Frenchy's Rant

After a little too much study of the subtle art of Scottish relaxation techniques the night before, Day Two started out a bit hazy for me. I’ve always said that a true adventure begins with a hangover, and I wanted this Expedition to be the truest, most realist, and bestest adventure yet.

I was off to a good start.

We stopped for breakfast in a little town, and Fiona, the Expedition’s unofficial photographer, ran across the street to snap a quick picture. Amazingly, what little traffic there was actually stopped and waited so she could take the shot. This was our first real indication that we were in unfamiliar territory. At home, drivers would’ve gotten in the way then stopped to ruin the picture by flipping off the camera. Hmm… what is this strange new place we’ve discovered?

Our waitress wasn’t that surprised the cars stopped. “That’s the Maine way. Things here are probably a bit slower than you are used to.” She wasn’t kidding, after ordering, breakfast took a half hour to arrive.

After breakfast, we rode north some more. As we rolled past antique shop after antique shop, I couldn’t help but wonder how all these places, hundreds, no, make that thousands of them, stay in business. It’s not as if they’re making new antiques, so the supply has to run out eventually. And, is there really such a high demand for antiques anyway? Keith put it best, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I want in my house. A bunch of old crap that is outdated, unused and dangerous.” After a pleasant jaunt up Cadillac Mountain and through Acadia National Park, it was lunchtime (Thus far on our Expedition, we may not have found the greatest roads, but we certainly didn’t go hungry.) For lunch we decided to sample Maine’s state bird, the lobstah. A small place simply called ‘Lobsters’ won our business with their no-nonsense name.

Thank you Dave for your contribution to the Expedition. We appreciated it much more than the lobsters did!

Besides stuffing our faces and making our pants tighter, our Expedition had a few mandates. First was visiting Lubec, Maine for a picture in the Easternmost Town in the Continental United States, satisfying part two of the Four Corners Mandate. Not many people put visiting Lubec on their agenda, as evidenced by the tiny town’s nearly complete indifference to being the easternmost point in the US.

Last fall, Fiona, Abi and I rode to Key West, a place extremely proud of being the southernmost point in the US. Every business in Key West is the ‘Southernmost’ whatever it is, from hotel to liquor store. Not one place in Lubec advertised its geographical superiority over other, less easterly businesses.

After our picture at the sign, and few more quick snapshots in town, Lubec was officially added to my list of ‘Places to Never Visit Again.’ Even still, the visit was a success. All that’s left for the Four Corners Mandate to be complete is visiting Northwest Angle, Minnesota for the northernmost point, and Ozette, Washington for the westernmost, and another silly collection of meaningless pictures will be complete.

Day Two nearly ended in disaster as Keith, trying too hard to make the turn into the motel, learned the natural resting position of a motorcycle is on its side. Nothing more than his pride was hurt, though I was kind of pissed off. Not because he dropped Stormbringer, I mean, I like the bike and all, but it’s just a hunk of metal, certainly not worth getting mad about. I was pissed because NOBODY GOT A PICTURE OF IT!!

Once that little drama played itself out, Day Two ended once again with a ‘Best Day Ever’ toast, this time in front of the easternmost motel with vacant rooms, a nice, unsterilized, un-vacuumed, generic motel outside Lubec.

The next day, I had a nasty surprise planned for Abi, an avowed lighthouse hater.

The next installment of the Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition can be found here.

After months of waiting, planning and more waiting, the countdown clocks all reached zero, and June 10^th, the official Expedition kickoff day, finally arrived. Everybody flew from their respective homes and assembled in the Kingdom of Rhode Island, and the Expedition was finally underway. Mother Nature, whose hatred of motorcycles inspired me to name Stormbringer and Rain Cloud Follows, was once again showing her contempt for the Expedition. Bright blue skies and warm sunshine mocked me as I loaded my gear up for the ten day ride, as if to say, “ Wouldn’t weather this nice be lovely for your whole trip? Too bad for you!”

With a very ambitious plan, a lot of ground to cover, and only ten days available, the Expedition was forced to start off on the highway. Highways are useful for one thing, getting from place A to place B as quickly and scenery free as possible. Boring, but necessary. We slogged our way north on Route 95. The most interesting thing to happen on that first day was lunch.

Finally in Maine, we turned off the superslab for coastal Route One. We meandered through some of Vacationland’s more picturesque scenery. In Rockport, we started looking for a place to stay for our first night of the Expedition. I passed up motel after motel, looking for that perfect spot. Finally, I saw the sign I was looking for, ‘Oakland Seashore Motel and Cabins’ and turned down the dirt path to see what we’d found.

