Running the Gamut of Sleeping Arrangements in England

This is the last installment from our Europe 2009 trip. Pardon my failure to keep up with it. This final post prbably seems odd coming after Jenny's post about "Chicagoland and Thanksgiving," but I want to get the last bit of our trip down in writing, regardless of whether it is chronological on the blog.

Our B&B set us up with a great "British" breakfast each day we were there. It was particularly appreciated on our last morning, as we had a 10-12 hour drive ahead of us. In addition to ham, sauteed mushrooms, eggs, and a cooked tomato, we had oatmeal, yogurt, juice and milk. Awesome. Couldn't fit it all in the picture.

Just to give you an idea of how remote the Isle of Skye is, this is the two-way road in and out of Portree the largest city.

Just across the bridge from Skye, on the mainland (the main island anyway), is Eilean Donan Castle. It is one of the most recognizable castles in Scotland, and has been used in multiple movies, including, most recently, "The Made of Honor," a chick-flick starring Patrick Dempsey.

Also on the drive down to England, is Glencoe, a beautiful glen (or canyon) that was the site of a brutal massacre back in the day between the Campbells and MacDonalds (if I'm not mistaken). My Mom always likes to point out that we have both Campbell and MacDonald blood in our line. I don't know what kind of symbolism she is alluding to (diplomacy? familial strife?).

On the outskirts of Glascow, we stopped at LethamHill Golf Course. Jenny's ancestors came from the area and the golf course was apparently created on the site of Letham Manor. There's nothing like mixing a little ancestory into the trip. However, as Jenny and I were leaving the golf course, we had an unfortunate experience with a driver (a person, not a golf club), who exhibited some profound road rage. When the incident calmed over, I suggested to Jenny that all the good Leathams had left.

After the long day, we stopped in Preston, England. I had prepaid $65 for a night at the Preston Marriott, which which turned out to be a wise move considering that the exchange rate at the time of booking was about $1.40 to the pound - the lowest in 23 years. I still couldn't believe we got such a steal. The hotel was awesome, particularly considering that we had done the hostel/B&B thing for over a month (with a couple of exceptions). Hostels and B&Bs are great, but there is just something about the consistency that a good chain hotel offers.

After we checked in, Jenny and I drove into town, parked at a Bingo hall, and walked into the center of town. I was impressed by how quaint the place was. Lots of little shops and pubs, and plenty of people going out to eat together. Jenny and I ate at a gourmet pizza restaurant, called home for the first time in a couple weeks, and then called it a night.

The next morning, we stopped briefly at the Preston Temple; got a horrible tip on a place to eat lunch from a temple patron (watery broccoli and leek casserole?); and then booked it down to London. We dropped the car off at the airport; filed a complaint about the gas prices we had been quoted; and then defended ourselves from allegations that marks on the hubcaps were our fault. I'm sure that the marks on the hubcaps weren't ours in the first place, but I'm guessing that our complaint about the gas prices kept Alamo from pushing the marks too far. The lesson to be learned: Renter Beware in England.

The train from Luton took us to Paddington Station (?) where we transferred to the "Tube," which dropped us off in the happenin' South Kensington neighborhood. After checking into the hotel which I will shortly describe, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a Thai restaurant around the corner and called it a night.

When we were putting our trip together, it was clear that London was going to present a formidable financial obstacle. You cannot get a bona-fide hotel room in London for under $150 a night. But what you can get for 24 pounds a night is 36 square feet and an airplane toilet. At the prevailing exchange rate, I was able to book 7 nights in London for $238. And we're not talking 17 miles outside of London on the M5. We're talking heart of the capital, hip neighborhood, Marriott Marquis across the street. It was a combination of luck, foresight, and a horrible economy in which "cash is king."

The room consisted of a bed (the best one we slept on in Europe, by the way), two hooks on the wall, a toilet, a sink, and a showerhead. I honestly don't think we could have done it for another day, but it was perfect for our circumstances.

