Wednesday, July 24

Here it is - another travel day. We have breakfast and say goodbye to Karen and Keith, tell them how much we enjoyed staying with them and take a picture of them working in the kitchen. We also  say goodbye to the dog. I think her name is Sylvia, but I'm not sure.

When we first arrived in Scotland - 2 1/2 weeks ago - all  of the sheep were fat (they had their coats on). As we leave, about 98% of them have been sheared. They're all little. That's a way to mark the time.

Sad to say its foggy but we decide it must burn off by our flight time of 11:15. As we drive down the road, the fog gets worse, but its also patchy, so we think that's ok. We have plenty of time, so we stop at Jarlshof, a ruin site about 1 mile from the airport. This site is 4,000 years old where several cultures lived at one time or another. Archaeologists don't know if the Vikings  took this site by force or if the former inhabitants had already left. Later Earl Patrick, who has a really bad reputation during the 17th century and was eventually hanged for  treason, had a castle here. The site is next to a hotel.

We pulled out and drove over to the airport and parked the rental car with the keys in the visor as we had been instructed. This airport has one little quirk that I think is unique. As you enter or leave the airport area, you must drive across one of the runways. There is a gate at either side to stop you if a plane is coming by. It really feels weird.

Then its to the check-in desk. We hand over our bags, get our boarding pass and then the Flybe.com rep tells us that our 11:15 flight will be delayed until at least 3:00. Weather you know. Its 10:30. We settle down at a table and break out our computer and iPhone. Around 12:00, they give us a 10 pound food voucher and we decide that we should use it because we don't know when we'll be able to eat again. Around 1:00, they call us to go through security, our plane is coming. Two Flybe.com planes come in close together. The first one delivers the first minister of Scotland. There is a minor fuss and people taking pictures and someone is interviews him. The people who get to  board the plane are those who should have boarded at 8:30, so they certainly deserve to go before us. About 30 minutes later, we board our plane and take off. Our stewardess, is a cute, young, odd sounding Italian. She sounds like Latka on the Taxi TV show if anyone remembers that. We thought she was from Romania or Bulgaria. Linda thought maybe she came from the heel of Italy.

So, as we approach Aberdeen, we have to circle because of traffic due to the weather. Its turning out to be a slow day. Everything is taking just a little longer than anticipated. Once on the ground, we are given a larger KIA rental car than anticipated. But, this is good. We are going to take Jill and Jim to Manchester with us tomorrow and we need the extra room for the suitcases and them.

We get on the road and immediately run into Aberdeen rush hour traffic. Its 4:00 and our Tom-Tom is telling us that its going to take 6 hours driving time to get to Jill and Jim's house. Well, suck it up and lets get on down the road.

We have a good size sedan, all good 4 or 6 lane road with a mostly 70 mph speed limit. But, its still 6 hours. I try to keep the car at about 75 and sometimes 80 to make good time and I do. We stop every 2 hours to walk and stretch. Our second stop is at a Costa coffee place where we can sit outside by a pond. Very pleasant. By now the sun has come out and the temperature is probably about 68. With about 50 miles to go I start getting tired. Linda is whistling and I'm concentrating. At just about 10:24, as the Tom-Tom had said, we pull into the back of Jill and Jim's row house in Burnley - 335 miles. I figure I have driven about 2500 miles so far in the last 2 and 1/2 weeks on the wrong side of the road.

We walk in like tired and whipped dogs. Jim greets us with the news that he is cancer free. He is so excited as well he should be. Its been 8 years since he lost his kidney and has been going through treatments for 3 years. We congratulate him and tell him how happy we are for him. We can't talk for too long because all 4 of us are tired. We'll talk so more tomorrow. Good night.