What we’d found at the end of the dirt road was described by the girl at the front desk as a ‘Diamond in the Rough.’

The cabins

The View

This little diamond in the rough, a bargain at $100 a night, really raised the bar for the rest of the trip. After looking around a while, Abi commented, “This place sucks. I hope I don’t have to hear that noise (the ocean waves crashing on the rocks) all night.” I took that to mean he was happy with our first night’s find.

When traveling on my own itinerary, I try hard to not stay in chain hotels, or eat in chain restaurants. Working for the WWE, we spend approximately 120 nights a year in a Hyatt, Marriot or other sterile, soulless, vacuum-packed mega-chain. So, for a change, I look for little, soulful Mom and Pop places where I can park right out front and carry all my girlfriend’s many bags right in the front door, no parking garages, valets, stairs or elevators involved. That, or an incredible cliffside cabin overlooking the ocean will do in a pinch.

The first night of the Expedition ended with our traditional toast, a shot of The Macallan raised to the ‘Best Day Ever!’

The next installment of the Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition can be found here.

A little queasy from a rough night at sea, the group sleepily gears up, unstrap the damp motorcycles from the deck, then roll down the slippery ferry ramp, headed off into what appears to be another cold, damp day. I smile weakly at Fiona and say, “Most people go to an island for vacation, right dear? And this is an island, so we must be on vacation, right dear? It’s not my fault that this island’s daily high temperature is forecast to be in the low fifties…”

Her beautiful blue eyes icily stare straight ahead, while she adjusts the layers of gear, including my electric vest, that will hopefully keep her warm during what promises to be a very cold and wet 400 miles ahead.

But the truth is, it IS my fault. All of it. It’s my affliction. I don’t know where these ideas come from, but my head is almost always bursting at the seams with them. And once they’re in there, they don’t go away. Ride to Alaska on a dirt bike? Why not? Cross the country on a back-breaking hyper sportbike? Sounds great! I can’t do what ‘normal’ people do and go sit on a beach for a vacation. Oh no. I need a challenge. However, coming to Newfoundland on a motorcycle with my girlfriend and two riding buddies in early June on a quest to see icebergs was more than just a challenge, it is probably one of the stupider ideas I’ve had in my long, storied career of stupid ideas. But, to me at least, that’s OK. The most important thing I’ve learned from that career is, the stupider the idea, the more memorable it’ll be when I’m sitting at the old folks home, wrapped in a blanket and wearing a diaper, waiting to be fed and watered. Provided the old head-mounted hard drive doesn’t get erased.

For this expedition, quite an interesting group was assembled. First off, my friend and long time riding buddy Abi (aka DMS One) was invited. Abi and I work for World Wrestling Entertainment as part of the TV crew. Yes, Hulk Hogan and all that. This most unique of occupations keeps us pretty busy, taping two to three live events in two to three days a week. Every. Single. Week. The Upside? Those work weeks are generally two days long. The Downside? Travel. Lots of it.

If you need something done, Abi is the perfect guy to sit there and watch you do it. His love of motorcycling is dwarfed by his love of all things baseball, and if Red Sox game is on, he’s at his most content.Initially hesitant about the amount of effort required for one of my hair-brained undertakings, he’s usually able to be talked into whatever my current ‘good’ ride idea is after a few rounds of pushing, bugging and pestering. We’d talked a lot about riding to Nova Scotia over the past two years, but never seemed to find the time to fit the trip in. Other rides, like Baja California, Deal’s Gap, two cross country journeys, as well as a blast from London in to the Highlands of Scotland, not to mention the constant specter of having to work to pay for gas and beer all seemed to occupy too much time.

But the idea of riding Nova Scotia always rattled around in the back of my tiny brain, and I knew that one day, sooner or later, I’d be able to cross Nova Scotia off my list of places to claim for the Kingdom of Rhode Island. Claiming islands for my homeland by affixing a Rhode Island state flag to their “Welcome to…” sign was a tradition I started in Scotland earlier this year; a tradition I was eager to continue. When the WWE scheduled a rare week off in early June, I knew the long dreamed about Expedition could finally become a reality.

My girlfriend Fiona (aka Sleeping Beauty) is not only the love of my life, she’s also become a veteran of these excursions. Here she is showing off her… err… new sunglasses.

