After Jimmy had disappeared, I asked the manager at the tire place where
I could get a replacement wheel cover. He gave me directions to an
industrial park just down the road (remember, this is a Scot giving
directions). I then spent the next half hour buzzing in, out and through
the industrial park, looking for the Vauxhall dealer. Just as I gave up,
I missed a turn and ended up in the Vauxhall dealer's lot.

No joy was to be had as they were a very small dealer and didn't stock
random wheel covers. They offered to order one for me, but since this
was late Friday, it wouldn't arrive until Monday or, more likely,
Tuesday. I thanked them and declined.

We went into the business district of Fort William and started shopping
for rain gear (yes, we went to Scotland without rain coats and hats, but
we did that deliberately). Since it was October, all of the stores
except the hill walking specialty stores were selling off all of their
winter stock in anticipation of bikini season. After walking the length
of the shopping district (three or four blocks) we finalized our
purchases and wore our new rain gear out of the store. It was raining
pretty hard by then.

A quick trip to the visitor's information center (there are three of
them within a five minute walk, though one closed in the afternoon) got
us redirected to the third VI center (it's just up the street, on the
left by the Cinema (what Cinema was it? It was the Cinema without a
sign, concealed behind the VI center)). There we got a brochure of B&Bs
in the local area. We made a selection and booked a room via telephone.

While we were shopping one of the shop keepers asked where we were going
to spend the night. When told, he hauled out a local map and pointed out
exactly where the B&B was located. The directions he gave were vaguely
similar to the directions the landlady gave, so I was confident that I
would be able to find the place. Little did I know that the Scot's had
planted a diversion to keep me from seeing the B&B's sign.

We headed for the B&B, locating the referenced landmarks as described
until we got into the residential section behind the (I hate to say it)
strip mall. While I was scanning for the sign, my wife pointed out to me
that there was another of those red lights ahead. You know, the ones
with no intersection or crosswalk. I redirected my attention to the
deliberately manufactured bottleneck in the road and waited for the
light to change. The problem was that the right turn I was supposed to
take into the B&B was partially concealed by the neighboring drive and
was immediately before the stop light.

I proceeded down the road when the light changed. I caught sight of the
sign just as I went through the bottleneck. In what was to become a
repeated exercise, I started looking for a safe place to turn around. I
reckoned that it would require a 7 point turn to reverse in place, so I
went looking for a side street or driveway. Ultimately, I was able to
reverse direction and we made it to the B&B just as it was getting dark(er).

This was the site were the Scot's first tried to poison us.

That's a bit unfair, actually, since the B&B's owners were Dutch.
English spoken with a Dutch accent is pretty easy for me to understand,
but they had been living in Scotland for quite a long time ...

The bedroom was small and had two (count them, two) Glade plugin scent
dispensers going full blast. We were cold, wet and tired and not
inclined to try for another B&B at that point so we accepted the room,
turned off the scent injectors and opened the windows in a vain attempt
to clear the air. Then we got ready to go out for dinner.

The landlady was a great talker and a source of local information that
proved to be invaluable. She told us about a local restaurant that she
liked as well as recommending their local as a source of reasonably
priced freshly made food. Her residency in Scotland was sufficiently
long that her directions to the restaurant were magnificently
incomplete. I located the major landmarks (a Safeway and a McDonalds)
but I couldn't find anything that looked like a restaurant. What I did
find was the train station.

Asking for directions to the restaurant in the train station resulted in
blank looks. So, I went back to the B&B. The landlady convinced me to
try the local instead. Off I went, driving around for about 10 minutes
when it occurred to me that she had not only not told me the name of the
place, she hadn't really given me directions. Back to the B&B we went.

Just a word here are distance descriptions. Phrases like "Just down the
road", "Short walk", "A little bit further" "Right after" etc. all have
very different meanings in Scotland. "Right After" seems to mean "at the
next turn" which could be a mile or more down the road. "A little bit
further" seems to mean "Almost in the next town". "Short walk" is a
distance covered by a speed walker in 1/2 an hour. "Just down the road"
means that you shouldn't run out of gas before you get there.

