The Other Side of the Ocean

We’re a country that believes in the automobile. I understand that. Me, I worship technology in the form of the washing machine (I’ve lived in too many places without one).

I’m less in awe of the car. America's big love affair with the automobile means (among many other things) that if you want to paddle down a river from point A to point B, you better leave a car at point B, so that you can retrieve your stuff where you put in, at Point A. There’s no speedy little train or local bus to take you there.

And so we drive down toward where the Wisconsin meets the Mississippi (our endpoint).

It’s not a heavy use road. And it is quite pretty in a cornfields and barns sort of way. And forward looking.





And there it is – the Mississippi, the river of all rivers, not at all like what you see in that quick dart of an eye as you cross the bridge to the Twin Cities or Dubuque, but here, near Prairie du Chien, it's a wide body of water flowing past vast areas of countryside, with county parks offering boat landings and strips of beach to bring families to on a warm sunny day.





It’s not a warm, sunny day, but it’s not too bad. So far, the rain has been only a threat. We leave a car at the shore and drive back east toward Prairie du Sac.

The road tracks the river, more or less. I’m surprised that there isn’t much of a river life here though. The villages are sleepy things. True, we’re coming through on a work day, but even so, each place looks like we’ve hit the siesta hour big time.

But as we approach our put in point, we join a major road that offers more of Wisconsin commerce. Including our infamous custard place – Culver’s. There’s ice cream and there’s frozen custard. If you have never tried custard, imagine it in this way: ice cream with more of everything – milk, eggs, more milk, more eggs – the glory of a dairy state, with a near butter consistency.

We stop for a cone. Smallest, please. The special of the day!





Chocolate covered strawberry. Heavenly. We share it, wondering how anyone could manage the whole thing, let alone anything larger.


By the time we reach the boat landing, it is late afternoon. We unload. We have an inflatable to assemble. (Ed: I wonder where I put the instructions… must have left them behind) We lay it out. It’s been a while... (Ed: there was a pump for this, wasn’t there?) We make do. We blow and tinker and seal it up and by 4:30, we’re ready to launch.



(the hat belongs to Ed)


A man comes over with his dog. The pooch has been playing in the river and he is full of exuberance. His mud is now my mud as he shakes and romps in and out of the boat.

He just loves boating! How far’re you goin'?
To the Mississippi.
I envy you. My wife, she wont camp more than a night.
I understand her. What is it with men?!
We don’t mind goin’ dirty.
I sure know that…
Just watch out for the sand banks. My friends, they didn’t know about the damn and they woke up to their kayak being on the next island.


We know what he’s telling us – the power plant releases water through the damn irregularly and when it does this, the water level in the river goes up by several feet. If you’re camping on a sandy bank, you may well wind up underwater in the middle of the night. We imagine the power company dudes having a good laugh. Okay – let her flow! Wonder how many innocents we’ll sweep off their beach this time! He he!

The river is deep, the river is wide, heron – lead the way!





Well, not always deep. It’s easy to hit an underwater sandbank and get stuck. Pull me out! – I shout to Ed. Get out yourself, I have my own issues.

At the shore, the herons are laughing. Or dancing. Or mating. Or all the above.






But mostly, the river is easy. True, we have a strong head wind and if we stop paddling, oftentimes we appear to be going against current, but mostly, it is a gentle ride. And a beautiful one.





By 7:30, we’re on the lookout for a camp spot. The requirements? Low to pull in, but with higher ground (in case the river level rises). We pick an island – one of the many on the river.





We haul the boats out and settle in. I’m grateful that the rain held off. And the wind has dispersed the bugs. We sit on the beach and eat our baguette with cheese and tomato. Okay, the bread is made by a Frenchman (from la Baguette!), but the cheese is Hook’s Bloomin' Idiot and the tomatoes are homegrown.

We’re setting out, Ed and I. We’re putting in kayaks just at the hydroelectric damn by Prairie du Sac. Ninety miles later, we’ll be at the other Prairie – Prairie du Chien. The Wisconsin River ends there, spilling all its waters into the great Mississippi.

How many days? Don’t know. We’ll camp at sandbars and go into villages along the way to fill up on Wisconsin foods and Wisconsin beer. We’ll use public libraries to plug in and I’m hoping we’ll stay above water this time. There are no rapids along this wide and lazy stretch of the river.

The weather is okay. Cool. Showers maybe. Bugs? Yes, I hear there are bugs. But, if you’re in the mood to lose yourself in life along the riverbanks, you can’t have it in any other way.

A final check of my gear, a nudge for Ed to put down the magazine… It’s all rather like a lyric out of a Simon & Garfunkel.

So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

In our case, he has the magazine, I have my casebook of landmark decisions on property rights. Off on this week leading up to July 4th. We should be on the Mississippi on July 4th. It seems fitting to be doing this now.

All gone to look for America...

Every parent knows that a child can make you look at the world in a better way. I’ll add this – the child’s age is irrelevant. Adult kids are equally omnipotent: they’ll push you to recognize how gorgeous it all is.

It helps when you have a beautiful day out there to add vim and sparkle to an already lovely early summer landscape.


We take Ed up on his offer to go sailing. He’s got a tiny boat here – one that really isn’t fit for passengers, but we think it may work for a quick spin around Lake Waubesa.

The winds are gusty, the sky is clear.

Ed riggs the boat.






We help. We're the cheering squad.










Even at the dock, the boat is tossed around as if it were an insignificant pea on the waters of an ocean. Up goes the mast, down goes the boat; Ed rights it and down it goes again. And so on.

Go ahead, try it out on the open water – I tell him.





The wind kicks in, Ed hikes out to keep it from going down. The wind shifts, the boat goes down.

Meanwhile, daughters can’t get over how good life is out here, in Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Waubesa.





Ed’s back. Too much of a gust. Not fit for sailing with a crew. That’s okay. One daughter takes the kayak out, the other one helps take down the sail.

And now it’s time to haul the boats out and call it a day. I want to fix a Sunday supper before the last bus takes them to Chicago.

We pluck the first raspberries and sour cherries at Ed’s farmette and head home. And did I mention how gorgeous it all is out here? Absolutely beautiful.

They’re a big deal to me. Not only because they put me in touch with the people who generate great foods, but because they come closest to providing community in a country that has too much of rather soulless commerce. At the market I can exaggerate the significance of my connection to a local grocer, baker or cheese maker. I feel they're my neighbors. (Almost.)

