Where Did the Summer Go?
Summer.
Where did it go? It was going to be a
busy summer and I knew it would go by very quickly – and it did! In some ways, I feel like I missed it, because
looking back, it looks like a blur. It was a blur of visitors and traveling –
and yet I was still able to be very present in the midst of it.
And because
of visitors and traveling, it has been a LONG time since I posted. But not from
lack of things to write about, that’s for sure!
I could
surely bore you with the details of each and every adventure, or just try to
convey a few interesting and/or fun things that happened along the way. I
choose the latter.
But just for
a quick recap, the last 5 months have looked mostly like this:
April – 2 weeks
in 5 cities in Italy with Wes and Cristy Bratton and Steve and Glenda Schlahta
May bank
holiday – 5 days in Marsailles, France
Early June –
Mike and Heather Erhart stayed with us for a week
Mid-June –
Mom came to visit. She was here for almost a week and then we went on a
week-long cruise to Norway
Mid-July –
Glenda Schlahta came for a week
Early August
– Mike’s two sisters and BIL (Leslie, Mary and John) and Kathryn came for 12
days. We spent several days traveling around Inverness, the Isle of Skye and
the west and north coast of Scotland.
Mid-August –
Kathryn and I went to Ireland for 4 days
End August –
Josh and Heather Mikelson came to stay for a couple of days
Whew! It was both fun and exhausting to have so
much going on.
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| Mike and Heather |
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| Mom |
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| Cruising with Mom |
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| Glenda |
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| Heather and Josh |
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| Mary, John, Mike, Leslie, Kathryn, me |
And I must say, Scotland surely showed everyone its best side. It has been a glorious
summer, weather-wise. The temperatures have been very pleasant (almost hot) and
it has been very dry. Every Scot who has talked about the weather has exclaimed
that there has not been a summer like this since 1976. It must have been a very
memorable summer because their recall is consistent. 😊
I advised
each visitor on what clothing to bring. I said, “Think ‘early spring.’ Don’t use
up space packing sandals or shorts.” And I think every single person has
complained about being too hot here. Ah well. At least Scotland made a nice
impression. And of course, no matter the weather or temperature, it seems to
always make a good impression with its cliffs and beaches and blue water and
big skies and amazing sunsets.
So, one of
the things Trip Advisor probably does not tell people who want to come to Scotland
-especially the very northern part of Scotland – is that it does not provide all
the conveniences that we take so for-granted in the US.
1. There are no roadside rests with public
toilets. There ARE public toilets. I believe there is at least one in each town/village – and some are resorting to being
pay toilets because of the overwhelming tourist traffic.
But as a visitor, you do not know these things.
In the US, we are used to gas stations (with toilets) being on every other corner.
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| If you zoom, you will see this is a pay toilet. The cost is 50 p to pee. It takes a credit card. This is a new addition in Golspie. |
2. There are no 7-11’s in towns and/or fast food
restaurants (also with toilets) – let along anything that is open all day,
every day.
3. The north is vast. You can drive for a long time
without passing a gas station. Or a town.
And so,
having been here for 14 months and driven these roads and experienced these
things, you would think I would have known to consider them before leaving a
major town/city.
But that is where
we found ourselves on a Sunday morning as we (Leslie, Mary, John, Kathryn, Mike
and I – in our rented 8 passenger van) were preparing to leave Inverness and
end up on the Isle of Skye at the end of the day. First, we wanted coffee and a
pastry to eat before leaving town. But it was Sunday. The shops do not open
until 10:00 on Sundays. So, after Mike and John scoured the downtown area
between 9 and 10 am, we finally got ourselves coffee and a pastry and were
eating on-the-road. But it wasn’t until we were crossing the Kessock Bridge out
of Inverness that I realized I had made a mistake. I had not even thought to bring a lunch with us. We
were leaving civilization as we knew it – where, even though they opened late
on Sundays and maybe didn’t even open at all on Sundays, there were options for
food and drink in Inverness. And I had forgotten.
