Vacation Days Fifteen and Sixteen-Misty Mountain Hop

At long last, we've come to the last vacation post. At least, until my next post where I talk about the long weekend I spent in New York before going abroad. Basically, its still World Tour posts as far as the mind can bear.

Most of what I'll discuss happened on day 15, which was hiking near Loch Lomond, largest lake in the British Isles. The next day, "Day 16," was mostly a travel day, though I did swing by the Bannockburn battlefield and visitor's center. No trace of Mel Gibson to be found, thankfully.

Now, most of you who've read my previous travelogues know my absolute inability to relate my hiking experiences adequately. Typical posts are along the lines of "I hiked through the forest to the top of the hill, and it was a really beautiful view. Really beautiful. Just...really...beautiful." Snore. Kind of like the way the astronauts described their view of the earth while on the moon, which sounded like the way it would read in an electrical engineering technical manual. So I generally turn those posts into something else. Like talking about some Star Trek episode. Like the one where Kirk gets laid on some bizarro planet. Or the one where McCoy and Spock argue, but make up in the end. Or the one where the guys in the red uniforms are the only ones in the landing party who get killed. All of which begs the question why I'm writing a post in the first place. Or anything other than "spent the day hiking and saw lots of awesome scenery, peace out."

Today's a little different because I can complain about the weather, and impliedly congratulate myself for being such a tough guy that I'll hike in the rain. Like a big boy!

Unlike the previous day, with sunshine gloriously bathing Glasgow, this was the worst weather of the whole trip. It started out gray with dark clouds and stayed that way, raining off and on, though mainly on, all day. It gave the Scottish countryside a kind of Lord of the Rings feeling, like hobbits or elves or some other creepy wood nymph was lurking around every corner.

This day I headed to Loch Lomond, near the town of Balloch, located near the southern shore. I arrived at the Scotland Visitor's office shortly before lunch, and they gave me some tips on a good trail that started (ironically) in the small town of Drymen, ran through some nice forest area, then through some mountains and descended to the lake at the town of Balloch. All told it was about an eight mile hike, taking about four hours. It runs through a national park, however.

I had some initial trouble finding the trailhead. The Visitor's Centre guy basically said to drive to Drymen and it would just be there. Of course that didn't turn out, so I had to pull into the post office to ask the clerk for directions. In the UK, the "post office" is an odd combination of a 7-11 and an actual post office, which means that the workers aren't quite as mutant-like and mass murder prone as their US counterparts (sorry US postal workers, I really love you). He set me off to find the shortcut, which after years of experience I should have immediately suspected as the wrong way to go. Take the one lane road about a mile out of town and park at the "car park." Which was located at the spot where the tree line begins. A flock of sheep (its a "flock," right?) huddled nearby, all looking at me. Those damn inquisitive sheep. Oh, by "car park," the post office guy meant the two-car space in front of the trailhead. Have I mentioned that in the UK, a "parking lot" is called "car park"? Can't remember. "Car park" evokes visions of a place where cars go to toss frisbees, have picnics and make out with their car girlfriends.

Off I trudged, just as the rain started. The first part of this trail, roughly 45 minutes worth, was downhill. Not a good thing. You want to hike the uphill part as the beginning while you're still fresh. It runs through a nice forest area. Or at least it would have run through a nice forest, except that the devolved Scottish government (don't blame this one on David Cameron and the Conservatives) decided to open the area up to logging. So all around, deforestation blight absolutely ruined the the chance at finding a Walden-like natural bliss. Yeah, that last sentence was kind of douche, but, ok, let's just move on. Who the hell decides to open up national parks to logging. Say what you will about the Republican Party, but I don't recall them allowing loggers to chop down half of Yosemite. Yet, these Brits are so preachy about environmental issues. Kind of hard to swallow after seeing this spectacle.

After moving on past tree debris, the trail leads out into a glen (valley, I think) leading uphill toward some fairly low-level mountains. This marks the spot where clouds, mist, and other yuck started rolling in, wave after wave, through the day. It would rain, then stop. Then mist and stop. Then rain again, and stop. Until about the point where I was going up on the biggest mountain and it just started pouring buckets and didn't stop. All this while, I'm going steeply uphill along a rock and gravel trail, through the rain, happy in my seemed-too-expensive-at-the-time REI rain jacket, smugly self-satisfied at my perseverance. But disappointed that the rain was obscuring what would otherwise have been some incredible scenery. Did I mention the winds were pretty strong too? Especially as the trail elevation picked up. Alone with my thoughts, I envisioned myself as one of those low-level TV reporters trying to make a name for themselves by standing on the shore as the hurricane rolls in, giving viewers a "first hand look" at the devastation unfolding before him. When Dan Rather did it in 1961, it was kind of interesting. He used his role in Hurricane Carla to get his network gig. But today...its played.