Of course, I switched markets when I moved. From downtown, to the Westside Community Market ("WCM"). And so my loyalties shifted. It was like meeting a new city of bakers, growers and cheesemakers. It was a tough transition.

When I occasionally go back downtown (like when daughters are in town...),






... I recognize some of the longtime vendors and we talk about growing children and the sighting of the first swarms of mosquitoes. Like old friends. (Sort of.)



Yes, all that’s interesting, you say. But are the foods any better there, downtown? Or at the WCM?

The answer is, of course, that the foods are fantastic at both.

Though I have to say this – the downtown market has cut flowers that don’t run out by the time we get there. And they are magnificent. And long lasting.











Markets need flower stalls. It just cannot be that a dining table has to rely on supermarket flowers to carry you through the week.

So I’ll grant the downtown market the flowers. And cheese curds: not only can you sample many, many different curds (so Wisconsin!), but you can feast on grilled curds every single time you pass this stall.






People watching? Oh, the same at both markets. Less crowded, the WCM lets you stretch out a little more. On the other hand, there are fewer people to watch. No kids on a bench, for example, eating market cookies.






Okay, but really, when you have a local market, you don’t compare it to the one in the old neighborhood. And you don’t cheat and run out for bread at your old bakers. You stay loyal. And I did. I bought no peas, no berries, no garlic scapes. I passed on the tomatoes, the sprigs of mint, the first potatoes.

But I did bring home flowers. Heavenly bunches of sweet peas and bouquets of white peonies and daisies.

It’s so uniformly green now. Days of green. Wisconsin green. Uninterrupted green.

If this day looks different from a previous or the next one, it’s only because I will have seen a friend (passing through Wisconsin, stopping for breakfast here, in Madison)…





…in green, of course, against the background of a green couch.

Or I will have read one too many cases or, more likely, one too few.



Today is also a day of summer waiting, of the best kind, on beds of flowers, with bare toes ruffling the clover…







Me, I'm waiting for daughters to pop in for the week-end, before their work forces them to go back to their lawyerly duties elsewhere.

They haven’t seen much of the spring and summer green that I almost take for granted here. They are thoroughly urban – a field of tall grasses and tiger lilies is a surprise, a delight, as if this kind of stuff doesn’t happen just anywhere, as if this indeed is Wisconsin – the greenest loveliest state of them all.



Given this summer of gentle greens and warm nights, I have coaxed Ed into a brief road trip into the very core of the state (and at the same time, into the heart of America or Americana or both) – but without the road. Oh, but that’s not until next week. For now, I’m sitting back, waiting, looking up at the clock, wanting the daughters to step off that bus now and show up with their grins, taking in the green stuff here, up north, in Madison Wisconsin.

In the course of an ordinary day, I do not come even close to the inside of a car. Today, therefore, was most extraordinary, in an ordinary sort of way.

Ed’s 93 Geo finally required mechanical intervention. I think Ed believes this little clump of rusted metal is like an old person – crinkled and tattered on the outside but full of vim and spark once you poke around a little. So, the mechanic poked and aligned and pronounced it ready for the next spell.

I motorbiked with Ed to pick it up. (Looking around the garage, I could understand why the mechanic does well with Ed's aging cars.)





Ed then roared home (all motorcycles, in my mind are loud; even his tiny Honda -- which is so small, that his knees poke up when he’s on it, as if this was merely a toy, leftover from boyhood), while I drove the Geo back to the condo to pick up my bicycle. From there, I drove on to the farmette where Ed and I spent time spiffing up and making adjustments to my daughters’ 93 Corolla (daughters are coming for a brief week-end visit) and cleaning out the 93 Geo as well. Two wrecks to work with. Fun.

When it was time to bike, Ed remembered that he had left his bike at the condo. And so I drove the Corolla home.


I write this because I felt so depleted zipping from one place to another by car. And I wondered why this was the case.

Indeed, I asked myself -- if I had a car and loved it (say a Smart or a Mini C), would I feel differently about driving? I don’t know. The only car I ever loved was my first – an old Volvo that I purchased when I was a student. That car spelled freedom from the city (I lived in Chicago then). I drove it to Wisconsin, many times. And to New York. And to Canada. I drove it until it dropped oil at the speed of a salad dressing pouring out of a bottle. All subsequent cars were modestly priced and terribly functional. Nothing to love, nothing to pamper.

And now? I find city driving boring. I find highway driving even more boring. Even if I had cash spilling out of my pocket at the speed of that very same salad dressing, why would I spend it on moving along corridors of boredom?


Wait. Was this my day? A drive from one corner of Madison to the next and back again, twice over?

No no. In between, Ed and I put up more photos at my favorite café. (Ancora in Fitchburg, if you are curious. I love their space, their patio and their enthusiasm; the coffee’s wonderful as well.) And now we’re done with that. The photos will be there for three months. Don’t rush to see them – most have made an appearance on Ocean at one time or another. But I have to say, it is beyond cool to sit at one’s favorite café and look up at a photo of sheep from the Isle of Skye. Hi sheep! Here you are now. In Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

As a kid, here’s what I was told: if it’s hot outside, you eat hot soup. And wear dark clothes. Ever see older women in Sicilian households? There’s a reason they’re not feeling faint in the heat of the scorching sun. They’re not sipping iced lattes and eating delicate salads. They’re wearing black and downing heaping bowls of pasta in bubbling tomato sauce.

I think that some person in an authoritative position was just trying to get me to eat a bowl of soup, but I have sort of bought into the mindset of not fighting the heat.

So that when the heat index yet again spiked into the 100 degree range, I’m thinking -- it’s time to make Tuscan beans in a summery tomato ragu.

And, for an afternoon break from reading cases, I bike over for a good, hot coffee. (I draw the line on black clothing. The world is too full of women in black. I want my sundresses to get their brief airing.) The café is quiet – a few souls lost behind computer screens, a pair sipping an afternoon glass of wine, a handful of coffee lovers, a scattering of empty tables.





I catch up with a friend who has been away even more than I have, and I get back on my bike. A few more stirs to the ragu. It needs a baking period still. Into the oven it goes.





We sit down to eat. I fill a tumbler with wine and glance over at the thermometer outside – 93. Not too bad.