So we went to the local which was "Right after" the curve in the road
that was "a little bit further" beyond the bottleneck than I had already
gone. The beer was good and the food was freshly made and inexpensive.
It wasn't going to get very many stars in Guide Rouge Michelin, though.

I mentioned to the landlady that we were planning to take the Jacobite
Steam Train ride the next day. She looked a bit concerned and said that
it didn't run on Saturday. I said that I was certain that the web site
had specified daily operation. She said she would check. She was able to
confirm that the train only runs on weekdays except in the high season
when it also runs on Sunday.

Silly me. I interpreted the web site's statement:

"Trains run daily from Monday, 7 June to Friday, 8 October"

to mean that the trains ran daily from June 7th to October 8th. A Scot
scans the same statement to mean that the trains run Monday through
Friday from 7 June to 8 October. There was no Saturday steam train ride.

We were left with a dilemma. Do we stay in or return to Fort William on
Monday to take the train and pick up the wheel cover that we didn't
order or do we take the normal train that goes over the same tracks? We
decided, given the weather, that we would travel instead and took off up
the Glen Mor.

Fabulous scenery, rain, cold, fog. Roads not quite as bad as we had
seen, but plenty of "oncoming vehicles in center of road" signs. We
continued north until we got to Loch Ness. Being tourists, we were
legally obligated to visit the most famous Loch in the world. I don't
know what the penalties are if you don't, but I suspect they are very
severe. We planned our next move. Would we go to Inverness or head off
towards Aberdeen or Stirling? For no apparent reason, we decided to
continue north to Inverness.

Along the way I spied a sign for Castle Urquhart:

http://www.aboutscotland.com/ness/urquhart.html

It's a fascinating place. They have a short audio visual presentation
about the history of the castle that is worth the price of admission. It
ends ia a very dramatic fashion which is best not revealed.

When we went in, the rain was light and the overcast was dour. At the
end of the AV presentation, the sun had come out and the clouds had
lifted above the mountain tops. As we toured the ruins of the castle the
weather improved. The only factor that got worse was the winds. They had
started building earlier in the day and were blowing a pretty steady 20
MPH.

When we finished with the castle grounds we did out duty and visited the
gift shop/tea room and headed for Inverness. Just as we pulled out of
the parking lot, the rain started again. This was a pattern that was to
be repeated throughout our visit to Scotland. It rained when we traveled
and it was tolerable when we wanted to be outside.

We arrived in Inverness to find that someone had just stolen virtually
every traffic sign in the city. Within minutes we were stuck in a
traffic jam. Since I am very familiar with these in the US, I saw no
reason to enjoy the Scottish version. We fled the city determined to get
close to Edinburgh before stopping for the day.

Edinburgh ment going south out of Inverness on the A-9. It appears that
the single digit designation means that it really is a first class
highway, with long stretches of dual carriage ways. As I entered the
highway I saw a sign that meant nothing to me. It was a blue circle with
a red perimeter and X through it. I couldn't tell what it was requiring
or prohibiting and as far as I could tell it wasn't affecting the
behavior of the local drivers at all.

Along the way I missed a turn and had to find a way to turn around in
Perth. I turned into the first parking lot I saw. It was a major
Vauxhall dealership. I parked and went inside. I could see that the
parts counter was closed, but there were sales folk talking with
customers in the lot. One person was in the back on the telephone. After
a bit the fellow in the back completed his conversation and came out to
greet us.

I explained that I had just purchased a pair of tires for the car hire
company and I owed them a wheel cover. I asked if they would have one in
stock that I could buy even though the parts counter was closed. He said
that they probably didn't have any spare wheel covers in stock but
walked out with us to look at what we had on the car. He looked around
his front lot and found a match on a new car.

