Adventures in Scotland
During the summer of 2001, I went to Scotland to see my baby. He was on deployment and they had a port call scheduled in Scotland.
Making plans to get there was almost an adventure in and of itself... I didn't know exactly where they were going to be pulling in and no one could tell me the information over the phone. So I made plans to fly into Glasgow and stay in Helensburgh, not really knowing if it was going to be on the other side of the country or not. But, thankfully, the ombudsman sent me the port list and I was closer than I thought - Helensburgh is only about 5 minutes away from where they pulled in. It was, in fact, the closest town to the base.
Three days before I was suppossed to leave for Scotland, I found out that the port call was delayed and may be cancelled. I didn't know what to do, but decided to go to Scotland anyhow and hope that the boat would come in. I got there the morning and Dave's boat pulled in that afternoon. I was waiting on the pier for him. It was the best sight in the world.
In order to get onto the base in Scotland, I had been given the name of a guy to contact when I got over there. Well, I called him from the airport and was told he was out of the country for the week and did I want to leave a message. Oy. Fortunately, the person on the other end of the phone took pity on me and put me in touch with someone else who picked me up and dropped me off with the 3 other visiting wives/girlfriends/fiances. After being told what time to meet him at the base, he left us. We found this little diner called the "Augusta Lodge" along the water front there in Helensburgh and had fish 'n chips. As we were paying, one of us looked up and saw a sub coming up the river. We all ran outside and across the promenade, jumping up and down and making fools of ourselves, taking pictures and everything. Two of the other women had rented cars, but neither had theirs with them at that point. We ran back up the hill to the car, so we could head to the base. When we had gotten to the parking lot of the B&B where the cars were parked, we heard someone trying to get our attention. It was the landlord for the B&B, trying to tell us that the sub we had gotten so excited over was a British sub. Ooops.
So, we made our way down to the base at the appointed time and met up with our escort to go down to the pier and wait for our guys. When our sub finally started coming up the river, you could tell the exact moment that those standing topside noticed there were women on the pier - 6 sets of binoculars swiveled at exactly the same time. Dave was, of course, one of the last to make it up to even say hello. The CO invited us down onto the sub to wait for the guys in the wardroom. Don't really remember much of the sub except a lot of men's faces that hadn't seen a flesh-and-blood woman in months. After about another hour, he was let got for the night and had to be back by 6:30 the next morning.
He had duty the day after they pulled in, but then he had the next 5 days off. The amusing part is that he had't received any of the emails about when I was coming, but managed to plan the schedule well, anyhow. Woohoo!
Okay. The first picture is the view from the B&B where we stayed. The second is the car we rented - a Nissan Almera. Driving on the other side of the road, from the other side of the car, was another adventure. I think it was almost worse than learning to drive the first time... But we managed to survive.
The third picture is me, the first night we were in Scotland. There's a police station in the background. Dave decided he needed to take my picture.
The last picture is Dave's favorite picture of the scenery. The pictures we took don't do the scenery justice, but it's a great reminder.
More to come... Check back soon!
Next: The Road Trip (Adventures in New England)
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