Could it be that, somewhere along the way, I picked up a drop of Sicilian blood? It would explain so much.

It’s in the headlines. In everyone’s greeting – so hot today! So incredibly hot!


Oh… yes, it’s toasty warm! I’m walking to run errands and I feel my legs burning under the heat of the afternoon rays.

No… not complaining, not even a tiny bit. Feeling warm all over, without the oppressive fear that this will continue for a long time (because it never does, here in Wisconsin), walking outdoors across tracks and routes that caused me to shiver not too many months ago – nice!!!

Even as I continue to bemoan the empty spaces around me. Yes, of course it’s hot. Not that hot! Step outside! Grab a cool drink and sit out in the lovely café patios!

Well, alright, most of the café patios here look out on parking lots, but still, there are ones that can please the senses! This one’s pretty, for example. Even though it’s sadly empty.





I remember seeing cafés in Rome during an equally hot handful of days. Full. Hard to find an empty seat. Some had outside mist hoses, to keep things just that much cooler. But, so long as there was a spec of shade, people congregated outdoors. Come out of your caves, you cold-loving Wisconsinites! It’s beautiful and bright and, unfortunately, so very ephemeral.


Yesterday I met a graduate student at the Law School. He’s visiting for a few months (originally he’s from Poland, but he studies elsewhere right now) and I tell him he’s picked a fine time to be in Madison.

Oh, I know! When we at [the School where he is currently studying] pick our exchange programs, generally we pick them by when our choice classes are offered. But the word is that you pick Wisconsin for the good season.

It is the good season!

I walk down to a strip mall to return a video. And speaking of people, and stripped people no less, these young women are down to almost nothing. You can do this in Madison. We’re not prim here.





At the grocery store, I pick up some herring for supper (along with ingredients for a corn, tomato and scallion salad). Hmmm. Fifteen minute walk home… How does herring feel about waves, record breaking heat waves? The store throws some ice on it, just to be safe.

On my walk home, the ice never even melts. See? Not that hot!

You could say that I am not an inside-the-box type. It’s not that I don’t adhere to convention (Ed more properly sees himslef as being outside the box of conventional etiquette). It’s just that I often clutter my palette with an odd mix of things. I never worry if I am a little unpredictable. Out of step with the rest of the pack.




For instance, within one travel month, I’ll sleep on a New York upstate floor, in a crisp white room of a lovely hotel in Rome, in a tent along the Great Glen Way in Scotland. That’s not so unusual? Okay, try this: in the course of my adult (American) life, I have rarely taken on just one job. Sure, there’s the parenting plus teaching thing (two jobs right there!), but in addition and without interruption to the principals, I’ve run a travel business, sold photographs, worked in restaurants, started a Great Writing Project, etc etc. And of course – blogged.

It could happen that I will eventually slow down. But, my life has always been chaotic in this way. Cluttered. Something to do with healthy energy levels and not much love for TV.

So it should come as no surprise that I am considering a week-end/evening moonlighting stint once again. As state budgets sag, I want to believe that I wont sag as well. Travel is expensive. Selling photos is fabulous, but it wont purchase a railfare across France let alone an airplane ticket across the ocean.

I’ll say more once I make decisions as to what and where. But I've already learned this much in my years of multiple work: when I do more than one full time job, only one can be cerebral. The other, therefore, has to be reasonably mindless.

I view it as my obligation to row my own boat to financial stability. Relying on someone to do it for me is not the way to get to where I want to be (even as it does appear to work for some).





But here’s the real reason for the post title which, after all, is about things inside the box. Because sometimes, what’s inside the box is better than outside the box. And the moral of my (brief) story is that, now and then, revisiting old ideas is a good thing. They may show off something quite fresh.

So here is my comment on real boxes:

It took me a while to believe that wine could be a delicious accompaniment to a meal. As a new immigrant, I moved from a country that had horrible stuff on the shelves – Bulgarian wines of the lowest quality where common. They could turn a healthy stomach into a jungle of pain in no time. Other wines? Rare and expensive.

In the States, I initially sampled wines sold at a Chicago Walgreens (or some such convenience store). They came in boxes. I learned to like beer.

Eventually, married and therefore significantly more sophisticated (at the ripe age of 23), I discovered a wonderful cheese and wine store in Hyde Park. It was uphill to bliss thereafter.

Since those years, I have never seriously considered purchasing a boxed wine.

Until this year. In Paris. I had already purchased four bottles to take home with me. Things were getting heavy and pricey. Ed asks – why aren’t you taking this home – pointing to a box of rosé.
You will never get me to pour wine from a box. Ever.
Why not?
It can’t be good.
It’s the same one you just put in your shopping cart. See the bottle? Same domaine, same wine.
Oh.

And so I brought the box home. Once open to the idea, I began to look around. At my local supermarket, a whole stack of boxed wines came with favorable reviews from the Wine Spectator.

All this to say that now, my refrigerator contains these:




I’ll not dismiss boxed wines again. For the summer dinner table, they are a heavenly solution to the shrinking budget and growing appetite for something other than what you would pick up at Trader Joe’s. Or "Walgreen's."

The only difference between fatherhood and motherhood is that one is exclusive to men and the other to women, right? Yes, of course, one does a set of tasks, the other does another set of tasks, but however they are set, they do not ignore the fact that there are children out there and contributions to their welfare must be made.

Yet, over time, we have constructed such differences between the two, that each has claimed a day for her or himself in the calendar of important celebrations. It's not about parenting. It's about being a mother. And, in June, a father.

Here’s the thing – in my growing up years, I never thought much about Father’s Day. Honestly, I don’t believe it even marked a post-war Poland calendar page. Mother’s Day? Of course! And soon after (June 1st), Children’s Day. Both celebrating the challenge of the entire project of growing up (raising a child, in the case of mothers). Fathers had nothing.


In the States, I adapted. Father’s Day? Okay! It seems only fair. We celebrate both. Cool. That and the 4th of July.


Ed has been skeptical. Not a parent himself (indeed, I would guess that 90% of his friends aren’t parents; it’s as if they found each other early on and said – you too, eh?), he admires those who choose parenting over nonparenting, but he doesn’t get the holiday fuss.

So, what do you do on Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day)?
You go out and eat.
Do you want to go out and eat today?
It’s Father’s Day. We wouldn’t be able to get a table. Everyone else is eating out.