The nice thing about having a week in a city, is that you can take things nice and slow. On our first day, we did a few of the obligatory things (ride the double decker bus, etc.). We also checked out the Tate Modern. We decided that we're not really modern art people. There were a few "scope" pieces that caught our attention - one in which hundreds of bright red items (like a wagon, a lawnmower, a toolset, a sled, etc.) were arranged in a red room; and another which had an enormous dining room set arranged, through which we walked, giving the feeling that we were babies under the table. Another piece that caught my attention was by a famous dude, whose name escapes me at the moment. He wanted to capture the idea of chance, so he dropped three long, thin wires onto three different pieces of wood. However the wires fell, the artist cut the wood to the right of the wire, preserving the idea that chance had been present at that particular moment in that particular experiment, and suggesting how chance occurs in our lives. Below is a view from the Tate Modern of St. Paul's (?) Cathedral and the Millenium Pedestrian Bridge.

Near the Tate Modern is the 20th century replication of the Globe Theater. One of the three plays we saw while in London was Romeo and Juliet at the Globe. While pictures were not allowed during the play, I was able to snap a few shops beforehand. The Globe is very similar to the one in Cedar City, but it has two balconies, and plenty of space between the stage and the seats, where "groundlings" can stand for the duration of the play. We decided to pay the extra $60 for actual seats. The usher told us that the King of Denmark had sat in our seats a week earlier, which made me feel a little better about the premium we had paid. I felt better yet when I saw groundlings collapse to the ground prior to intermission, after standing for 2 hours.

I think we ate dinner at a grocery store after the play, before hitting the sack. We briefly entertained the idea of going out to Wimbledon and camping to see the 4th round of action the next day, but we decided that we probably wouldn't be close enough to the front of the line to get decent seats. We would take an exploratory trip out to Wimbledon the following morning (Monday?) to ask around about waiting for tickets...

Monday morning came, and we were up early, riding the train out to Wimbledon. We chatted with people who were also on their way out, trying to determine how we could most easily get Center Court tickets for Wednesday's quarterfinal matches. "You should be out here tomorrow morning at the latest. If Andy Murray [the third ranked, British tennis star] wins today though, the line will be full tonight. In that case, you would want to be here by 5 this afternoon." We decided to go for it. First, however, we had to finish off sightseeing that wouldn't be available on other days - most notably, the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We raced back to the train, and high tailed it to Buckingham Palace to snap a few shots of the Queen's Guards with their Bearskins. It turned out to be extremely touristy, but more or less worth our time.

It was high noon. We decided that we would play it safe. We went from Buckingham Palace to the Sainsbury's grocer near our EasyHotel. We stocked up on supplies: drinks, oranges, couscous, croissants, and a bunch of magazines to pass the time. The larger predicament was that we had no tent, no sleeping bag, and nothing to really keep warm with. I had brought a rain slicker, jenny had purchased a sweatshirt in Amsterdam, and we had bought a towel with anchors on it at a gay resort in Spain. That was about the extent of protection we had from the elements, for two nights. We decided that was enough, and we would figure it out.

When we arrived at Wimbledon, there was a line several thousand people long. Fortunately, they were lined up to get in for Monday's matches. There was another line, about 40 people long, waiting to get in for Tuesday's, and in some cases Wednesday's matches. That was the line we joined.

I could get used to the British version of "queing". There were concession stands, bathrooms, ping pong tables, and other diversions. The people next to us were from South Africa and the Czech Republic, and we quickly became friends. Around 6 p.m., the line was about 400 people long, and only 500 people get into center court. The thing was, many of those people were camping for Tuesday's matches. We were waiting for Wednesday's. As the sun started to go down, the stewards came around and had everybody measure how much space they would need for their tents.People then began setting up their stuff...

Jenny and I got a good laugh out of people when we laid our camping stuff out...

"You two don't know a lot about British weather do you?"

In retrospect, we would have absolutely frozen if we were left to our towel. Our neighbors insisted that we would sleep in their tent if it came down to that, but fortunately it didn't...

One person in line had an extra pup tent and lent it to us. Fortunately, she was going to be in line for both nights, so we didn't have to bum a tent of somebody for the second night. As you can see, I'm smiling almost obnoxiously. This picture was taken shortly after we got the tent. While the tent provided a certain amount of protection, we still had to use wilderness survival tactics to stay warm through the night. Jenny's wilderness survival tactic was to take the towel for herself. I resorted to other measures, including wrapping myself in empty garbage bags that I found on the far side of the field.