Two years ago, she rode on the back of my Hayabusa from Colorado to California.

The passenger ‘seat’ on that bike is little more than a vinyl covered phone book, designed by a team of Guantanamo Bay interrogators to get information out of people quickly. Fiona, having never been on a motorcycle before, laughed about it the whole way to California. On these rides, Fiona has never once complained, enjoys riding in the rain, shoots pictures like a pro off the back of a bike at 90 MPH, and best of all suffers my insufferable stubbornness with an ever present smile. Really, the only downside to having her as a passenger is she doesn’t realize that despite my earplugs, I can still hear her back there singing away at the top of her lungs.
She’s also a registered nurse, a definite bonus considering this cast of characters.

To make the Excursion even more interesting, I decided to invite my friend Keith (aka Unleaded) along too. Abi and I met Keith, a Technical Sergeant in the Air Force, during one of the WWE’s annual ‘Tribute to the Troops’ shows in Afghanistan.

Keith is a rabid WWE fan as well as a motorcycling nut. He and I became instant friends, and remained in touch over the years, often talking of one day taking a nice, long ride together. Safely back in the US and with enough available leave, Keith jumped at the offer to ride my Harley and join in the festivities.

That leaves me to round out the merry band of misfits assembled for the Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition. Hailing from the Kingdom of Rhode Island, I’m the so-called ‘brains’ of the operation.

With such an ‘expert’ in charge, it’s no wonder we often end up cold, wet and hungry.

Our motorcycles are also well traveled. After riding from the Kingdom of Rhode Island to California on it, I reluctantly traded in the Hayabusa for a more sensible motorcycle. Yamaha makes a sport touring bike called the FJR, and as soon as I saw it in the showroom, I knew it was the right bike for long distance riding. I bought the FJR (aka Rain Cloud Follows) last December, and logged over 20,000 miles on it. Most of those miles were just in front of or directly under angry black rain clouds.

Abi has ridden his (mostly) faithful orange BMW Rockster (aka Fireball) for every single of our rides. One time we were crawling through inner city traffic in New York City, and smoke started wafting up from under the tank. A faulty starter wire had decided that the Bronx was the perfect place to burst into flames. The small fire was doused by an energetic water-spitting show, a spectacle that didn’t even raise one single jaded New Yorker eye. The result? The mostly faithful bike continued running, and earned a nickname that stuck to this day.

I’ve always had the motorcycle bug bad, so bad in fact that years ago I nearly went bankrupt buying a Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic (aka Stormbringer).

Stormbringer then. The old paint made me look thin.

I bought this bike at the height of the so-called ‘Chopper Craze’ and would spend whatever remaining nickels I had customizing everything I could on this bike. Yeah, somewhere in my mind I knew I had to eat and stuff, but that always took second place to chrome. And, with a Harley, there are plenty of shiny accessories to help drain the old bank account.

Because times change and fads fade, I don’t ride Stormbringer as much as I used to, but it is still my favorite motorcycle of all time. That fact didn’t stop me from offering it to Keith to flog, drop and otherwise abuse on the Expedition.

During planning phases, the Expedition was supposed to be sponsored. I signed up for Google AdSense, and allowed their retarded little ads to be displayed on the Rant. Then I begged and begged for clicks. Every time one of the Faithful Fifteen blog readers clicked on an ad, I got a few cents in my AdSense account. The ads were annoying, but the idea of free, AdSense sponsored beer on the trip was too good to pass up.

But the asswipes at AdSense soon caught on. When your account reaches $100, you are eligible for a check. Well, at $93, they decided that I was violating policy, and closed my account. What did I do that was so evil? I asked people to click on their ads, which, for some reason only known to the Google Goofballs, is forbidden.

Ridiculous. And even worse, they don’t even let you appeal their decision, they just close the account, and keep the money. That prickish behavior earned them this:

For that reason, I call the Expedition Unsponsored, but truth be told, Dave, one of the Faithful Fifteen, slipped me a twenty to cover ‘expenses.’ Thanks, Dave!

The next installment of the Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition can be found here.

Decisions, decisions.

For a welcome change, our debate this morning wasn’t whether to stay in Ullapool or not. An all-time Scottish weather record had been shattered, the sun was out for the second day in a row! Our pressing decision of the day was a simple matter of direction. North or south?