Still, in the early afternoon, we go to a local Tex-Mex place that also happens to have excellent espresso drinks (Pasqual’s). We find a table, read the local paper. He eats his huevos rancheros, I drink my latte.

I glance over at another table. Dad, mom, two kids.





Happy Father’s Day. You, all you dad types, you deserve a heck of a great day.

Faint strains of highland music make their way to the balcony. A bee is pushing at the yellow stamens of the rose. It’s become a routine: outdoors, granola with berries and kefir, a foamy coffee and bagpipes. Next week it may be folk and the week after – Italian. I have a very eclectic taste in music. But I am predictable in at least one thing: each year, I look forward to this day. And today, its beauty hit an A+ level. How many times can that happen in a lifetime?

5:19. I’m on the rooftop. Not alone. A fellow resident says – you almost missed it.
But I didn’t! I woke up without prodding, without alarm and now here I am, looking at the beginning of our longest day.





To make it perfect: what do you need to make the first day of summer, the longest day perfect?

I only need the hours of daylight. But if you’re throwing in goodies, I'll take a clear sky. And a day away from work. And some semblance of art and nature and and..

Oh, I'm too demanding!

But wait. There’s more. Regional seasonal, regional seasonal. Something to do with food?



Yes! This year the longest day, the first day of summer is not only brilliant and bright and warm and without work impediments, but it’s also market day.

For only the second time this year (I’ve been away), I go down to the Westside Community Market.



















It’s the season of favorites (so short here in Wisconsin!). I fill our basket. I would fill it more, but I’m remembering the roadside stand that we want to support.






And because it’s June 20th, having done all that – up with the sun, gym time, market time, breakfast time, shower time – all that time and still, I'm finding that it’s quite early.

The day sweetly extends itself. It’s longer by virtue of its daylight, but also by virtue of its brilliant skies.


Ed and I hang my photos at a favorite café. And we play tennis. And we zip around on the old motorbike, with a newly installed front fender.






And we do a yoga class. And I prepare a cusp of spring (or is it already summer?) meal.





And still, it’s light outside.


Oh, go ahead, Tell me you don’t care. Daylight, moonlight – what difference does it make? Today, Ed slept during portions of the day I would called “peak time!” He doesn’t function with an internal clock, nor with a sense of what’s up time and what’s sleep time. (For example, he dozed the last ten minutes of yoga. I suppose meditation and sleep aren’t that far apart.) And maybe you’re the same?

For me, daylight counts. A lot.


The sun set at 8:41. It wasn’t a stellar sunset. I stayed indoors. Too much food and yoga, in conflict with each other. Still, I'll think of it as it was -- a beautiful longest day. I'll dream about it come winter.

Most people don’t like sudden change. Seems violent. No time to adjust. Gradual’s good.

Today though, I’ll stay on the side of flash, immediate transformation. For instance, the tube in my nose is history. And, like post childbirth, all memories of disability and discomfort are forgotten. (True, I don’t have a baby to fuel my joy, but that’s okay: I don’t think I want to be a mommy to a newborn right now.) Why do we think of change as a negative? Quick improvements are life’s icing!


Still, on days like this, you have to be troubled by the suddenness. For example, we had storms today. Out of nowhere.

Last night's sky flashed repeatedly for us, and the morning came on gloomy: humid and wet. I left my daughters’ car out so that it would get a good wash.

Evening? Same thing.

But in between, I went to my favorite café to study the space where I’m to hang my photos this week-end. You may remember that my favorite café is actually just outside Madison. So I pass fields of corn to get there.

Would you guess this to be the stormiest day of the season thus far?

My family will vouch for this: I was obsessed with organic foods (or at a minimum, fresh and honest foods) and an athletic lifestyle way before either became trendy here. I wanted to age in good health. I had had enough of poor health in my early years.

It paid off. I am a horse in strength and a goat in nimbleness (and a chicken on high mountain tops, but that’s another story) and if I have anything to say about it, I’ll never need a pill sorter to keep my meds straight by the time I turn completely forgetful.

Still, the first quarter century of life has taught me to be vigilant about signals of potential problems. Perhaps too vigilant. I never ignore anything. And I like information.

So that when this spring, my doc told me I should have this one little organ within me measured for performance, I said – sure!

The measuring of it requires that I walk around with a tube up my nose (and then some) for 24 hours. Initially, I thought – no big deal. I’ll even teach with this. It will make ‘em look up.

But in April, I chickened out at the last minute (remember – at heart, a chicken). And put it off until now, when I don’t especially have to show my face anywhere if I don’t want to.

This morning, the tube went in. (Amazing how many things a tiny tube can record! All that information!)

And all I want to do is sit on my couch and count the hours until it’s time for it to come out again. And why not. I have an occasional traveling companion who should be happy to run errands for me while I hibernate.

Ed, I need several rental movies and a whole bunch of foods to get me through this.
Nina, you’re coming with me to pick what you want.
Ed, I am not showing up in public with a tube up my nose, strapped to my face, attached to a huge machine.
Nina, no one will notice.

Of course he’s wrong. I look awful. Indeed, in the grocery store, I am given priority at the meat counter. Probably to move me along out of compassion. I want to announce – I’ll wait my turn! I am not sick! I’m just measuring things!

You could say that I am learning what it’s like to have a disability, but I’ll answer that I already know what it’s like to be weak and incapacitated. Remember – I was once a sickly little thing. I don’t need another lesson.

Ed of course, finds the entire medical complex hugely fascinating. He doesn’t himself interact much with it. I offer insights into a world that is quite unfamiliar to him.

So, are you bothered by all this? – he asks.
Of course!
Yep, like I always said -- better to fall off a cliff.
Oh, I didn’t know that these are our choices in life – cliff, or tubes up your nose for a day.

We go back to the condo, I sip a latte through a straw and I think – good thing that I went to the gym before dawn today. I wouldn’t be able to put in my 50 minutes with this thing strapped to me. Now, please pass me the blueberries. Rich in antioxidants.


In the evening, I cook up a stew. I want the distraction of cooking.

There is such wealth to summer days! I think of good weather as being up there with money – neither can make you happy, but to have a good amount of either (or both!) most certainly makes life much smoother.

Living in the north – before in Poland, now in Wisconsin, and being employed by the state (and on a “mommy track” no less), I haven’t an overabundance of either, but so far this spring/summer, I’m feeling pretty “glass is half full” about life.