So we drove
on – almost to Ullapool, actually – to walk down into the gorge where there was
a bridge that could only hold 5 people at once and a beautiful trail. Mike and
I had stopped there last summer. And as we pulled into the parking lot, we were
greeted by a sign advertising a food truck in the parking lot. Hooray! We would have lunch after all! But alas, it was Sunday, and it was not open.
After enjoying
the trail, we got back on the road, heading back towards the road we would take
to Skye, and kept our eye out for places to get some lunch. We did actually
pass several restaurants, but all were closed. Did I mention it was Sunday?
Finally, we
drove into the tiny town of Garve. And Garve became our hero – because in the
wee town of Garve was ….. a FOOD TRUCK!
And this food truck was serving hamburgers, fish and chips and quite a
variety of foods. A one-man operation, but he was doing a booming business.
Probably serving all the other Americans who had left town without supplies. So, this is how we remember Garve: “You will
not starve in Garve.”
Someone, several
years back, decided that Scotland is a beautiful place and that the rest of the
world ought to know what it was missing. And that someone – or maybe another
someone – came up with the catchy title of “The NC 500.” The NC 500 stands for “North Coast 500,” which
is a loop of roads about 500 miles that takes you around the west coast and the
north coast of Scotland. Thurso is actually on that route. 😊 And it truly is a BEAUTIFUL drive. But you
must go prepared for it, as the above story should demonstrate.
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| map of the NC 500 |
But the thing
about the NC 500 is that I think it was surprisingly successful campaigning. People
started seeing what they were missing and wanted to come. And so they did. Tourism
is up by 200%. But the real problem is
that the towns on the NC 500 were not prepared for the overwhelming deluge of
visitors. And it has caused a lot of issues. For one, parts of the NC 500 are
remote and are only served by a single track road. The volume of campers and cars
has increased by a lot. But the services have not changed. There are no more
public toilets or grocery stores than there were before. But the road traffic
has increased dramatically.
The increase in tourism has also affected restaurants. Before we
went to Skye, it was suggested that we make a reservation for supper or else we
might not get any. And that was almost the case. We did not make a reservation
because we did not know when we would arrive in Skye and didn’t want the
pressure of having to be somewhere by a certain time when our trip was going to
be uncertain. But we did manage to find a place
to eat and in fact, were the last party seated without a reservation (at a lovely
little restaurant with great seafood). We were sad for the the next dozen or so
people who came in and were turned away, but awfully happy for ourselves. We
were lucky to have been fed that night.
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| whiskey tasting at Old Pultney Distillery |
On the road
to Skye is an area known as Applecross. Applecross has an amazing scenic road
that goes across the mountain, but it is not for the faint of heart. It sounded exciting and there was a small
part of us that would like to have experienced it, but in the end, we decided
we did not need to have that experience. The road is single track. It is a winding road with switchbacks. There
are not places to turn around, and there is barely room for two vehicles to
pass – let alone one of them being a camper! Obviously, people ignore the
warnings and take inappropriate vehicles up this mountain road and cause mayhem
for everyone. We were not those people,
thankfully. For us, it was the road not taken.
So now I
want to tell you about a couple of fun things Kathryn and I experienced in
Ireland.
Kathryn and
I went to Ireland for 4 days. It was a whirlwind trip, to be sure. We arrived in
Dublin on a Sunday at noon (but unlike northern Scotland, everything was open
for business). We walked around the Archaeology Museum. To me, the most
fascinating thing was the section on the bogs. The peat bogs are known for
their ability to preserve things. Apparently, people used to put their butter
in the bogs to keep it cold? Or just to keep it until they were ready to use
it? Not really sure there. So we saw actual ‘bog butter’ on display. But
sometimes a farmer would dig up the peat bog with giant digging machines, and
in doing so, would dig up a body. This museum had some of these bodies (or
parts of bodies) on display. It was SO cool!
The bog had preserved people so well that much of them was still intact
(except where the digging machine had cut through them).
We took a
walking tour of Dublin (very well-done) and then we saw The Book of Kells at
the Trinity College Old Library. The Book of Kells is a 1,200 year-old version of the gospels of the Bible - with elaborately inked and meticulously illustrated by monks.