Going north held promise. We came from the north down into Ullapool, so we knew the scenery and roads would be tremendous. John o’ Groats, the northernmost settlement of mainland Great Britain was a short 180 miles away. And did I mention the unheralded string of two sunny days to take full advantage of? But heading south also had merit, not only for the Isle of Skye, but also because eventually Raceway Rentals was going to want these motorbikes back, and at the present moment, the shop lay about 700 or so miles to our south, and our short trip only had three days left.

Pouring over the tankbag map in the car park, an older gentleman suddenly appeared, and as people often seem to do in the magical country, he came over and immediately started shooting the breeze. “If ye are lookin’ for the best roads, ye mus’ go to Applecross. One of the top one hundred motorbike roads in the woirld. Aye. Applecross. Ye won’t be regrettin’ it.”

I looked down at my map, located the town this mysterious stranger just mentioned, and realized the tiny, squiggly gray line leading to Applecross looked interesting. Very interesting. The GPS had the gray line simply listed as ‘Road‘. That settled it. South to ‘Road‘ it is!

When I looked up to thank the man, he was nowhere to be found. Gone. Well, that was… odd. I started wondering if he was really there at all, or just some strange Scottish Motorcycling Spirit sent to improve our already fantastic ride? I asked Abi, who was busy loading his SV if he’d seen the apparition or if I just imagined the whole encounter.

“Yes, stupid. I saw him,” he answered while rolling his eyes. “He got in his car and drove away while you were looking at the GPS. You OK over there, old man?”

Though our general direction was set, I had a little detour in mind first. But it was a detour that would be best sprung on Abi without telling him where we were going, since it involved something that causes me endless ball busting from my riding buddy. Here’s the big secret: I like to photograph lighthouses. It has nothing to do with big, long, hard cylindrical tubes thrusting up in the air or anything like that, I simply think a lighthouse in a picture makes for a good picture. And if I can incorporate taking a picture of a lighthouse into a motorcycle trip, it makes the trip better, at least to me. Abi disagrees. Every time.

I knew that sometime the previous day we’d passed the turn off for Stoer Head lighthouse, but at the time we were having too much fun to stop. I figured the turn off was about five miles back the way we’d come, so I took a left out of the lot instead of the agreed on right. Abi pulled up next to me and asked what I was doing.

“Oh, just taking a little scenic detour, that’s all”

“We better not be going to a fucking lighthouse.”

I just nodded and sped away.

Its times like these, times when I am being selfish with our trip that I realize what a good riding buddy Abi really is. Not for going along with me to another lighthouse without protesting. Not for following me down a long, single track road for ten miles to get to a place that he doesn’t even want to see in the first place, but for the fact that when we finally made it to the end of my selfish detour, and the lighthouse I thought was Stoer Head ended up being the wrong one – in fact it was just some dinky little eight foot high tube with a blinking light on top – he wouldn’t even think of making fun of me by strapping a headlamp on and shouting, “Ooooh! Look! Look at me! I’m a big lighthouse, much taller and brighter than the one over there!”

That’s what riding buddies are for.

We turned around, and filled up in Ullapool. Rumor was finding petrol in Northern Scotland could be tricky, especially on a Sunday, and with the SV’s 120 mile range, we wanted to be sure we started off full. $300 poorer, we started down the long, winding road toward London, via the mythical town of Applecross.

The roads, the sights and the scenery were all on par with yesterday’s. Words can’t really convey the true beauty of this place, at least none that I can string together. Since a picture is worth a thousand words anyway (two thousand with the exchange rate) I found myself taking my cheap little HP ‘point and pray’ digital camera out of my pocket constantly. I got a few really good pictures of the countryside…

– and because taking pictures left handed while riding ain’t always easy, some great shots of the FJR dashboard too.

Flying through perfect curve after perfect curve, two motorbikes suddenly appeared in the opposite lane, sporting the ugliest bright neon yellow paint job imaginable. Yup, they were bike cops. Fortunately, they were having too much fun racing each other through the curves to pay any attention to us at all. I thought to myself, ‘Now there’s the perfect job for me! Motorcycle cop! You can ride as fast as you want and call it working, you get to carry a gun, and as we all know, chicks dig guys in uniform.’ But then I realized that I’d probably have to give tickets and arrest people too, and that would ruin the fun.

Points of the ride were so scenic, sometimes we just had to stop to absorb it all. I stopped near a mountain surrounded lake to shoot a few pictures, and answer nature’s call. I couldn’t help but think that right then, at that moment, this was by far the most beautiful place I’d ever peed.