And so when I woke up several days ago with a sore throat, I thought to myself: this cannot be. I don’t get bugs (except for ticks in the Highlands). Maybe a sniffle every couple of years. In November. Not flu-ish viruses. Not now.


Wait. Didn’t Ed flip a coin? Wasn’t it the case that if I were to have flu symptoms, it would, by reason of the coin toss, lead me to suspect Lyme disease?

I call my doctor’s office. (I swear, the nurse has a bored voice when she calls me back. As if she wants to ask – where has your imagination taken you now?)

Nina, she tells me, go to Urgent Care.

Oh, I know what she is really saying: don’t trouble us here. Go bother the people over at Urgent. They’re having a slow day.

I go to Urgent. By now, I think my throat is exploding. In the minutes when it’s not feeling perfectly fine.

At Urgent, I’m given a mask. Flu symptoms require it. I want to tell them that we flipped a coin and there is, therefore, no chance that I have Swine Flu, but I don the mask and stay quiet. I note that the mask smells of something that detergents would call “fresh scent.” I wish it would just smell of paper.

I sit and wait. I am not urgent. Indeed, when all my vitals are recorded, I think they believe me to be as strong as a giant. I look healthy. I feel healthy. (Except for the soar throat.)

An hour later, the doctor comes in. We chat about ticks, Scotland, viruses. She looks at my throat. Vitamin C. You need lots of Vitamin C.

I’m glad that there are still placebos out there that you can offer to people like me.

I skip the Vitamin solution. I mean, I feel great.



Owen Woods, just a mile down the road from me

The weather is summer weather. I walk outside and think – weather and good health. Forget about the money part. You got good weather and good health – you should be happy.

I am.

With time, I’ll not compare my hours now with my hours last week, or the weeks before. I wont remember that I had too many photos and too many stories for Ocean then and not enough time to give them a thorough airing.

But right now, I still remember and I compare.

How can it be otherwise? I go out to the grocer’s and I take my camera, but I am not inclined to use it. Street scenes? Not here. Not outside my grocery store anyway. It’s a parking lot. The entire commercial scene here is a massive parking lot.

Oh, there are three tables. For those who need to pause between the door of the store and their car in the lot. Or something.




When not shopping for food, I’m working. My course, yes, there’s that, but I'm also getting photos up and ready for a café exhibition. I’m happy with this, because it will be at my favorite place for coffee this side of Ohio. [More on this later.]

And I’m biking again. That’s good. I like my bike paths. (By comparison, Parisian bike paths suck, and Rome’s bike routes are suicidal.) And I notice that my city is creating huge incentives for bikers. Did you know about the discounts all around town for those who show up with their bike helmets on? And we're not unique! Fourteen states have these! (Click here for more info.)


My balcony has flowers now. I eat breakfast there and stare out at the parking lot and think – it’s better to look out at a quiet parking lot than a street full of traffic, no? I mean, cafés on busy streets are way overrated, no?





No. Miss ‘em.

Even though I love smelling my balcony rosebush.


And I’m so pleased to be cooking up a supper that has vegetables. Seasonal vegetables that are not limp broccoli. Scotland, you have to tackle vegetables next, okay?

I haven’t seen my mail for over a month. Not even in the three days that I have been back. Somehow no one seems to know where it is.

This “no mail” state has me in a drifting mood. As if normal life hasn’t quite picked up yet. (Even as I’ve both unpacked and started the laborious task of outlining a new course for next year.)

As always after a return, I wake up early. I think about calls that need to be made and I wait until the world wakes up and I can start hassling it again. For instance, at 8:30, I called my doctor, found out she is on vacation, talked to a substitute and discussed the ticks Ed and I found all over us after an unfortunate romp in a field that seemed to be their Scottish headquarters. (We did not encounter ticks after that day.)

Yes, pulling them out with your nails is fine, so long as you don’t tear them apart. Pretty small down up there, aren’t they…You think you got them all? Come talk to me if you’re feeling feverish or sick.

I ask Ed if I were feeling feverish or sick, should I worry about Lyme disease or Swine Flu (Britain has a number of cases). We tossed a coin. Heads you worry about Lyme, tails – flu. The coin showed heads.

For recreation, I pulled more Texas weeds (a reference to their size) at Ed’s farmette until I realized that the man himself was reclining and I was using a diverse set of muscles to clear his land.

We took a coffee break and then went back to the strawberry stand to buy two more lovely boxes of berries. We wanted to tell the seller that she was underpricing the whole lot of them ($2 per quart for yesterday’s pick), but she seemed not to speak English well and so we just smiled and said thank you many times.

Ed can eat a quart of strawberries at a sitting. I returned the empty containers later in the day and talked for a while to the dad who first started tilling the land here two years ago. Great berries! Selling at the markets yet? We can only go to two markets each week and one is very far away. We have more to sell than that. We do better here.






In the evening, I drift in and out of work, pausing occasionally to pick a weed. And to smell the lavender – a flower that I planted here several years back because it always reminds me of travel.

If you were to ask me why my longest weeks away from home are always in spring, I’d probably say something about how summer in Madison is a treat. Spring is fickle: there, or not there, depending on the mood.

But also, it’s easier to return to a summer here than to return to a loaded schedule of classes in fall.

Now for the tough part: it’s hard to have the first Sunday back home. Elsewhere, Sunday is a time of inclusion. Of communal spaces. Of long meals and even longer people watching sessions.

At home, I clean house and do what every other American does: chores around the house.

It struck me that I live such an “un-communal Sunday” life that I don’t even know where the communal spaces are in my home town. Are there any? (Don’t tell me the Union. Student hangouts don’t count. You never see the same person twice there.)

And, I don’t have a grocer or baker who’ll ask me if I was glad to be back and how was my time away.

Yes, the first Sunday home is always very difficult.


On the other hand, I was handed a day of infinitely beautiful summer weather. After the usual house cleaning, I biked to Ed’s farmette. We pulled weeds the size of Texas and generally reveled in being outside, without the summer nuisance of mosquitoes (too early). A frog looked on.





The truck farmers who have been working the land to the side of the farmette have become exceptionally enterprising. They set up a stand where the children sell produce to those who drive by. Not many people drive by randomly on Goodland Park Road, but still, the kids tell me they're doing well.





