There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

No, I'm not neglecting this, but there has been frack all going on in my life. I am still looking for more work to help out with my part time not-job, and getting more and more freaked out by the second as reports keep coming in that now places like MacDonald's is turning away staff. Eek.

I am officially documented! Yesterday Scottie and I went down to the good ol' passport support office in West Sacramento and they took all my fingerprints. I ahve to say, I was quite impressed with my bad ass skills at driving sans map and with Scottie as my co-pilot.

Not that I am dissing his navigational skillz, but the poor kid just can't really give directions. Thank Jebus I gave myself an hour to find the place! We started out early because Scottie wanted to find a Borders, thanks to having read all of his reading material at the ranch for lack of anything else to do here. The mystical shopping place was located somewhere just before Sacramento city, and I managed to get there, even with the signs being written in minescule lettering. After a brief lunch of Subway (where I told the dude Southwest Sauce and he gave me Sweet Onion...wha?) we were on our way.

"Okay, now do a U-Turn."
'No need, the U-turn was to get us onto Turxel, but they had a light there, so I did a left turn...don't worry, we're on Turxel now"
'Are you sure? No! You passed it, Truxel is down that way!"
"No, the signs correlate to direction...so if you see a road sign running parallel to the road you are on, then you are on that road...the signs that cross the road are for the streets that run perpendicular to the road you are on.'
"That makes no sense, American has crazy streets"
"No, dear, it works the same in the UK"
"No it doens't."

And it got worse from there.

"Okay, now turn onto Reed Ave."
"Already did that"
"What? When?"
"At that stop light. I turned left, quick, what are the next directions"
"Um, oh, you should have turned back there."
"What?!?! you're sure? Okay, let me find a place to U-Turn."

After pulling into where I was directed, we searched in vain for the passport building. 795, 800, 820, 830, 840- but no 825.
By now I was kinda freaking out because I really don't like being late for legal things, especially ones concerning my passport and visa. But we had a half hour. After searching in and searching, I finally asked to see the directions.

'Honey, the directions say to say on Reed, and that Reed veers to the left and becomes Riverside"
"Yeah, and you said you turned left. "
"Yes, but that was step 3. Step 4 is Reed veers to the left and becomes Riverside. We're not on Riverside. We need to go back onto Reed and stay on it until it turned into Riverside."
'Oh."

Internal head smacking and deep breathing ensued.

But in the end, it all worked out and I was literally in and out in 3 minutes- and that includes the bathroom break!

The next step was to find Old Town Sacramento. I had been there once when I was 10 on a school fieldtrip to the capitol, and I figured it would be a fun mini-trip to take Scottie to now that we were in the area. Trouble was, the directions were fracked. Google maps failed me, and after instrucing me to take Jefferson Blvd, it said to go straight. But Jefferson ended in a stoplight for left or right. I picked the left since there were loads of holiday flags on that side, and just wandered about. I figured that Sacramento couldn't be bigger than Santa Rosa, if even that size, and lo and behold, I ended up taking a ramp that led me right to Old Town parking. We wandered the wee shops along Old Town and had some Frozen youghurt before loading up on Jelly Bellys and Salt Water Taffy and heading back home. With no idea how to get home, we had to rely on my kick ass directions skills, and after only one wee mis-turn that had us heading towards Reno on 80, we managed to get back to the 5 and homewards. Whoot!!!

Moral of story: women drive and do better when they give themselves directions.

Back from holiday!! Yes, on Monday, Scottie and I departed his parents house in Fife for the wild, stormy North. Which now means that I have to spill all my travels on here.

We started out heading up along the coast road, stopping at Arbroath for lunch. Then we continued up towards Aberdeen because I just had to stop at Dunnotar Castle. This castle is AWESOME! It's surrounded by the bay, overlooks the North Sea, and kept me entertained running around it's massive grounds, searching rooms, and wandering up staircases.
It was magic.