As the elevation increased, the vegetation was closer and closer to the ground. Ferns and grasses resembling some sort of ragweed or alfalfa gradually gave way to a heatherish looking plant covering lots of rocks. The trail started washing out too, with mud on either side of what was essentially a small creek with rushing rainwater. Again, towards the top, I could see that the mist and clouds were obscuring what would otherwise be amazing views of the valley on one side and the lake on the other. Very frustrating. But, hey, the alternative was to sit in the White Trash Bed and Breakfast and smell cigarette smoke. So "onward through the fog," you know what I mean Vern?

There's some line in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to the effect of "going down the mountain is not the problem." Well, today it was. Because while on a drier day it would be fairly easy to scramble down the slope, that's not so easily done when you have to worry about wiping out on the slick, wet rocks. So going down wound up taking a lot longer than it should have. Also, once I rounded the mountain the lake came into view, but the winds really picked up, nearly blowing me down and blowing the rain right at me. Obviously I'd been on the lee side; there's a lot more vegetation on this downward side leading to the lake than where I'd been hiking. Oh joy. It was almost like a rain forest, with an abundance of ferns, and at lower elevation, more Knights Who Say Ni trees.

But eventually I made it to the car park and the small visitor's center. The local bus stops there through the day, so I took it back to Drymen. Unfortunately, the stop is about a mile and a half from my car park, so I was treated to another 25 minutes walking uphill along the road, through driving rain, past more sheep, back to the car. Towards the end I could feel myself shriveling like I'd been in the bathtub for more than an hour. Or so I would imagine....Anyway, I was like a stray dog. I just drove back to Stirling, crawled into bed, watched the NFL Red Zone on my trusty laptop to catch the Texans highlights, and spent the night packing.

The next day was mostly a travel day, but I did swing by the visitor's center at Bannockburn, as previously advertised. For a description of the battle and its historic significance, click on the link above. Within the next year or two, the government and the heritage trust will break ground on a much more elaborate center that promises to dazzle. Not a minute too soon, because considering that the Battle of Bannockburn was one of the most important battles fought on British soil, the present visitor's center is the pits. Pretty much just a bunch of models and text painted on the wall. The grounds were lovely, as this day was bright and sunny (of course). Unfortunately, it turns out that what they've preserved as the "battle site" probably isn't where the actual battle took place. Once again, we've got it all over these people. American Civil War sites are so much more informative and well-preserved. If you can, check out some of them.

After this, I headed to Edinburgh, and flew back to Dublin where I spent the night. Not much to report. I basically pulled into town, went running, then hunkered down for the night preparing to fly back home the next day. The only noteworthy thing I discovered is that St. Stephen's Green, one of Dublin's main parks, is a total make-out destination. I can understand why, the place is lovely. At every turn, couples were totally making out. Kind of hard to take, you know.

Now, I've been saving this one, because I'm not really sure whether its all that appropriate. But...how to say this? Irish women are totally smokin' hot. Its shocking, I know. But all over Dublin, and all through the countryside, everywhere you turn, you see another really beautiful woman. And its not that there's a lot of redheads either. The typical look was dark hair, blue eyes, fair complexion. Imagine a place where you see Catherine Zeta-Jones walking down the street and you think, "eh, average." I was very surprised to find this. In fact, other than South Louisiana, Irish women are probably the most beautiful I've seen yet. (Hey, no one's ever going to beat South Louisiana in this regard; its why LSU and UL-La are probably the greatest places on earth). Scottish girls? Uh, let's just say...not so much. Too much haggis I imagine.

OK, there it is. Ireland and Scotland. Sixteen days. I was exhausted. If you followed this the whole way through (or even read one of these) you probably are too. But thanks for following along. Hope you got something out of it too. Next year I'll stay in the USA. Thinking of renting an apartment in Seattle, going to Bumbershoot again, and day tripping it to various hiking locales. What would you suggest?

NEXT-more travel. My NYC recap.