This is partly a post about our car trip from England to Scotland, partly about of how we spent our 11th anniversary. Some people opt to go out for a nice dinner to celebrate anniversaries…we went a different way on this one.
August 9th was our anniversary. We hadn’t really registered that this was our anniversary when we were making our travel plans. The day was pretty well organized without much opportunity to change things when after we did realize it was our anniversary. We woke up early that morning in the cottage we were staying at near Bishop’s Castle and by the time we would go to bed that night we would need to complete about a 6 hour drive to our next stop in Glasgow (at least 6 hrs is how long Google Maps thought it should be).
Looking back, it would have been hard to plan for so many unpleasant activities in a single day. First step was packing up our car and cleaning the cottage before hitting the road. You would think after so many moves we would be really efficient but it almost seems like we are less organized now than we were at the beginning of the trip.
If we are only staying somewhere for a few days, we tend not to unpack but instead just let our bags continue to spill out over the floor – contents getting farther and farther from the source bag the longer we are there. There’s invariably a disorganized mess that needs to be re-packed into very organized packing cubes – clothes separated by person and must fit back into their designated bag. I’m really not sure why I feel this compelling need to be an organized packer but am capable of living in complete disarray.
Following the initial pack, then we need to make sure we have all the essentials. All electronics and chargers (and there are so, so many) need to be organized into our backpacks. All the treasured stuffies that the kids sleep with need to be tracked down from under the bedsheets. Passports, wallets and glasses all need to be accounted for. All the remaining food needs to be packed, including a small cooler with anything that needs to be refrigerated. Then we need to look in every closet, drawer, and under all furniture for what we (read: kids!) have left behind. If we didn’t follow that last step, our kids would have no more socks left to wear on this trip.
Once we get all of our things out of the house, then we do a pretty decent clean. In the case of the cottage we were staying at this time, we spent extra time cleaning since it was our friends place and we wanted to make sure to leave it as we had found it. The entire process of getting ready and back on the road took about 3 hours. As usual, by the time we were finished we were in a bad mood and were frustrated at the kids for not helping (and usually getting in the way).
Once we finally got on the road, our first stop was to pick up Ronan in Nantwich where he was enjoying a sleepover with one of his best friends. So essentially the first stop on this leg of our trip was to pry our son away from one of his best friends who he probably won’t get to see again for another year until we return to Portland. We were happy to see our friends again briefly and also sad to say bye to them knowing that it would be a long time before seeing them again.
Back in the car again, the moods were deteriorating further. The next stop was one that both Brett and I were dreading, and hadn’t yet come clean with the kids on what we were up to next. They thought we were driving on through to Glasgow and were already grumpy because they hate long car rides. What they didn’t yet know was that we would be stopping just north of Manchester to get our next dose of travel vaccinations. We had to get our second dose of a couple of vaccinations 7 days after the first. We hadn’t realized just how difficult it would be to find a clinic. We were now on day 9 after the first dose. When we got the first dose of vaccinations, the staff at the clinic told us that it was easy to get the follow-up vaccinations and that they do them at most pharmacies. On day 6, we called around to find out where to get the next dose. It turns out that you can get them at some pharmacies but you need to book an appointment weeks in advance. We called around to so many places and they did not have a long enough appointment to accommodate the five of us for at least another 2 weeks. I had to look up all travel clinics between Nantwich and Glasgow and start calling them one by one until I found one that could fit us in that day.
So about 2 hours into our drive after picking up Ronan, we pulled into the parking lot of the travel clinic and dropped the news on the kids. There was some screaming and some tears. Both Riley and Ronan have an irrational fear of needles. If we had told them earlier, they would have just been consumed by their fears. Rightly or wrongly we decided to only tell them when we got there. To make things a little more tricky, the clinician that was administering the shots was young and seemed a little nervous dealing with our overly anxious and crying kids. I suspect that we were in that clinic for about 2 hours, of which there was about an hour of crying and screaming (the kids) and begging and bribing (Brett and I). We were all so relieved when it was over, including the clinician. Another $600 spent on vaccines.
We got back in the car at around 6pm and started back on the road. Everyone was hungry so we drove a little way before we found a rest stop to get some food. Our 11th anniversary dinner was the first fast food that we had eaten on this whole trip. Burger King. We felt sick afterwards.
As we approached the border with Scotland, the sky looked very dramatic and foreboding. Unfortunately no photos that I took from inside the car do it justice. Almost exactly at the border, on cue, the rain started. Heavy rain. The kind where you have trouble seeing the road with the windshield wipers on their highest setting. It made for a very long, exhausting and stressful last part of our drive but likely a very fitting welcome to Scotland.
We had an Airbnb in Glasgow arranged but it did not allow for check-ins past 9:30pm. We were still driving at 9:30, not even in the city yet. We are thankful that the owner was willing to stay late to give us the keys when we finally got in at about 11pm.
All in all, our door to door journey was 12 hours. We wouldn’t ever want to re-live that day but we are still thankful that we all spent it together. It will end up being an anniversary that we won’t soon forget.