The stewards, managing the "queue"

One view of the queue. Over 2000 people camped out for Wednesday's matches, and we were 15th and 16th in line - the first Americans in line as well.

As a result of our place in line, we were interviewed twice by the BBC (once by the normal news, and once by BBC Breakfast) and once by the London Evening Standard. We also got a little shwag in the form of stickers that read "I've Queued for Wimbledon 2009".

Everything played out perfectly, and we were able to see Roger Federer (#1 in the world) play against Ivo Karlovic, and the British star, Andy Murray (#3), play against Juan Carlos Fererro. Both matches were on center court.

These were our friends from South Africa and the Czech Republic...

The All England Tennis and Lawn Club reeks of pretenstion, but it's all good...

We caught a doubles match between an American pair (including James Blake) and a German pair.

(I was trying to pick up pointers so that I could beat Shelley back home, but that still hasn't happened)

Center Court...

Federer. Jenny said I wasn't getting close-enough pictures, so she took matters into her own hands...

The obligatory Wimbledon strawberries and cream. The stir fried noodles at the concessions were better...

Andy Murray won, which pleased the crowd...

All in all, Wimbledon was one of the absolute highlights of our trip. The queuing, Center Court, Federer and Murray, etc. It all came together nicely. My only concern throughout the day was that we had a play scheduled for that night. If any of the matches were too good (i.e. went into a fifth set), we would have to either leave Wimbledon early or arrive late to the play. Fortunately everything worked out, and we made it to Les Miserables on time. Never a dull moment. That play was also awesome, and tied into a lot of the things we had seen in France.

The next day, Thursday, we did a lot of the traditional sightseeing: First we went to the British Museum:

There was an exhibited that showed all of the pills that two separate people had taken throughout their lives. It had everything from the first doses of medication taken as children, to the birth control that the woman took, to the nicotine pills that the man took, etc. There was some crazy figure like, "the number of pills you take in the last twenty years of your life is more than all the previous years put together." It was awesome. Much better than the Tate Modern.

Along with the cool, contemporary stuff, the British Museum has the staple artifacts that everybody should see. Like mummies...

From the British Museum, we walked to the British Library, ironically passing this sign on the way...

The British Library has the coolest "rare books section" in all of written word. The Magna Carta, the Gutenburg Bible, all of Shakespeare's stuff, Leonardo da Vinci's works, Lewis Carroll's Alice and Wonderland, the original jottings of John Lennon and Paul McCartney that led to their hits, etc...

Other things we did in London (in no particular order at this point) included a stop at Madame Tussaud's...

...visits to the mainstays such as the Big Ben...

...and Westminster Abbey...

...and the Imperial War Museum.

We also took a Jack the Ripper walking tour (just okay this time), and walked through Notting Hill where we had nachos at a pub and watched Andy Roddick defeat Andy Murray to advance to the Wimbledon Finals. When Murray lost, a guy at the bar, after yelling at the TV, said, "Well, he's only Scottish. He's British if he wins."

On our last night in London, we saw Peter Pan performed in Kensington Gardens. We then took the Tube out to Heathrow, but, after a mix up with our hotel, ended up spending the night at the airport. The terminal was being remodeled, and, at 1:30 a.m. there were literally no people inside but Jenny, myself, and a nice Indian janitor. She led us into a utility closet where we slept on a bench for 5 hours before catching our flight home.

Chicagoland and Thanksgiving

Over the Thanksgiving break, Steve encouraged us to post more on our blog besides just our travel logs. Jonny has been busy with law school, so that leaves me to try my hand at blogging. Jonny has done such an outstanding job at writing all of our blog entries that I am hesitant to take over the reigns!

I guess a good place to start is our move to Chicago. During the 3 months that we have been here we have discovered a lot about this “Windy City.” We are slowly assuming the title of “Chicagoans.” We have:

*Had brunch, lunch, or dinner in many of Chicago’s distinctive neighborhoods at places like Toast, Uncle Julio’s, and the Rosebud Steakhouse

* Sought out Chicago’s finest pizza at places like Giordanios and D’Agntonios (we’re still looking!)