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| page from the Book of Kells |
Then we took
the train to Galway, which is on the other side of Ireland, where basically, we
slept. Because for the 2 days we were in Galway, we took day tours. One day we
went to Inis Mor, the largest of the 3 Aran Islands. There, we had the best ice
cream I have had for the last year and a half. Sorry, Scotland. You offer many
many wonderful things here, but ice cream is not one of them.
The next day
we took a coach tour to see the Cliffs of Moher and the surrounding area. Lovers of the movie, “The Princess Bride”
will know the Cliffs of Moher better as “The Cliffs of Insanity.” Yes, they were steep – and impressively long.
We did not have time to walk the length of it. But we did have the nerve to
walk on the side closest to the edge. There did not used to be fences or walls
there and Rick Steves describes it like this: “For years the Irish didn’t believe
in safety fences: just natural selection.”
LOL! I did see a couple of young
people who were playing with that idea!
The Cliffs of Moher were quite impressive
(although, if you have seen what we have here along the coast of northern
Scotland, I think it is less impressive, because we have such fantastic cliffs
here).
We also had
our first Guinness beer in Galway. We were told we must try it. We were told it
tastes the best if you drink it in Ireland and that the taste is completely
different if you drink it anywhere else. So we tried it. And guess what? We
liked it! I think we were both
surprised. It is a dark beer, but it was definitely not a heavy beer.
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| ham and cabbage (MUCH better than our corned beef and cabbage in the US |
So, a funny
story about the trip back to Dublin. After the day-long coach tour, we boarded
the train back to Dublin for a 2 ½ hour ride. I expected to sort of veg out for
that time because we were both tired from the day. But, as often seems to
happen, we sat next to interesting people. Four Americans! A young couple were on their first international
trip and were learning lots of things about traveling internationally. (Things
I have also learned this last year) And the other two people were two ladies – FROM
SPOKANE! They came to Ireland to run in a half-marathon. 10k? I said, “My daughter lives in Spokane.” She
said, “Where?” I said, “Downtown, but
she works at Home Goods in the Valley.”
She said, “I live in the Valley. That Home Goods is near my house. I go
there all the time.” She said, “What’s
your daughter’s name?” I said, “Emily.
Emily Hassell.” She said, “I think I
will go in and meet her and tell her I met her mom and sister.” I laughed and said, “That would be great. It will flip her out if you do that. She will
say, ‘Of course you did.’” 😊
So, after 2 ½
hours of conversation and sharing a taxi ride to our hotels, she left repeating
Emily’s name.
And this is
where I had to be patient. I WANTED to get right on my phone and message Emily
and tell her I met someone from Spokane
and that she would come and visit her. But no. I had to let it happen on its
own. And I also had to keep in mind that it might not actually happen. She
might not actually follow through. So I waited.
Nine days
later, I got a text from Emily.
And so I got
the joy of hearing the story of how someone I met on a train to Dublin showed up at Home Goods in the Spokane
Valley near closing time to say hello to my daughter. Dawn looked at Emily and Emily looked back at
her. Then she looked at Emily again and Emily looked back. And finally, Dawn
asked, “Is your last name Hassell?” And
Emily smiled and replied, “And what is your connection to the Hassells?” And Dawn got to tell her how we had all met….on
a train….in Ireland. Of course.
And that is
one of the things I have found to be so cool as I have been here and traveled
here. How I have run into other Americans everywhere I’ve gone and how we talk
about the things we have in common because of where we are from and we exchange
stories.
I met another woman on Inis Mor who lives in Bellevue,
WA, where Bryan lives, and is a quilter. And just today, as Leah and Kirsteen
and I walked along Thurso Beach, we came across a woman who stopped us and
asked if we would take a picture of her with that beautiful background of sea
and sand and land. And when we asked her where she was from (because she had an
American accent), she replied, “Denver, Colorado,” which is exactly where Leah
is from! Not only that, but they live
near each other and the woman is a dental hygienist, just like Leah was! Incredibly small world, don’t you think?
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