In the evening, I put on Scottish music from a CD that we were given at the last b&b on the Isle of Skye. I made a supper of eggs with cooked tomato and mushrooms.

I will say this about Paris – it makes me feel absolutely happy to be a woman here.

It could be in my perception of things, but in Paris, for whatever reason, I take tremendous pleasure in all that makes me different from that other gender. At the superficial level – the identification comes in the style of dress and the presentation of self. But not only. A woman's tastes and pleasures are respected in so many venues. Many of them having to do with food to pick up for home.



















I make no claim that this joy in womanhood is universal here. Or that men do not partake in some of the pleasures traditionally handed to women.





Or, for that matter, that men and boys, engaged in manly and boyish routines aren’t pleased as anything with their own masculine world. Indeed, I watch them and I smile at their exuberance and joy in life. It’s all quite beautiful. (Ed says – and they’ve got great hair! I’ll add – and hats.)
















And, too, I’ve paid homage on Ocean to mixed gender partnerships. You’ve seen couples here lots of times, right? Happy to be together. Mostly.






But, as I sip a rosé on the park bench and munch on a baguette with Ementhal and crudités, I think – let’s focus on this one essential truth: to be a woman here is grand!





And what I see around me – the flowers, the chairs that fit my body so well, the public spaces that make me feel protected – it’s all so terrifically woman-friendly.











(Even as I do understand that here, as elsewhere, men do continue to tower in so many professional and artistic environments.)





Okay, granted. Still, at least in Paris (in my opinion), women of all shapes and sizes and importantly, of all ages, seem to understand their beauty and valor, their unique beauty and their unique valor. They walk with pride (and so I, too, walk with pride). As if they know they’re being watched, admired, respected. For what they bring to the table.






Late in the day, Ed and I are in a shop that sells lovely summer clothes. (There are so many! Sweet boutiques, sometimes even affordable – Maje, Zadig & Voltaire, Et Vous – beautiful and tempting.) I’m fingering a dress the color of a pale rose.
Should I try it on? It’s way less than 100 Euros.
How much way less?
Way less.
The clerk turns to Ed. You’re American, aren’t you? You have to know that in this country, the woman has the final word.

Well, I don’t know about that. But it sure feels good to be there in that dress, or to be at Le Bon Marche sampling paté and apricot almond “milkshakes.” Or to be anywhere at all.


We walk a lot in Paris. I love my routes around the city. For example, the one to the Bastille and back. This time, I want to stop at the Centre Pompidou. My musician hosts from last year told me that I should revisit it, because it’s superb now. I remember their words when I see photos of Obama and his daughter here just this past week.

We ride up the escalator…





…for a glorious view of Paris…











We look first at the special exhibitions – of works by Calder and Kandinsky. The first is completely fun – coat-hanger art. (Well, a little more elaborate than that, but in that style.)





I think about the audacity of assuming you can survive (and raise a family?) on creating coat-hanger circuses.


At the Kandinsky exhibition, we look at paintings donated to the various museums by his wife, Nina. Wife, and not necessarily lover. He had another woman (more?) who served that role. (I’ll bypass here the entire discussion of Paris and sex and marriage and sex in addition to marriage – I’m not going there with this post.)


In the permanent exhibition rooms, we look at art by women artists. Their art is strikingly absent from so many collections, even of modern art (I say “even,” as if we can forgive the previous centuries for being unkind to women).

The art here covers the range of expression. It’s bold and sometimes very disturbing. But the fact that a major museum in Paris devotes so much space to it is, to me, extraordinarily gratifying. Paris: a place where the difficulties of being a woman artist are openly confronted and talked about. Paris: a place where your failures in reaching any level of prominence are made more palatable because you are in a community of others who have had greater things to show, paint, and describe than you and yet, they, too, felt themselves to be at the margins of success.











So I’ll end with this womanly side of Paris. Even as I walk past Sorbonne and I am tempted to take a photo of a handful of men who look so, well, Parisian-male-professorial. I resist it. This time I’ll stick with what feels right here for me. From childcare to family life to beauty and the idolization of creativity, from food to conversation and to open spaces where both can combine – Paris. If you were a person, I’d say I love you. Even as I am so happy to be returning home today.

A city of light, love, food, fashion, art, architecture, politics, personalities, a city of great beauty, with probably the best people watching opportunities anywhere. A place to share, with someone, anyone, with, for example, an occasional traveling companion.

But mostly, over the years, I have traveled to and through Paris alone. I’ve learned how to do it. So much so that when Ed does join me here, like, for example, for these two days, I’m at a loss on how to proceed.

Much as he does not hide his dislike for all things urban, he knows not to dislike Paris to my face. It would be like me telling him that his two cats are flawed. We aren’t that unkind to each other. In conversations about it, we talk about the parks, the good food we have eaten here, the walks we have taken, the art we have seen.

But in making plans for a day here, we are at a conversational volley that often ends with the ball falling off somewhere beyond reach.

Where do you want to go?
Wherever you want.
Where do you want to eat?
Don’t know.
How about at that bistro with a reasonable fixed price menu?
Maybe.
Anything there that you like?
I’ll find something.

I tell him he is merely going along, that the enthusiasm just isn’t there.

But then come the good comments.

Let’s just sit for a while and enjoy the scenery.
Just for a minute.

You want to stop for a refreshment?
Okay...

I remember this shop from the last time.
I once bought a dress for my daughter there.

A smile, fleeting, but there, in the entryway to a shop, on a park bench, looking at a statue, a bridge, a person on a rented bike speeding by.



We arrive in the early afternoon, unload our gear at a still less expensive left bank hotel (the perennial challenge here is to find a place that is special and cheap; you cannot get to attached to any one choice, because some time in the future it will leave your budget range and you will have to search again) and set out.

Where to? Oh, green spaces of course. With Ed, there’s no hope for even a polite nod to the city if you don’t spend at least a little time in traffic free zones.

We walk through the parks where children ride ponies and chase balls between old trees.


Jardin des Plantes





Jardin des Plantes





Jardin Luxembourg


The skies turn partly cloudy and the air loses the Scottish nip that had been with us up north. We watch people take time out to be alone or with friends, or companions.




















Past shops, food shops, so many food shops. Ice cream places. I eat a cone with the absurd combination of salted caramel and cherry ice cream…

Don’t you want any?
Still full of breakfast.





…and drink a kir at an inconsequential sidewalk café.