Saying that he had to go find one that wasn't quite so obvious, he took
off towards the back of the lot. A few minutes later he returned with a
brand new, matching wheel cover. He put it on our car. I asked him how
much I owed him. He said 10 quid. I pulled the note out of my wallet in
an instant. 10 quid is 10 times what they are worth, but I'd bet that
it's 1/5th of what they cost.

As we exited Perth, towards Edinburgh, The car was now in considerably
better shape than when I had picked it up.

Matthew (Graeme did say that Scots were nice, he's right)

PS. Continued on next rock.

"Matthew L. Martin" wrote in message
...

snipped

Edinburgh ment going south out of Inverness on the A-9. It appears that
the single digit designation means that it really is a first class
highway, with long stretches of dual carriage ways. As I entered the
highway I saw a sign that meant nothing to me. It was a blue circle with
a red perimeter and X through it. I couldn't tell what it was requiring
or prohibiting and as far as I could tell it wasn't affecting the
behavior of the local drivers at all.

Ahh, Matthew, the Scottish road system. The sign you refer to indicates "NO
STOPPING". He he..

The weather, so far, is sure as hell par for the course:-) We refer to it as
dull, drab and driech!

I was fishing in Scotland a few months back and my friend Joe commented,
"Graeme if you can't see the hills that means it's raining. If you can see
them, that means it's going to rain!"

The Scottish rain, like mercy in Shakespeare, the quality of our rain is not
strained "it droppeth...from the heavens' foremost of the year it seems". I
wish I had written those words.

As we exited Perth, towards Edinburgh, The car was now in considerably
better shape than when I had picked it up.

Now your getting into my home soil. This should make for an interesting
read. Keep the progress report coming. I'm enjoying it! Edinburgh far
outweighs Glasgow!

Sorry you missed out on the steam train journey. It is, one of the great
journeys in the world.

Matthew (Graeme did say that Scots were nice, he's right)

PS. Continued on next rock.

Waiting eagerly:-)

Matthew L. Martin wrote:
After Jimmy had disappeared, I asked the manager at the tire place
where
I could get a replacement wheel cover.

snipped the rest of a good story

Holy jeez, Matthew! I'm ROFL so hard I've got tears in my eyes. Keep it
comin'. g

--
Fosco Gamgee Whitfurrows
and his 6" boner

Graeme...in London wrote:
"Matthew L. Martin" wrote in message
...

snipped

Edinburgh ment going south out of Inverness on the A-9. It appears that
the single digit designation means that it really is a first class
highway, with long stretches of dual carriage ways. As I entered the
highway I saw a sign that meant nothing to me. It was a blue circle with
a red perimeter and X through it. I couldn't tell what it was requiring
or prohibiting and as far as I could tell it wasn't affecting the
behavior of the local drivers at all.


Ahh, Matthew, the Scottish road system. The sign you refer to indicates "NO
STOPPING". He he..

More about that on the next rock:-)

The weather, so far, is sure as hell par for the course:-) We refer to it as
dull, drab and driech!

I was fishing in Scotland a few months back and my friend Joe commented,
"Graeme if you can't see the hills that means it's raining. If you can see
them, that means it's going to rain!"

I first heard that about Oregon and the view of Mt. Hood.

The Scottish rain, like mercy in Shakespeare, the quality of our rain is not
strained "it droppeth...from the heavens' foremost of the year it seems". I
wish I had written those words.


As we exited Perth, towards Edinburgh, The car was now in considerably
better shape than when I had picked it up.


Now your getting into my home soil. This should make for an interesting
read. Keep the progress report coming. I'm enjoying it! Edinburgh far
outweighs Glasgow!

Sorry you missed out on the steam train journey. It is, one of the great
journeys in the world.

It's quite possible that we will make a return trip. We never got
further north than Inverness (and we didn't get much of a view of it).