*Visited some of the great museums (our favorite without a doubt is the Chicago Art Institute – Van Gogh, Monet, Seurat, etc.)

*Watched fun, and not so fun, shows downtown (mom can attest)

*Chewed on sunflower seeds at a White Sox game, and taken in Chicago’s architecture on a boat tour with Dad

*Scrambled for a spot at a holiday parade and fireworks show on the Chicago River with Kimball and Liz

*Walked past fine shops along the famous Michigan Ave (a.k.a. the Magnificent Mile)

*And, to Jonny’s great excitement, went to an Oprah Winfrey taping where Patrick Swayze’s widow talked about his final days

It is fun to be living in Chicago and to enjoy all the events, festivals, and diverse culture that a big city has to offer. Jonny and I have been impressed by how friendly Midwesterners are. Everyone greets us with a smile and offers helpful tips when asked. We are making lots of friends in our ward and neighborhood, but it is also nice to have two great friends from Salt Lake out here too. We live just down the elevator from Kimball and Liz, and we enjoy going out on the town with them or just hanging back in our apartments and playing games some evenings.

Last weekend we went up to Boston for Thanksgiving and to surprise Jonny’s family. Only Camille and Steve knew we were coming. We laughed at all the different responses: Gretta and Dave gave us faces of shock; Mike (in an unenthusiastic, monotone voice) said “What are you doing here?”; and the kids greeted us as if we were coming all along – thinking maybe they were just out of the loop. The surprise was fun, and the weekend was even more fun. Thanksgiving Day was spent around the house. It began with breakfast – a loaf of pumpkin bread with honey butter. For the rest of the day, everyone was chatting, playing football in the backyard, cooking, and playing board games. Camille outdid herself by beautifully decorating the dining-room table and preparing a delicious meal. We had sweet potato casserole, corn-bread stuffing, orange rolls, cranberries with orange slices, stuffed mushrooms, cider with cream, salad, soup, pomegranate Jell-O, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a turkey that had been brined for 24 hours! Oh yes, and dessert… a pumpkin-chocolate cheesecake. It was so nice to sit around the table as a family and hear everyone talk about things they were grateful for this year. Family and jobs were mentioned most frequently.

That evening we all went to the movie “A Christmas Carol.” On the drive to the theater, Annie and Sophia asked me to share stories from my childhood. I instantly thought of my fun Thanksgiving celebrations growing up. I told how my parents would always pull out the camcorder and interview each child one by one about exciting things from the previous year, and how we often put together a big soccer game with my uncles and cousins. The girls were satisfied with my memories, and I was happy to reminisce. The next day I went to Plymouth Plantation with Dave, Gretta, and Mike, while Jonny stayed back to get some studying in. I had been there 3 years before in the busy fall season, but it was fun this time to go back in the off season, when the crowds were smaller. I felt like we got a more realistic feel of what the Pilgrim’s and Wampanoag’s winters might have felt like. Then, after exploring a replication of the Mayflower, we made our way over to a restaurant on a pier for some New England clam chowder and lobster. Other exciting things that took place over the weekend were: the first meeting between Jonny, myself, and Miriam (the newest member to the family); painting and sewing sessions with the kids; late night chats with the adults; Ticket-to-Ride games; a downtown walk around Faneuil Hall complete with a tuba concert, Kielbasa, and corndog; and the Utah/BYU rivalry game.

While Thanksgiving and our time with the family were the purpose for our trip, Jonny and I also made 2 stops on our drive up to Boston. Our first stop was at Niagara Falls, and the other in Palmyra, New York. The Falls were spectacular and reminded us of Iguasu Falls in Argentina/Brazil (although Iguasu is much bigger). Great natural wonders like these never fail to amaze me. Our second stop, in Palmyra, was wonderful too. We climbed the Hill Cumorah, walked through the Smith farm and Sacred Grove, saw the new Palmyra Temple, and visited the Grandin book store and printing press. I was touched by the simplicity of the Smith family home and the peace that the surrounding farmland evoked. Jonny and I look forward to visiting other Church history sites during our time in the Midwest, such as Kirtland and Nauvoo.