I’m a firm believer in always having a backup plan, and thus I’d set a backup lighthouse in the GPS, just in case. Ooooohhh, Abi will love this one! Rubha Reidh lighthouse was down another of those fun ‘B’ roads – B8021. This road was the second ‘single track’ road we’d encountered, and if you’ve never been on one, they’re a real treat, and a great way to work out your adrenaline gland. Basically, the road is big enough for one vehicle at a time, but – here’s the kicker – it’s NOT A ONE WAY!!! Every so often on these single track roads there is a place to pull out, usually indicated by a small, white, diamond shaped sign. When two vehicles are setting up for a head-on collision, the one closest to the turn out pulls in, and lets the other pass, often with a wave. For a frightening sounding system, it seems to work pretty well. Not so sure it would be as successful back in the states though.

The most funnest, most bestest part of all about these tiny, rural single track roads is they really aren’t all that busy, and they can be quite curvy, not to mention they carve through more of the spectacular scenery I’ve gushed on about for three posts now. And since they are single track, it doesn’t matter what side of the road you choose to ride on. For the first time since leaving London, I could ignore my helmet cheat notes. However, after riding on these great little tracks for a while, you forget that speeding traffic can suddenly appear over the next hill, and cause you to become a permanent part of the landscape. And if an oncoming tractor doesn’t get you, one of the approximately thirteen hundred billion cotton ball sheep that freely roam the countryside could always lumber into your path.

Pure entertainment!

On the way, I saw some strange creatures grazing in a field that I had to stop and take pictures of. Part bull, part Wookie, these enormous Highland cows were more than happy to pose for the camera. If there was a way, I would take one back home with me as a pet. I’m sure the neighbors would love all the free fertilizer!

Rubha Reidh was everything that the puny eight foot tower wasn’t. It was a real deal lighthouse. Even still, I caught just as much grief as before from my riding buddy.

When he finished harassing me, he told me that we should fill up at the next station. I still had half a tank, but his bike’s range was significantly less than the FJR.The next town had no petrol station, but a good lunch. We asked the waiter where we could fill up.

“It’s Sunday. I dunna tink ye’ll find mooch open now. The chemist down the road sells petrol in foive liter jerry cans. If not, tha closes’ one is in Kinlochewe, boot they close at two.”

Ahh, come on. Buying petrol from a jerry can? What is this? Mexico? No thanks! I’ve got a GPS, it has every gas station in the whole country programmed in. Technology is my friend. We’re good. We’ll find something.

Sometimes I can be so dumb.

We rode past the closed station in Kinlochewe, past two other closed stations, past three non-existent stations – including one that, according to my wonder of technology would’ve been in the middle of the ocean, all with no luck. The single track roads between towns were fun, but completely barren of any form of gas station. We reached a sign for the Applecross turnoff, and that sign had a picture of gas pumps on it. But my GPS said there was a Shell station a bit further in Lochcarron. At this point, Abi’s low fuel warning light was glowing like a demonic eye. We had another decision to make.

Lochcarron? Applecross? Where is my Haunted Spirit Riding Helper Guy now? Probably driving around Ullapool with a full petrol tank… Great. Using the most advanced form of scientific decisional-based emergency navigational triangulation known to man, we made our fateful choice. Simply put, we chose Lochcarron because the font on the map was a little bigger for Lochcarron than Applecross.

Abi, literally riding on fumes, pulled in the clutch and coasted down every hill on the way, and by some miracle coasted into the only open petrol station for a hundred miles in any direction, 132 miles after leaving Ullapool. And to think the range on that SV was supposed to be 120 miles!

While whooping it up at the station, a young kid walked over and asked if we were planning to ride to Applecross. He gave the now standard ‘Best Road, Best Scenery’ speech, then asked where we were staying that night, because by coincidence, his parents own a small, three room Bed and Breakfast called the Rock Villa Hotel that is biker friendly, right there in town, and by further coincidence it had three rooms available.

The road to Applecross was everything promised, the weather was sublime all day, and the Rock Villa Hotel was the perfect way to end what could only be called The Best Day Ever!

And better still, the Isle of Skye and Eilean Donan Castle topped the agenda for the next day, and then, the dreaded long slog back to London begins…………..

Rain.

Of course..

Cold, windblown, miserable, pouring down rain greeted us on our first full day in Scotland. Well, it is Scotland after all, what else should I expect?

