Mind the Gap

This is a rough start.

We realized not long after Martin left that the bikes didn't quite fit us. The saddles on both of our bikes were about 3 inches too low, and we had to bike 10 miles too many before we could find the Allen wrench to fix it. The rain was steady but faint, the sky heavy gray but occasionally yielding to an insistent sun. We were good enough to bike to the train station in Paisley to get into Glasgow, where we could transfer to Milngavie.







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As we biked, through our first (training) roundabout and off into the suburbs, we immediately noticed something remarkable about Scotland. That the houses in this suburb were most likely older than many American cities. That the overgrown and fungal walls had seen at least as much time pass as the cities of the Pioneers.


Beautiful.


And breathing, I should mention how easy it was to breathe for a city. What a scent...a sort of musky-woody essence seemed to follow us everywhere. (The Scots seem to have distilled this and drenched the lobbies of hotels, distilleries, restaurants, and anywhere else with a plaid carpet.)

***

We would settle the saddles in Milngavie and start on the West Highland Way. 100 miles separated our bikes in Paisley and the destination we still hadn't picked out in Fort William. Fortunately, because of the northward latitude and summer skies, we assumed we had until 9:30pm to get there before sundown.

This was probably the most reasonable assumption we made all trip.

The trains are charming, by the way. The voice that informed you of the upcoming station was pleasatnly Scottish. At every station, the voice also informed you of impending peril at every (dis)mount.

We became keenly aware of this the first time we tried to carry our 50 pound bikes onto crowded trains destined for the heart of one of the biggest cities in Scotland. We also learned that a bike doesn't fit into station elevators very well--much less two bikes--but that backing-in the first bike made things slightly better, and that putting the bikes head to tail was necessary, though none of these precautions guaranteed a bike pedal wouldn't jam itself into your shin.

Not that this will matter in almost exactly 24 hours and 35 miles, where there won't be an elevator.

The trains are punctual, by the way.

***

Slightly scarred and breathless, we arrived in Glasgow Central Station.

Check the shorts

I can't speak for Jason, but I was a little self-conscious about how I said "Milngavie," especially now that I had to purchase a ticket. I had only heard it a handful of times from Roblee on the plane and was working from that. I rehearsed and rehearsed until I was ready.

"Two tickets to Min-guy please"

"What's that?"

"Uh. Mi-lin-gie?"

"Mul-gaie ya mean?"

"Yeah that, two please"

LAX to GLA

I know I haven't written here in quite a while.

I'm sorry. I really am. I'll make it up to you. Right.

Now.

2011 wasn't a great year for most people. Between lost jobs and lost keys, I don't blame most people.

But 2011 was alright for a particular Ed. Sparing most of the details for now, 2011 was an alright year for the fact that I left the country for the first time.

***

Our flight from LAX to Glasgow stopped in Philadelphia. We departed Philadelphia sometime approaching twilight. I couldn't wait to leave the country. I was unreasonably excited to look out as far out into the Atlantic as possible as we took off. I really wanted to have a profound moment, the "So this is my adventure, and beyond that horizon somewhere...IS THE DESTINATION" moment, and maybe I would snap a quick picture or two to post to Facebook with some profound (or funny) caption. I tried to stare through the window from my aisle seat, but after trying for way too long I could tell the guy in the window seat was starting to feel awkward. At some point, I got tired of trying, and at some point, he closed the window.

I think this was also the point at which I stopped caring about trying to take so many pictures. And all for the better. And the worse for you, poor reader, for you'll see that this post will soon be littered with blank spaces where there should have been beautiful pictures of a land familiar and yet exotic. Alas, those images are for my eyes only and I could never do them justice with words.

I couldn't sleep. I wasn't tempted to watch Just Go With It on the in-flight movie either. (That said...not a terrible movie. Adam Sandler however...not a convincing plastic surgeon.) Neither the guy who I had just tried to stare past or I were interested in small talk for the next 7 hours. Not yet at least.

I finally did sleep a bit, and as we flew north, the Sun came too soon. Not long after, so did the start of our descent. It was at this point that the object of my staring-past and I got to talking. He was from Scotland and had spend 11 years in Connecticut as financial broker of some sort. He was Roblee (or Robleigh? or Rob Lee? Let's call him Roblee) from Glasgow, returning for his mate's stag party. As much of a stag party as hiking into the woods and drinking a whole lot of beer with mates was. 

I take that back. That sounds pretty awesome.

He gave me a few tips as to how we should go about our trip, since through all our pre-trip planning, Jason and I still didn't know what the hell we were doing.

Ambition (our pre-trip planning)

Trust the native.

Which wouldn't have been such a bad idea, except that as we were landing, we started to get an idea for the weather hadn't bothered to check (save for the angry Icelandic volcano that threatened our flights). It was raining, and only after we were scraping the tops of motorway signs and apartment buildings did we break the cloud cover. This will become a significant plot point. We disembarked. I didn't see Roblee again.

We landed in Glasgow May 26, 2011 at 6:55am. Immigration deflowered my passport and off we went towards customs.

I was actually pretty worried about customs. As I was strictly limited to $800 for the entire 10-day trip through the Scottish Highlands and Dublin (on the pound [$1.80:1] and Euro [$1.40:1] respectively), I came prepared with 2 pounds in granola and energy bars. All packed into a stuff sack in my Kelty Coyote 65ST (the ST stands for Short Torso why thank you):

If this gets confiscated, Ed starves.

Wouldn't want any of the other stuff getting yoinked either. If all the stuff on my checklist actually made it in the bag to begin with.

As it turns out, Glasgow Airport customs was a man and woman chatting at a desk. I'm not sure they saw us walk by.

Jason and I made it to the waiting area of the airport where the first order of business was to meet Martin. Martin was our bike man.

I suppose this is a good time to mention that our plan was to make most of this trip on bike. We rented (or "hired" to those speaking the wrong English) the bikes from RT Cycles just outside of Glasgow. Miraculously, through email correspondence alone we were able to get the bikes to show up at the airport just minutes after we landed. Pannier bags, locks, helmets and all.

Martin spoke some strange English. I knew it was English. I just had no clue what he was saying, unless the word was "bike." I'm sure it didn't help that the police officer at the pick-up/drop-off area of the airport was giving him grief for loitering for more than a few minutes--something Martin explained had to do with the bombings that took place at the airport a few years prior. I think that's what he said. Martin was very nice though, and was a good sport about us dumping the contents of our bags onto the sidewalk and asking him to wait just a few minutes more before he took the hollow shells for holding.

[I'm probably sounding wonderfully ignorant right now, but I'm being a little facetious. And really, some Scottish people do just speak far too fast for the slow American brain.]

We had the bikes. After scrambling to stuff the racks and pannier bags, the journey began. We had an ambitious schedule. We knew we wanted to get to Fort William by dark, with the assistance of the train. Based on Roblee's advice, the best way to do this--as a matter of simplicity and adventure--was to take the West Highland Way.

The West Highland Way was one of a handful of hike and bike trails that meandered through Scotland.

Perfect.

Absolutely perfect. All we needed to do was to get to the starting point in Milngavie, bike to Tarbet (on the above map, a bit south from Inverarnan), mount the train, and find a campsite.

By the way, try saying "Milngavie."

Wrong. Like I said, the wrong English. (Yeah yeah, the whole Gaelic thing. Still wrong.)