Stonhenge, Bath, Liverpool, Hadrian's Wall, and Scotland

Our original plan, over a year ago, was to spend a couple of weeks in London, rent a flat, and maybe take a few excursions to the countryside. Then, little by Gretta Spendlove little, I started adding to the itinerary:

"We could make it up to Scotland for a couple of days..."

"If we leave on a Friday and don't come back until a Sunday, we could maybe hop over to the continent for a day or two..."

And so on and so forth.

It reminded me of the time my Dad suggested to my Mom (entirely in jest) that, over a 4-day weekend, they could drive from Salt Lake to Seattle, cut down through the Columbia Gorge and Portland, before making a quick stop in San Francisco on the way home. Without hesitation, Mom jumped at the offer, only to discover that no reasonable person could take such an offer seriously.

We decided that, rather than try to stretch our two-week trip to cover all that we wanted, we would just do one final hurrah. One "blow-the-bank", "we'll figure out the finances when we get back" , "student loan money is on the way", six-week extravaganza. While this was probably the most irresponsible decision we've made in our marriage (I should actually call it the most irresponsible decision I've made - Jenny is far too responsible), I have absolutely no regrets. We needed the 3 and a half weeks on the continent to do it justice. Even that was obviously pushing it. But with only a little more than 2 weeks in Britain, and so much to see, I knew things were going to be a little tight on the front end. To illustrate:

We land at 2:00 pm, at Luton Airport -- an hour North of London. We run to the front of the passport line, and catch a shuttle to the rental car desk, which puts us on the road at 3:00. We have one shot at seeing Stonehenge, and it closes in 4 hours. It's roughly 2 hours south of us. Once we see it, we have to drive 7 hours North to Liverpool, where we'll spend the night. The next day we have to see at least 1 or 2 sights in Liverpool before putting in 11 hours of driving to arrive at our B&B in Portree on the Isle of Skye.

Let's go back to the rental car parking lot at Luton. As we get in the car (on the "wrong" sides), Jenny asks me if I'm up to the challenge of driving in England. "No big deal," I scoff, as I feel around for the ignition. After a few hiccups, we pull out of the parking lot and onto the frontage road. Everything is going along smoothly, and we look at each other, nodding. "This isn't as bad as people said it would be." When our eyes return to the road, a semi truck has come around the bend and is approaching us (head-on) in our lane. Jenny has her hand over her mouth at this point. Calmly, I move into the left lane and proceed to enter the freeway. While I am accustomed to driving swiftly in the left-most freeway lane in the States (i.e. the fast lane), I decide that I should take things a little more slowly here. I drift over to the right lane and slow down to a cool 50 MPH. I wanna break these freeways in before I put the gas on. After a few minutes, multiple cars are passing me, honking, throwing their hands in the air, etc. I look in my rear-view mirror, and a man in a BMW is waving his hand as if to say, "Get the @*!% out of the way." It dawns on me that I am doing 50 MPH in the British fast lane. I put on my blinker, which elicits clapping from the man in the BMW and a female in the passenger seat, and I bashfully move over to the appropriate lane.

Following our freeway fiascos, we make it to Stonehenge. I really don't even know what to say about the place. It is just crazy. People bringing stones in from miles away to built a religious calendar/altar/etc. Very cool. Very strange. Glad we saw it. The audioguides around our necks were informative, although I remember very little of what they said.
We did our best to get to Bath in time to see the Roman Baths, but alas, they were closed. Bath is the Jane Austen town, and it does a better job than any other town, city, or village of blending the words "quaint" and "regal". So, what does a couple do when the purpose for their stop is no longer a viable option? They have bowls of noodles at Wagamamas and wander around through the streets before joining the unabashedly touristy Bizarre Bath tour. The noodles hit the spot, and the tour came highly recommended from that travel oracle, Rick Steves. In fact, there were multiple citizens of Bath who joined us on the tour. While the tour took us around the town, it was the comedic value that brought tourists and locals together. Our guide walked through the streets blindfolded, mildly assaulted people walking along the sidewalks, performed magic tricks, and comparted dry English wit and over-the-top slapstick. When he initially asked for a volunteer, Jenny, who was standing behind me, lifted my hand up. How convenient. So, in front of 100 people, I mimicked everything our guide did for two minutes. If I could keep up with him, he would give me back the 8 pounds I had paid to join the tour. He handed me a glass half full of water. He drank. I drank. He put the glass through his legs. I put the glass through my legs. And so on and so forth. At the end of the routine, he spit the water back into the glass. He had been hiding it in his cheek the whole time. I was finished. I had no water in my mouth. Eager to win the 8 pounds, however, I gathered some saliva together and spit into the glass. I'm not usually that brilliant, but this won me applause and 8 pounds. The tour, which Jenny recommended after the Roman Baths were closed, ended up being one of the highlights of our day and our entire trip. In the picture below, our guide is putting a stuffed rabbit into a straight-jacket, and then into a box, before throwing it into the river. Magically, it reappered, floating on top of the water.
We left Bath on a high. Everything was great. We had dined on bowls of noodles; we had laughed through the streets of Bath for 2 hours, and we were now on the road, driving through small British towns as the sun set over the hills.