And with that rain, the game beings. When riding conditions really suck in the middle of a ride, Abi and I like to play a fun game called ‘I’m Not Going to Be the Pussy… How About You?‘ Here’s how it usually goes:

ME: ‘Wow. Look at that fucking rain! It’s coming down sideways! Gonna be a miserable day to ride today, isn’t it?’

ABI: (arms folded over chest) ‘Yup.’

ME: ‘And we have to do four hundred miles today to stay on schedule.’

ABI: ‘That’ll be a joy with no windshield. You oughta try it.’

ME: ‘No thanks. I suppose we could cut out the Speyside part. Maybe just ride from here to Glasgow or something today.’

ABI: ‘You’re getting soft, old man. It’s just a little bit of freezing rain. What’s the big deal?’

ME: ‘Or… I suppose we could just stay right here in Edinburrrrrrhhh…’

ABI: (arms suddenly unfolded) ‘Sounds good to me!’

And with that tough decision made, we headed back to the safety of bed for some much needed post sleeping/pre breakfast napping. Breakfast at this inn consists of a runny egg, two pieces of ‘bacon’ which resemble pig ears more than any bacon I am familiar with, and a special delicacy – black pudding. Despite the nice-sounding name, black pudding is made with blood and other assorted nasty bits. Of course I found this out after I’d eaten it several times. And to think I believed it was some kind of spiced pumpernickel bread! But it’s better than ‘Spotted Dick’, which was billed as everybody’s favorite. Err… no thanks, I’d rather starve than have Dick for breakfast.

With steady rain and a thermometer frozen at 39 degrees, stubbornly refusing to budge, today the decision to be a dry tourist beat sitting on a cold, wet motorcycle for the entire soggy day. And, there are worse places in the world to get stuck for a day than Edinburgh – New Jersey comes to mind as one, a TV truck comes to mind as another… So, we did something unique on our long distance motorcycle rides. We stayed in a place for more than a single night, and did the full-on sightseeing thing. We bought a ticket for what was billed as ‘Scotland’s Third Most Popular Paid Attraction‘ otherwise known as the Open Top Bus Tour.

I wonder what the other two more popular paid attractions are?

It wasn’t that bad. Our tour guide, a bubbly Scottish girl with the cutest accent ever greeted us by saying, “Welcome tah Scotland. Sorry ’bout the rain, but it’s Scotland… Wha’ di’ ye expect?” Exactly. We toured the hell out of Edinburgh on our tour bus, listening to inane facts about the city we could later use to bore our friends, and snapping a ton of pictures, as good tourists are supposed to do.

When the bus got boring (actually, that happened in the first ten minutes, so in reality, this was long after the bus got boring) we jumped off at the Palace stop to try and find a choice adult beverage or three. We decided on a whim that being both tourists and single malt fans, we should take a tour of the Scotch Whisky Experience.

This tour disproved my theory that any tour that starts with alcohol must be a good one. After handing out glasses filled with a splash of blended whisky, the group was ushered into a small theater, where we endured crappy movie after crappy movie. The tour was so lame it reminded me of the Kennedy Space Center, with its ‘Dare to Dream’ film we were subjected to. Is there a single company that makes retarded films for all these tourist traps? If so, they should be firebombed in the name of sanity. But the capper, or I should say the crapper of the crapulent tour was its grand finale. Up on the top level was an honest to God amusement park ride. Well, it was actually an extremely lame ‘History of Whisky’ ride, reminiscent of Disney’s ‘It’s a Small World’, but without any of the good parts. LAAAME-OOO! Now I remember! Cheesy rip-offs like this abysmal place are why I hate doing touristy stuff. The only thing I learned worth retaining is how the Scottish propose a toast – by saying, ‘Slangevar!‘ We did what any two self respecting gentlemen tourists not on motorbikes would do in this situation. We retired to The World’s End pub for lunch and to practice saying Slangevar for the rest of the day.

Having survived my Black Pudding of Death at breakfast much better than the Indian food of the day before, I decided to try something REALLY adventurous for lunch.

Haggis.

When I finished, the waitress purred at me in her sexy Scottish accent, “So, what’d ye tink o’ tha Haggis?”

“Umm… It was… Interesting.”

“I’ve neiver heird it described qui’ like that before….”

I asked her to repeat herself, not because I didn’t understand what she’d said, but just because her accent was so damn cute. I’d have paid her thousands to just stand there and read the menu, the newspaper, hell, even some junk mail to me over and over and over…. I think she caught on after about the fourth time. That or she thought I was a bit slow and in need of a hearing aid.