What will you drink?
Nothing.
You can’t drink nothing. Have mineral water.
It’s more expensive than wine.
Have wine.
You have mine.

(Correction then: I drink two kirs at an inconsequential sidewalk café)





… and we walk again. Endlessly, until we can walk no more.

We do eat dinner at the bistro with the good fixed price menu (La Petite Chaise). It’s a fine meal. A good fit for us, just on this day.


[Note: I’ll post after my flight back home.]

In truth, neither of us is in the mood to be in Edinburgh. Ed dislikes most cities that are noisy and chaotic, and me – I prefer to keep my images of this place as I had them when I was young: I thought of it then as a cold and dark city, but one that grew on you, especially in the afternoon, especially if you stopped for a long tea and let it roll into the evening meal. With a pint after, to end the day.

Still, we could not pass it by. For all our time in Scotland, for our love of this tremendously beautiful country and its generous people, I thought we should at least spend a day poking around the capital.

In the end, a full day proved to be too much. Indeed, I can truthfully say that the best part of our stay here was within the first few hours, when we searched for Pickham’s -- the store with good cheeses for supper.


And the day after that? It could be that we were stuck in another world – of mountains and lakes, of sheep and fields of heather – it could be that. For both of us, the city felt like a trap. Around the commercial downtown, you could not escape the chaos of the tram construction. And so we placed our hopes with the Medieval Royal Mile, up there on the cliff, stretching from the castle to the palace.










But there we found a different sort of chaos – of tour buses and souvenir shops, of kilts and imitation kilts for sale, of fast eateries with prepackaged scones, prepackaged everything. You could not shake it. I could not shake it. There was no room for strolling, for contemplation. The place of historic momentum, of old buildings where poets and politicians spun their stories over the centuries appeared to have sold its soul to t-shirt shops and tattoo parlors.


The rain came and went and the afternoon turned first somber then downright sad.





The escape into a tearoom was the final slap: it felt far removed from the Scotland that I had loved so deeply up there in the Highlands.


Of course, the fault is our own. As I said, for many reasons, we were not ready and willing to take on this great tourist destination. And I have to note that there were some stellar moments to the day: the walk through the park, the visit to the Art Gallery, the climb up Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park behind the Royal Palace.





And the quick visit to the People's Museum, depicting life of the commoner in past centuries here was informative, if not a little depressing.






By late afternoon we were ready to call it a day. Though in the end, we rescued the mood with a wonderful meal of Shetland Island mussels at Fishers. We had begun our Scottish adventure at Fishers several weeks back and we were ending it there now.





Thursday should get us to Paris. Just for a day. Saturday, we’ll be home.

First living on the islands, now leaving the islands and highlands, rolling back as if it were all a movie reel that is now spinning in reverse.

Our last night up north is at the Braeholm, the b&b that welcomed us when we first arrived on that windy evening in Skye. Tony’s off to teach on the mainland in the morning (are the British Isles “mainland”?), but his wife and son are here, greeting us with the breakfast foods we’ve come to love (and they get an extra high grade for offering fresh fruit, in addition to the large pieces of smoked salmon with the eggs, and home made jams from Skye berries. That, on top of muesli or porridge.)





Kristen, our hostess, speaks with such a strong Scottish accent that I am sure we are finally in the home of true Scots. And we are. But not from Skye! Skye people move away for work, mainland people come back and set up homes and new businesses. The Isle is a way of life and not everyone likes its laid back airs.





You’ve been here four years? Your son is a Skye boy then!
Actually, they don’t let you give birth to your first here. They make you travel to Inverness where there are proper facilities, just in case. So he was born there. But he’ll be going to school just up the hill.

Life in Skye. After a while, do you take the scenery for granted, sort of like the living room carpet?










We walk to the bus stop one last time and now we are crossing the bridge. We are no longer on island time.




We have many train connections to make (all on our cheap senior day pass!). The first is on the line that took as here just a few days ago, right to the water's edge.





But now we're rolling back, returning to Inverness. This is the most scenic stretch – through the heart of the Scottish highlands.





There is a tour group of Scottish seniors (they love to explore their own country; none of this stay home and watch the telly stuff – you see groups of seniors on buses, trains, in towns and castles – trotting up and down in groups, waiting at stations, moving in sync, happy with all that is bright and beautiful around them) and I glance to look at them. They're taking it all in, carefully, reflectively.





And we, too, are seduced by the scenery. For once, Ed takes his face out of the tattered magazines that have traveled with him from home, through the Great Glen Way, dunked in the waters of the Spey, stuck in his pants' pocket on the Isle of Skye. Because if you look out long enough, you'll catch a glimpse of a fleeing stag. Or of an RAF plane zipping low, right at the water's edge.















At Inverness we don’t pause: we hop on the next train out – to Perth. And this one is a roll back to an earlier set of days as we yet again speed along the River Spey, past Aviemore – where I waited for my man on the boat to come back. Oh! Snow fell on the hills in our absence! How can such a small country have so many different weather systems passing through it all at the same time?





And finally in Perth, we change to the train for Edinburgh. We go over yet another body of water, on a bridge parallel to this one…





…the bridges that all of us northbound travelers take to put us in the sometime heathered and sometime forested hills of the Highlands.


It’s evening in Edinburgh. Dinnertime. Except Ed has had enough of eating out. Do you mind if we just get bread and cheese and bring it back to the room?
How can I mind – he’s been good about meals, my occasional traveling companion who like nothing better than to hunt down odd foods in a refrigerator at the most irregular hours.

And so we amble out, on the streets of the city that is ripped by tram construction and still covered by the soot of history.





We’re staying near Haymarket, in a nice guest house at the edge of a rather scraggy side of town (but who can really tell when all looks hellish out there on the broken up streets). Our trip to the local supermarket brings out my loathing for these big food stores. If Ed wanted interesting cheeses, we weren’t going to find them here.

I suggest we head in a little toward to the commercial heart. Along the way, I’m lucky enough to ask a person who knows food.
There’s just the place! Not too far. I go there myself for the good beers that they sell. Past this square, around the next two circles of houses, down the hill, across the bridge and to your left – Peckham’s.

And so we go down, just as he tells us…





… until we cross that bridge – not anything as magnificent as the Skye bridge, nor the one over the Firth of Forth, but a bridge nonetheless, my bridge not to nowhere at all, but to the wonderful little shop that sells great cheeses and wheat biscuits and breads, and my favorite Scottish shortcake for dessert.