We arrived in Liverpool at 1:00 a.m., and checked into the Premier Inn, overlooking Albert Dock. Albert Dock was the place from which thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of Brits and Europeans came to America, including many 19th century Mormon converts. Our room (very cool, lots of exposed brick and other stylistic flourishes) overlooked the dock, and we peeked out the window, at the quiet water.
We started the next day by taking full advantage of Premier Inn's English buffet breakfast: sausage, tomatoes, beans, eggs, fruit and ham. We visited the Liverpool Maritime Museum, and enjoyed walking through a recreation of a 19th century dock being prepared for a day of departures. The sounds of porters taking luggage and goods on board ships played overhead, as we walked through the dimly lit "dock." We also enjoyed seeing artifacts from the Titanic and information on the slave trade. I hadn't realized that the United States accumulated a relatively small number slaves compared to other countries such as France, Brazil, and the Caribbean. At one point in the museum, as we were walking through an exhibit on life as a homosexual sailor, Jenny mentioned that she needed to use the restroom. She handed me her purse, and walked off. Needless to say, I felt a little out of place.

Eager to make it to Portree by nightfall, we left Liverpool via the downtown district. We drove North and stopped at several picturesque points along the way. First, we went to Hadrian's Wall, which was essentially the Northern border of the Roman Empire around the time of Christ. It absolutely blows me away to think that the Romans had such an empire at that time. The wall is still intact, and has fortifications every few miles, which Roman soldiers used as houses during appointments. The wall stretches the width of Great Britain (at one of the island's thinnest points) and was apparently a barrier against Scottish invasion, and a way to control the flow of traffic between the Empire and the Northern part of the island.


From Hadrian's Wall, we drove through the Scottish Highlands. Because we were so far North, the sun stayed up well into the evening (it was still perfectly bright outside at 10:30 p.m.). Consequently, Jenny and I felt like we had plenty of time. We stopped and took pictures of the scenery; spent time looking at Eilean Donan Castle (famous for its part in the Patrick Dempsey movie "Made of Honor"); and generally enjoyed our drive.
As the clock approached 10:00, we realized that we had no way of communicating with our B&B to tell them we would be coming in pretty late. As we rolled into Portree, on the Isle of Skye, at about 11:15, we asked a group of people on the street for directions to the B&B Ben Tianavaig. They happened to be the other guests at our place, and they guided us there and let us in. The owners of the B&B had already gone to sleep! Yikes. We would have been out in the cold if we had not happened upon the right people.

Portree is a small, very picturesque town overlooking a harbor. As one might imagine, dining options are scarce in such a town at 11:30. After getting turned away at all the restaurants in town, I found a "Burger Bus." This was a converted bread truck, wafting the smell of cooked ground beef from the town parking lot. Jenny said that, despite her intense hunger, she was not going to eat there.

"Are you sure you don't want a hamburger?"

"Yes."