Fueled with our newly gained knowledge of Scotch Whisky’s Heritage, the rest of our Edinburgh rain delay day became a happy, touristy blur.

Many hours later we somehow managed to Slangevar our way back to the inn, and a merciful fade to black soon followed.

The next day I awoke to sunny skies and warm temps. I rolled over to peek out the window, and what to my wondering eyes did appear? Three giggling, topless Scottish lasses outside my window washing my bike in the dancing sunbeams! I sat back and marveled at this wonderful country’s most excellent scenery for a while, just taking it all in. Then, the unthinkable happened. I really did wake up. There were no girls out there, of course, but at least the sun was shining bright. It was time to leave Edinburgh for the much anticipated Highlands.

As we loaded the bikes up, Abi and I had the same thought at the same time. By riding these rented motorbikes, are we cheating on our poor, faithful motorcycles back at home? This tells me two things. One – I really do love my lonely FJR currently stuck stateside, and Two – Abi and I spend way too much time together.

Because we lost a day, we had to amend our route. Yesterday, I’d planned to visit my second favorite place on earth where my second favorite adult beverage is lovingly created – the Macallan distillery, but that got washed out. Now, to make up for lost time we decided to skip the world famous Malt Whisky region of Speyside entirely, and get back on the boring motorway and head north for half the day. But first, we needed petrol.

Petrol, which, in American loosely translates to ‘Really Expensive Gasoline’, is fairly simple to find near big cities. As we would learn later in the trip, it’s not so easy to secure in the more rural areas of Scotland, especially on a Sunday, but that’s getting ahead of the story.

Besides both flavors being very expensive – at around $8 a gallon – diesel and unleaded on these pumps are easily confused. The pump handles are the same size, and right next to each other. If you were tired, say – or maybe a little hung over from too much Slangevaring the night before, it would be a cinch to grab the black handle instead of the green one and load up with the wrong kind of fuel… not that this actually happened to me (though it was close on more than one occasion.)

We burned pricey petrol at a furious rate riding up the motorway, and before long mountains started appearing. And on those mountains? Snow. Lots of it. While the day felt warmer than the previous couple, it still wasn’t what could be actually called warm. Seeing those snow covered mountains made it feel even colder than it was, and heading straight for them didn’t help.

At least we weren’t the only nutters out enjoying a nice brisk ride. We passed a cute older couple on an old Triumph motorbike also heading north. We both waved and shook our heads at each other, acknowledging our collective folly.

And then, just past Inverness, everything changed for the better. We turned off the A9 for the much better B9176 (yes, the route names are confusing, that’s why I’ve mostly avoided using them – if you think the names are bad, try following them sometime!) Suddenly, without much warning, our endurance riding test was rewarded.

Ho. Lee. Shit. The scenery exploded into spectacular vista after spectacular vista. My tiny brain struggled to comprehend the astounding beauty abruptly on display. Sometimes I had to slow the bike to a crawl, because my eyes were overloaded, my synapses completely overwhelmed. I was afraid not only of missing something, but splattering my overworked synapses all over an oncoming truck while gawking and gaping at everything but the road in front of me. Pictures can’t do this place justice.

Video can’t either. IMAX might come close, but I doubt it.

Stunned and in complete awe, I started naming the huge mountains surrounding me. ‘That’s Mount Muuuuther-fucker!‘ Over there is ‘Holy Shit Peak!‘ Damn, Scotland, when they find out, the people of Rhode Island will be ecstatic that I claimed such unbridled beauty for them.

Oh yeah, the road – empty of cars but full of curves – was fun too.

And it only got better. Coming over a mountain pass into the small seaside town of Ullapool, our home for the night, was like riding in a movie. Yellow flowers lined both sides of the road, and more snow capped mountains rose in the distance. Fishing boats bobbed in the waves of Loch Broom as we descended from riding paradise. I wish I was a good writer at this point, because I really can’t do justice to the absolute perfection that was the second half of this day. Even Abi, who is normally hard to impressed, was smiling.

When we rode to Niagara Falls a few years ago, he took one look, turned to me and said, “Its water. It’s falling. I get it. Let’s go.’ To impress him enough to crack a real smile, this place must be first rate, or as he later put it, “Not bad.”

And though at the time it seemed impossible, the next two days would get even better, though not without their share of hardships…