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

Back to my mini-holiday last week- it was FANDABIDOZI! I love reconnecting with an old friend, and it really made me feel so relaxed and happy how easily we slipped back into each others' lives. Even though I am rubbish about keeping in contact with people while I am in the UK (me and phone don't happen too often), my friends matter, and I figure that a good friendship is one that you can just pick up right where you left off, no matter how long it's been since you've last spoken. Missy and are are like that. After barely speaking for a year, we jumped in the car, drove up, and had the best time ever. Always had something to talk about, were thinking the same things, and never at any point felt awkward.

Anyway, our trip began to a late start thanks to being New Years Day, aka hungover. Well, not so much me, but Missy. So I drove up to Eureka since I was full of pep while Missy tried to keep her stomach through the twisting dark roads. We arrived, found a Motel 8, and crashed. The next day we went into Old Town Eureka. It just so happens that at the time we were talking about...knitting. Apparently Missy knits too...and had brought her knitting...just like I had brought my crochet project. As we turned a corner looking for parking, I mentioned how we should look for a knit shop so I could get some double pointed needles for her to show me how to use, when BAM, we literally almost ran into a knit shop! Que spending 4 hours at the knit shop, spending too much on our non-existant budgets, and not moving apart from knitting and purling. But seriously, what else is there to do in Eureka?

Not wanting to waste all our time feeing our crack habit, we up and left at lunch time and shot our way North to Arcata, which, we were told, was 'A college town like Berkeley'. Ha. If Berkeley were the size of one city block. However, we did get FANTASTIC views going to Patrick's Point:



The next day marked our desecent back to the living via Avenue of the Giants and the horribly tacky throwbacks of 1950's tourist trap delights.

Avenue of the Giants is probably my favourite place in CA apart from the redwoods of Sonoma county. The trees are massive, ancient, and there is something so magical about the intense, verdant ocean of life that surrounds you.

A local giant Totally reminds me of Twilight...not that I am obsessed with that or anything...

We also made sure we caught the delights of the Loleta Cheese factor, with it's 39 different cheese, all of which we could sample at our pleasure. Heck yes!

We opted to take the senic Hwy 1 down the coast of Mendocino to Jenner before cutting back into the redwoods for home. And managing to catch some lovely sunsent along the way.


Our trip included Confusion Hill, Ledgend of Bigfoot, Chimney Tree, and the Living Tree House, all of which were ridiciously over the top and harkened back to when road trips were the 'thing' to do.

It was two night and three days of absolute fun, relaxation, and the exact escape I needed from live on the ranch...aka life with grandma again.

New Years Eve was sad and depressing rather than than celebratory- it was the gut wrenching day when I had to take Scottie to the airport, alone, and not know when I would see him again...ON OUR 4 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! I know, I know, drama queen, but it was very sad having to leave him at the airport to wander off to his fate (can I add that we had to leave the house at 5:00 AM), a fate which turned out to be hellish.

There wasn't enough room on the plane for him, so Scottie was forced to pay $200 for a last minute flight to LAX. Where he stayed for at least 6 hours before boarding. Once off the ground, the plane needed to make an emergency landing in Chicago. After finally taking off once more, he made it to England, only to find that he had missed his flight to Edinburgh and had to fork out £200 to buy a new ticket.

This was all unknown to me.

Having dropped off my sweetie before the sun arose, I turned around to drive my sorry self home and mope. Having failed at going back to sleep, I decided I might as well head out of my leg of a journey. Since my family's version of New Years Eve is having friends over, eating pizza, and heading off to bed at 9:00 PM, I decided to hightail it back to the glorious Sonoma country to see my best friend from elementary school.

And proceeded to have 6 or 7 margaritias and two or three lemon drops. All in all, it was a fantabulously drunk night of party revelery, and I magically managed to NOT be ill OR have a hangover. Giggidy.

The next day one of my best friends from university drove up, and together we escaped reality and ran away to Humboldt county to get our fill of redwoods, rain, hippies, and hicks. And we got plenty of all of those. Stay tuned for the adventures of Shady and Missy on holiday.

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!