rescue again—I saw the name of the street we needed and we were able to hop off and backtrack a little. We found the rental agency, and it was full of unhappy campers. One guy was supposed to get a van delivered to him the night before, to use while his work van was in the shop, and he was fairly pissed to have to put all his tools back in the malfunctioning van and drive down to their office that morning. But I think part of the office’s problem was that not everyone had a reservation like us (we went through the paperwork pretty quickly), and in addition, some of them didn’t speak English well enough to handle such a transaction.

Anyhoo, badmouthing of the agency aside, John learned to drive from the right side of the car on the left side of the road via the sink or swim method, and he did great! The car was the English version of our very own Roswitha (an Opel Astra), so the controls were familiar, but the windshield wipers went backwards (right to left instead of left to right), which made sense, because the driver is on the right. Other small things freaked me out at first, like the No U-Turn sign that was “backwards”:



John wanted to name our temporary wheels "Senior Car", but Hannah wanted "Jerry", so they compromised with "Senior Jerry." He was a good little car.

John had insisted that there was a weird dog-food smell in Edinburgh, and he especially noticed it in the car while we were still in Edinburgh. Just the other day, after feeding the cats, he commented, "Smells like Edinburgh." So if you ever find yourself thinking of Edinburgh and cat food in the same breath, know you are not alone.

It continued to rain as we headed north into the Highlands, so it was hard to see the scenery that a guy waiting for a van at the rental agency had promised was beautiful. When we got to Perth, we turned off to visit Scone Palace, where Scottish kings were once crowned.



John had a (wet) seat on the Stone of Destiny, but he says he didn’t feel any different afterward (except wetter).



We ate inside the Palace itself, in a cozy little bistro that made a mean tomato soup, and then we let Hannah play on the Adventure Playground to work off some excess energy.



But we wouldn’t let her chase the peacock.



Nor the white one in the parking lot that she called "Turkey!".



We didn’t go into the Palace itself, but we went all through the lovely grounds. We even tried out the hedge maze.



After that we headed to our B & B outside of Inverness, the Torguish House. I think we were in the Graham Room. They had it decorated in “Farm Chic”, but their web site doesn’t show the last little detail, the “farm” toilet seat.