Day One

I was worried about not getting enough sleep on the plane, since I wanted to be fresh for our first day. The flight wasn't so bad after all. I ate some (not very satisfying) food in the airport so I could forgo the meal on the plane and maximize my sack time whilst we were in the air. This and a couple of Klonopin did the job pretty nicely. Ever the gallant one, Robin slept on the floor (!!!) so I had the 3-seat all to myself on which to stretch out.

First job on arriving in Glasgow was to find our hire car. Last time I was here I had pre-paid the car and the company subsequently went out of business leaving me on the phone on hold with Travelocity for over an hour. I didn't share with Robin my fears of a similar scenario this time. Our company, Practical, does not have offices in the terminal, so we phoned their office and was told they'd "be there in about 5 minutes." Only I misunderstood the meeting instructions and it ended up taking about 30 minutes to finally find each other. Once that was done, our rental agent, William, who was incredibly funny, complete with a thick Glaswegian accent full of glottal stops and other fun Scots-isms, got us ready to go. We've been issued a Fiat Panda in electric blue:



More than once on returning to the car today I thought the back end had been chopped off. It handles well, especially now that I'm getting the hang of driving on the left again. There were a couple times on making turns that I almost went into the right lane; thankfully I kept my senses well enough to avoid disaster. So far. On occasion I check with Robin to make sure I am indeed on the correct side of the road. Eight years is a long time. The last time I was here was in 2001; then it had only been 2 years since I had been driving on the left. It's harder to get back into the swing of it now. I'm sure I'll be zipping around like a native again in a day or so.

First stop of the trip was Glasgow Cathedral. The cathedral is in a part of the city that is old and quite charming. I had forgotten how sprawling and built up the city is.

Here's a picture of the cathedral:



Here's a picture of the cathedral with me in it:



Across from the cathedral is Glasgow's "Oldest House," a charming building of three floors with a lovely garden in the back:




I think I was taken with this a bit more than the cathedral, especially since it had some whimsical carved stone faces at the back of the garden. Here are two of them:




Whilst sitting in the garden at the Oldest House the sun came out in force and I enjoyed some welcome radiation.

After a very refreshing cup of tea and scone in a nearby museum café we decided to make our way out of the city and towards Ballachulish, our stop for the night. Soon after leaving the city limits the scenery began to change dramatically to the steep, stark hills of the Highlands. The road was heavy with traffic and although I had slept better than usual on the flight, I still had not had my full night's rest; I started to get very sleepy. We stopped in a layby and I slept in the car for 45 minutes of the most hearty sleep of recent memory. Robin, the guy who spent the night on the floor of the plane cabin, wasn't at all in need of a nap and went for a walk in the wilderness, coming back to the car with no fewer than six ticks on his person. Once awake, we continued our route on the A82 alongside Loch Lomand. Even though we had clouds and rain the scenery was astounding.



We took a short detour to see some falls that are part of the route of the West Highland Way and were there in time to see some daring lads dive in to the chilly shallows:



By evening we arrived in Ballachulish for a welcome pub meal of fish and chips (and a couple pints of McEwan's 70/- for me).