The next stop was at our B&B. But first we had to get through Aberdeen. Now, Scottie passed his license a year ago, but never drove after passing it. So a week before he went on a lot of practice runs with his brother and dad, so he was a bit more confident at the wheel...and absolutely fine driving on the country roads...but we had to go and follow the advice of his brother's satellite navigation thing, and the bastard took us RIGHT THROUGH CENTRAL ABERDEEN DURING RUSH HOUR!!! Now I've done my fair share of driving though cities- San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego- but even though I have 8 years of driving under my belt, I still do my best to avoid driving through the city centres when I can....and even though I wasn't driving, going through Aberdeen with Scottie almost set me off in an anxiety attack. There were invisible bus lanes, pedestrians running out on suicide missions, taxi drivers of death, and impatient tailgaters who liked to ignore roundabout courtesy and just gun it. Somehow, Scottie kept his cool and we made it out alive, in one piece, and with no additional dents, dings, or scrapes. Whoo!

We got to our B&B and crashed on the bed. Then we headed back into town for dinner- in a town no bigger than a thumbnail, but which contained a disproportionate amount of NEDs, all driving around in circles in their souped up rice rockets, seeing who could have the loudest exhaust. Ugh. The next day we headed out early again for the next leg of our journey. This part followed the coast route before breaking off through Fyvie, then back up along to coast to meet Inverness. We stopped at Fyvie castle en route for a look at the amazing interior. Fyvie started out as a royal hunting lodge in the 13th century, then was bought and sold 5 different times. In the 18th century, it was remodelled more along the line of a stately home, and much of the crystal, paintings, furniture, and decorations are from that period. Then it was bought in the turn of the 20th century by a Scotsman who married a Louisiana shipping heiress, and he fitted it out with electricity, indoor water, and Tiffany lamps. Then after our tour of the castle, we were off to B&B number two.

Our B&B was a great place out near the Culloden battle field. Again, we set out in the early morning to make our way up to John O'Groats. Along the way we went through the little town of Cullen, known for its Cullen Skink, a.k.a. delicious fish chowder. And lovely California-esque beaches. This part of the drive was super lovely, and we had the good fortune of having sunny skies all the way through. John O'G is suuuper remote. But it is the northern most town in mainland Britain, which is why we went. One exciting thing they had was a large crafts centre of different shops that sold candles, pottery, and knitwear. Now my mom has been whining for me to buy her 'real Scottish sweaters from the Highlands' for ages, and I always just go to the charity shop and get a second hand jumper from Marks and Spencers...I think she is catching on. So I was excited to see a shop devoted to woolly hats, fair isle jumpers, and scarves, all made by little old Scottish women around the peat fire in the literal middle of nowhere. Except that it was closed for a week-including the day we were there. Pants. So it looks like mom is getting another £3 thing from Cancer Research.

Since the only thing to do in JoG is go to the crafts centre and Stacks, we made sure to do both. The Stacks of Duncansby are large rock formations that jet out of the North Sea about 2 miles from JoG. And trust me, there are pictures of them EVERYWHERE. Our B&B had 8 different picts of them framed up all around the room, on place mats, on coasters, and as post cards. So naturally, we had to head to see them too. So at 9 in the morning, we trekked out to visit the Stacks, while 30mph gusts of constant wind threaten to blows us away to oblivion. Then we headed to Dunnet Head, the farthest point North in Britain you can reach. And then we were off again, this time along the top of Scotland to the small town of Tongue for lunch. Then off again through the mountains back to Inverness. We left Inverness bright and early to head to Kingussie, our last stop before home. We got there with plenty of time for hiking, and went on a very picturesque trek up a hill that over looked the town. Let me say, the 250m ascent reminded me of how out of shape I am, and fatty over here needed to take copious breaks to pant. But at least it gave some lovely views. We also stopped over to see the remains of Ruthven Barraks, a fort taken by the Jacobites just after Culloden. Then after a restful night in the wonderful little B&B, it was time to head for home, but not after a stop to Doune Castle. Doune Castle is famous, not for being one of the most intact 13th century castles, but because of it's star role in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yes, it is the castle that Arthur gets taunted from by the French who farts in his general direction and then launches a cow off the castle roof at poor Arthur and his comrade. But aside from Monty Python stardom, it's an all around awesome castle. You actually can climb up the twisting, tiny stairs to the roof, check out the rooms, the various halls, the bedrooms, it was just all around awesome.
Thus ended our fun and fantastic trip up and around Scotland. You would think that after seeing so much of this small country, I would done with it, but being able to drive around it only made me want to see even more. There were countless other castles that we didn't see, stately homes, new mountains to climb, the entire West coast to explore, and more... it's hard to believe that such a small country can still have so much more to offer!