"I'm hungry Jenny. I'm not going to want to share my hamburger if you finally decide you are too hungry." (I know this sounds insensitive)

"I would rather not eat, than eat from a "Burger Bus"" (To be fair, the place didn't look sanitary, and my burger was simply re-heated.). I had been in this situation before, and almost without fail, I ended up sharing my food. So I did the sensible thing. I ordered two hamburgers. 30 seconds later, Jenny found a fine Indian restaurant that served take-out tandoori chicken, masala, and garlic naan. Jenny got the naan, masala, and tandoori. I got not one, but two re-heated hamburgers from a Burger Bus.

The next morning, we made our way around the island. I had always marveled at the pictures I saw of Skye's landscape, and that is what merited the two day drive from London. I can say that it is one of the 10 most incredible landscapes I've been to. It's right up there with the Fjords, the Subway, the Olympic Peninsula, Guilin, or Iguasu Falls. I mean breathtaking. I would guess that it's something like New Zealand. We went on four hikes that day. We started by hiking to "Old Man Storr." A sheer monolith sticking straight out of the mountain. We then drove to a small parking strip across from the "Quaraing." The hike on this one was pretty arduous, but absolutely beautiful. It was like hiking Angel's Landing, but instead of red rock, everything is lush and there are lakes and water everywhere. There are views of the outer Hebrides, and islands that I'm sure very few people ever go to.
From the Quiraing, we drove across the island to a pasture overlooking the ocean. Our B&B owners had a book in their library which talked about 40 hikes on Skye. One of the hikes takes you through a pasture and down to a rocky platform, similar to Ireland's "Giant's Causeway." All the rocks are hexagonal, and it looks other-worldly. That's where I wanted to go. Well... the pasture was fenced in, and there was a large sign on the fence that said "Danger: Wild Bull." I asked the farmhand, who was working on my side of the fence, whether this was private property, and whether I could walk out to the ocean. He said that people occasionally came and hiked out there, but that the owner of the property wasn't real keen on the idea. My honest opinion is that the actual pathway out to the ocean did not belong to the farmer, but all the surrounding land did, and one had to hop his fence to get out there. After gauging the ferocity of the bull, who at this point was pleasantly grazing in the distance, I decided that the funky, hexagonal stones were worth the marginal risk of playing "Rodeo Clown." I jumped the fence and made my way through the pasture. Jenny was already worn out from our last hike, so she decided to nap in the car.

The hike yielded more than just a view of the hexagonal stones. I passed by a 19th (maybe even 18th) century stone home that had been abandoned. My guess is that it was abandoned when Scottish landowners switched from growing labor-intensive crops, to growing much less labor-intensive sheep. Because a landowner needs dozens of people to plant and harvest wheat, but only needs one person to look after hundreds of sheep, sheep become a more profitable venture. This is what took place in the 19th century, which led many unemployed Scottish laborers to emigrate to the U.S. Who knows, but the person who once lived in that stone home could have come across to the U.S.

From the stone home, I kept walking past a huge stone mound. On one side, the mound had stones arranged in squares that were large enough to be rooms. The mound was so big and out of place, that I don't think it could have been natural. Indeed, when I returned to our B&B, the owner told me that these mounds were used by Scots to defend against Norse invaders hundreds of years ago. I couldn't believe how out in the open this was. If something like this were in Salt Lake (even something 200 years old), it would be totally protected and off limits. I think that, because there are so few people on Skye, things like the mound and the stone home don't get as much protection. It was actually kind of nice. This plays into my whole idea that tourist BMI and authenticity of experience are inversely related. (I'll go into more depth on that in another posting).

The hexagonal stones were awesome, and the only price I paid was stumbling over some barbed wire on my way back over the fence. From there, Jenny and I drove around the Western part of Skye. We ate dinner at a small hotel/restaurant, and then happened upon the elusive Highland Cow. Six of them as a matter of fact, including one albino who we called Milky.
Our final stop on Skye was at a white coral beach on the extreme Northwestern point of the island. It is a breathtaking place. The white beaches (I should note that the whiteness of the beach is occasionally interrupted by a cow pie from a nearby herd) look like they're straight out of Puerto Rico (with the possible exception of the cow pies), and the backdrop is the lush, rugged terrain of Scotland.

From the coral beach, we drove back to the B&B for our second and last night on Skye.

More later on, including: Preston and Glascow, London, Wimbledon, Jack the Ripper and more...