UK Trip, Part Seven: Setting out for the Scottish Highlands
"We're lost," says Elaine from the passenger seat, peering into the screen of the GPS unit in her lap.
From the driver's seat I glance over at the GPS, but quickly plant my eyes back on the road so I can avoid sending the four of us over the edge of a cliff. The green ravine at the bottom looks pretty at 60 miles an hour, but that's because we're moving horizontally; probably ain't so pretty at a vertical 60.
We've been driving through the Highlands for a couple hours and change. Neither Elaine nor I (the two designated front-seaters) know where we are, so yep, we're officially lost--and I totally don't care. Getting lost is only stressful to me if I'm on a timetable, transporting something I shouldn't be transporting, or being chased. Also, there are good places to be lost and bad places:
Good places to be lost
Scottish Highlands
Swiss countryside
Tokyo
Bad places to be lost
Newark
Fallujah
Shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia
We turn off of the main road onto a smaller one winding up into the hills. "Sorry, I'm not sure what's wrong with this thing," says Elaine, fiddling with the GPS. I tell her it's fine; Sandra and Tony chime in from the back seat with similar sentiments. I pull over on the shoulder, get out to have a cigarette, and take in the scenery around me.
It occurs to me that there is some danger in us getting lost, and that is that we'll run out of gas. Before leaving Glasgow, we stopped at a petrol station to tank the car up, as it was nearly dead empty. I stuck the nozzle in and started fueling--and it finished so fast I felt like I should tell the nozzle "Hey, it's okay, you're probably just tired, it's not a big deal" while it wept quietly in my arms.
So yeah, the gas tank on this car is tiny, like really freaking tiny. I think I filled it up on 13 liters (less than four gallons!). And out here we've passed a lot of sweeping greenish-brown vistas capped by dramatic cloudscapes, but not so many petrol stations.
"I think I've got it," says Elaine. As for the gas worries, I get back in the car thinking the same dumb thing I've thought ever since I've started writing, which is "If [this unfortunate thing] happens, maybe it will make a good story."
Another thing about Elaine is she's good with recommendations. Back when she lived in New York we'd be driving through Brooklyn or the city in her car wanting to get a bite to eat, she'd say "Where do you want to go?" and as picky as I am, I'd still always leave it up to her. In all of the New York hang time we had, we never went to the same place twice and she never steered me wrong. I had more good meals ordered through hot waitresses with Elaine than with anyone else.
Unfortunately, the lunch place she's chosen for us in the Highlands, after all of the twists and turns we took to get there, is closed. Of all the days to arrive, we get there the day they're painting the place.
"They say there's another place just up the road," says Elaine, sounding a bit deflated. The flip side to her always-spot-on recommendations is that she seems to take it hard if she doesn't deliver. I wish she wouldn't worry--you couldn't pick more laid-back travel companions than Tony and Sandra, and I'm so hungry I'll eat anything--but I know you can't change people's personalities.
So up the road we troop, to a place called--you know what, I can't remember the goddamned name, it was someplace with a green sign. (Now you see why I'll never work for Conde Nast Traveler.) It's a gas station and rest stop with a cafeteria-style restaurant and adjoining gift shop.
Inside I'm excited to see they serve what I take to be traditional Scottish fare, mostly meats and fishes. I order an open-faced roast beef sandwich and something that looks like a Jamaican beef patty filled with haggis. Tony orders this white fish broth called Cullen Skink, which we immediately begin calling Cullen Skank, because we are basically children.
The beef sandwich is middling, but the Scottish Jamaican haggis patty freaking rocks. Haggis is pretty gamy and I definitely have ex-girlfriends who would spit it out but I really like it. Then I try Tony's Cullen Skank and holy shit, it is amazing! It's like a more flavorful New England Clam Chowder filled with MDMA, and unlike the New England stuff it doesn't give you that feeling that 30 minutes later you're going to be running to the bathroom, pushing people out of the way to get there.
After finishing the meal, I don't have to go to the bathroom, but I go anyway. My one rule of travel, whether I'm in a city or the countryside, is if you see a bathroom, you pee. This habit was borne out of the time when I was backpacking through the Amalfi Coast and I had to go so very, very bad but had to hold it so long that I was worried I'd done permanent damage to my urinary tract. When I finally did get to a bathroom it kind of hurt to go. There we have a second article I won't be writing for CNT.
After coming out of the bathroom for my forced pee I run into Tony. "Dude did you see The Scotch Room?" he says, making it sound like it was capitalized.
"The Scotch Room?" I ask. We're in a friggin' gas station.
"In the gift shop," he says. I follow him in there.
Past shelves of T-shirts, mugs, kilts and trinkets is this three-walled room in the back...fucking lined with Scotch. Just lined with it bro, floor to ceiling on three walls. In any booze shop back home I've never seen more than a dozen, maybe two dozen different types of Scotch, but this place has literally hundreds of them. I feel like I'm in that scene in The Matrix when mad shelves of guns hurtle into existence around Morpheus and Neo.
The proprietor is an older white-haired guy, traipsing around the store, adjusting stuff. "All of these are available for tastings, you know," he says. I can see like, a half-dozen types of Balvenie alone I'd like to try.
Man. Of all the days I've gotta be driving along cliffs....
Maybe it will make a good story, I think. I can probably get away with five tastings before the guy cuts me off, he doesn't know my tolerance is low...I can make it a few miles in the car before it kicks in....
I ultimately decide it would make a terrible story.
Not that this one is any better. But, you know, at least I didn't kill Tony, Elaine and Sandra.
Up Next: Mo' Highlands