Today I woke up and got on Twitter and saw that someone I knew had posted something about how “all Americans should be required to travel internationally,” preferably to non-Western locales. Putting aside the implicit classicism, I figure the idea is that by traveling the world, Americans would be jarred out of their smug, self-satisfied and limited worldview which, I’ve got to be honest, is pretty much the same thing I mean when I say that all San Franciscans should be required to drive cross-country once a year. We are all guilty, different only by specifics and degrees.
So I rolled my eyes and moved onto the next tweet, which was (thankfully) about how Steph Curry has decided to fund the first six years of a reborn golf team at Howard University. But then later I went back to the first tweet and thought, “Maybe the idea here doesn’t have to be that we need to travel the world as eye-opening punishment for our geopolitical sins. Maybe, assuming we ever get the chance, which is a big “if” and not anything I’ve ever counted on, we should get out there just to see all of the awesome stuff that’s going on. I mean, I’m a major fan of telling people we’ve got awesome stuff going on where we live — if I were to include the number of times I’ve told people in the past 45 days that I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than Orcas Island, that number would be at least 10 — but why not see as much awesome stuff as you can? Which is pretty much what we’ve been doing here in England, Scotland and Ireland since we landed on July 9.
And now today, six-and-a-half weeks later, we go home.
On August 23, 1987, I pulled into a spot in front of my high school friend The Irrepressible Dr. Bando, in Seattle, Washington, my car full of my stuff, a week after loading up, waving good-bye to my undoubtedly relieved parents (I’d been couch-surfing at their new condo since the previous November) and eventually landing in a flophouse downtown apartment with a job in a bar. It wasn’t much, but it was at least the clear beginning of the part of my life other people might call adulthood. Now, 32 years later to the day, I’m sitting here in the United lounge looking across at a girl I met a few years after that and am fortunate to call my wife, life partner, whatever you want to call it but also the person who convinces me to go see more stuff. If I make to 80, I hope she’s still sitting there, maybe eating a nice plate of fruit and scrambled eggs like she is right now, but definitely urging me to get out and go. If that means I have to buy some of those carbon fiber walking sticks and several pairs of zip-off REI pants, so be it.
We’re waiting for our flight back to San Francisco and I’m feeling equal parts relieved (not as relieved as my parents were back in 1987) and wistful, like half of me can’t wait to get home and the other half could keep doing this forever, as long as someone periodically mails me a bag of Casa Sanchez tortilla chips (thick) to keep me tethered to my normal self. Kudos to Windsor for sweeping out all of the tourists last night and giving us one more transcendent experience, a simple dinner and walk home that shot just enough juice into us to make going home today a matter of choice, not need.
I’m not sure I could impress any of my “Americans should be forced to travel to Istanbul” friends with tales of drunken Scots, pottery shops and Stonehenge, but I wish you could’ve been there to hear how the Scots said my name (LAH-D-D-D-IE) and I wish I could convince you that, mobs of tourists or no, Stonehenge is totally worth the trip, even if yours doesn’t include nine intimate hours with Phoenix, Sena and the Southworths.
I’m going to keep this short, because our plane will be here soon and frankly, I’m sure that by now you’ve had your fill of me. It’s not like a trip to England, Scotland and Ireland is something that’s supposed to change your life, not dramatically, but 45 days on the road is pretty epic, and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few things I saw, heard or talked about that didn’t give me a little pit of pause, a little perspective and a few ideas about how I’d like to approach things after we get home.
If we hadn’t come on this trip, we’d never know what a broch is, never have heard of the Pects. We’d never have seen Hadrian’s Wall or the remains of a Roman village. We’d never have sat on the side of a hill, looking out over the Isle of Skye or heard all of the stories about Bonnie Prince Charlie, never have tasted a haloumi burger or heard the beautiful harmonies of Drops of Green, never have almost fallen off the Cliffs of Moher or seen elderly sisters dancing with each other after midnight.
We would’ve missed the Michelin star dinner at Martin Wishaw (SP), the first bite of sticky toffee pudding in Lerwick, the gin and tonic revolution in Durham and the scones. All of those scones. We never would’ve seen the crown jewels (even though they were sort of a disappointment), the kids playing music in Inverness that sounded like Astral Weeks without the vocals, the cool neighborhood in Liverpool, a bar called “The Blob Shop.” We would have no idea that sometimes certain English retailers won’t accept Scottish pound notes (just because they’re snobs that way) and would’ve missed out on the peace and serenity you can find in Chipping-Camden. I’d still wonder what it was like to fly in a prop plane, and we never would’ve learned about athleisure wear from Peter O’Toole.
I never would’ve had 45 days in a row with Sandra Bullock, not until/unless we’re fortunate enough to make it to retirement.
I am just a passenger in this life, one lucky enough to ride shotgun on some pretty awesome trips. Thanks to Sandra Bullock, who makes this all possible. Whatever the cross-meanings of her intentions, thanks to the author of the scolding tweet I mentioned at the beginning of this last post, because you are correct. It’s better to get out there and see stuff, though I’d argue that a night in Kingman, Arizona is worth just as much as one in Tehran. But in the end, it all counts. After all, if we’d never taken this trip, how would I know that I like butter better than clotted cream?
Here are you wrap-up numbers:
45 — days spent on the road
20 — stops. In order: London, Durham, Aberdeen, Lerwick, Edinburgh, Inverness, Portree, Inverness (again), Galway, Doolin, Dingle, Kenmare, Cork, Kilkenny, Dublin, Liverpool, Keswick, Chipping-Campden, Bath, Windsor. (excludes day trips) And speaking of those day trips…
7 — scheduled day-trip major tours: Shetlands, Hadrian’s Wall, St. Andrews, Isle of Skye and the Highlands, Ring of Kerry, 10 Lakes Spectacular, Stonehenge
2 — distillery tours: Dingle and Ballykeefe. One brewery tour, in Lerwick.
3 — palace tours, mostly done under mild protest by me but what sort of monster would deny the joy me otherwise pragmatic wife feels when in the virtual presence of the Royal Family?
4 — major, all-day hikes, requiring the wearing of hiking shoes and dumb pants. The longest of these covered 15 miles (I think) and almost cost me my life.
37 (estimated) — plates of chips consumed. We tailed off a bit toward the end.
4 — tubes of toothpaste used.
2 — times Sandra Bullock made a guided tour stop so she could take a picture of an animal native to the region. First time was a highlands cow; second was one of those Herdwicke sheep.
45 — consecutive days where something we ate had red onions in it. Ease up on the red onions, England, Ireland and Scotland.
30 — days, out of 45, that I wore the same pair of Levis.
That’s it, everyone. Thanks for coming along, but now it's time for Sandra Bullock to get back to ruling the world and for me to get back to that other sabbatical (the one where, sadly, I don’t actually write every day), my life. After 45 days, we leave with no regrets except one: I still don’t know how to pronounce Vauxhall.