And on the shelf, we spot them – dark and light, Black Cuillin and Hebridean Gold – for us, the king and queen of beers, from the Isle of Skye.


Up we climb now...




... with too many cheeses and too many crackers and breads, up to the rubble of the torn up city to the quiet of the room that, unfortunately, does not have a view onto the highlands.

We’re walking back from our last hike on Skye. It’s evening, but the sun is still with us. June, the month of the white nights: even as it sets, the night light turns from dusk to dawn and in the space of a few hours the sun is with us again. I love this about the north, even as I dislike the seasons of darkness that inevitably must follow.

In someone’s front yard, there is a car with a For Sale sign on it.
How much, do you think?
I glance at the price – L550.
Really? That’s pretty cheap. Ed walks over to take a closer look at the ten year old Saab.
The owner comes out the front door. We’re just curious – we explain.
No problem.
Is it in good condition?
Yeh, we just don’t use it. Figure someone else could maybe take it over.
It’s a good price, but, unfortunately, the wheel is on the funny side – Ed says.
The owner laughs. I figured you couldn’t take it back in your packs.

We don’t have to take it back, I tell Ed. We’ll keep it here, on Skye and use it each time we come, which maybe should be quite often.

The Skye bug has bit me hard.

But in the morning, we have to leave, at least this corner of the island. The following day we’ll be making connections back to Edinburgh and there isn’t a good way to do that if you begin your journey in sleepy Elgol.

Sleepy indeed. People here work on Skye time, Leslie (Robin’s wife) tells us. We’re having the hot water tank replaced today. Several years ago, we were told that the old one is ready to explode. We said – change it! So now, today, they finally decided to show up.

We wave good bye and heave our sacks to the side of the road to wait for the bus back to Broadford. Send us an email when you get safely back home! Robin calls out.


We rumble back along the one lane road. Suddenly so familiar. Red Cuillins, Black Cuillins. Sheep fields, inlets, mountains across the sound.


We’ll be overnighting in Broadford, but we still have a good part of the day for other pleasures. I suggest a ferry trip to the further Hebrides island of Raasay.

In Broadford, at the bus stop (we need yet another bus to take us to the ferry landing up north), we weigh our options. We have all our gear with us. The bus is about to pull up. A Skye man listens to the deliberations. Just leave it with the ferry boys, they’ll take care of it for ya.

At the ferry landing, the wind is giving us a good whipping. I’m happy that there is an indoor space for the twenty minute ride across the sound. Skye weather. Always the subject before you, always setting the pace for the day. But how is it that an island so much farther north than Wisconsin never has snow? And can let you feel a sprinkle on the face, even as the sky looks mostly blue? (Ed tells me -- it's like you: you're the only one I know who can laugh and cry all at the same time!)

We leave our packs on the boat. We’ll be catching the late afternoon one back! I shout against the wind.


The island is a springtime marvel. Wild rhododendrons are crazily overflowing with pink blooms. And they grow everywhere – on hills, in forests, lining the sheep fields, the roads, the waterfront.





We have in mind a hike around the southern end of Raasay. This is a place of great tales of the MacLeod clan and the name still dominates the island. You can see it on the Memorial to island war heroes of the Great War (and then subsequently, on the other side of the monument, of the Second World War).





I want to see the Raasay House, where James Boswell once partied with Macleod and "his ten beautiful daughters" (so the books say). I never asked for whiskey in my porridge (some b&bs offer it), but I hear he had a splendid start to the day with it, before setting out on his own Raasay hike.

We stay to the shoreline at first. Past a lovely playing field, with a posted sign: "please do not use on Sundays."





And then we come to a police tape. The road is cordoned off. A man in uniform ambles over.

We want to see the Raasay House.
Can’t. It burned down.
Oh! When?
Just this January.
Why?
Don’t know yet. The inspector is still investigating.
No clues?
No. He’s also the fire chief and the police chief around here. Small island.
You’re not from here?
No, from Inverness. They hired us to guard the place.

I point to the construction down by the waterfront. What are they building there?
A new dock. The old one is falling apart. This one should have been finished years ago.
They work on Skye time?
Actually no. They’re English. Slow on the job.
(Ah. Make no assumptions.)
Well, anyway, it’s a fine day!
Aye, first time in a while. Rains all the time here.

We bypass the tragically blackened skeleton of the Raasay House and head further north. Past "the gardener’s cottage" (whose gardens does he tend?)…



(to the gardner:) Good day! First fine one in a long time here, no?
Aye, fine day. But, not the first, no. Wee sprinkle in the mornings, then sun, two weeks straight now!
(Ah. It’s all in how you regard it.)

The views to Skye and the sea beyond are incredible.





From the shore up toward the narrow road, sheep fields are bordered by carefully built stone walls.





The island may be small (just 14 miles long and maybe 3 miles across), but it is handsomely tended.

We turn off toward the forest – a spooky place of fallen timbers (a wind storm? Island weather!) and secret walls and within them, secret gardens.





Raasay feels different. Greener than the craggy Skye.

We pause at the one place on the island where you can get a refreshment. It will remain in my mind as the most atmospheric café of this trip.





I ask for tea and scones with jam and we sit there, at the wooden table, letting the streaming sun warm the quiet space around us.





A child pokes her head out from behind the door. There is laughter on the other side of the wall. Family life. But whose? I can’t tell. Like the secret wall and garden, the fire, the fallen forest, it is a part of the island that will remain unknown to us, the strangers passing through.





Ed asks – can we skip the next ferry and stay a bit longer? It’s so nice here.

And we do. He reads a book he finds on the history of the iron mine here (worked by German POWs during the Second World War). I read a magazine about the Hebrides. Minutes pass. The last ferry will be leaving for Skye soon.

We head back. Past the row houses where miners once lived...





Past the laundry, fiercely buffeted by the wind from the north...




... to the boat landing, where the ferry is about to deliver provisions from the mainland and from Skye, and pick us up for the journey back.





Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that's born to be king
Over the sea to skye



One last evening walk along the shores of the Isle of Skye …





One last dinner – of fish stew, along with the heady Skye beer, golden and rich…





One last white night on the islands.

Elgol, the small fishing village to the west of Skye, has at least three claims to fame: it’s home to a good seafood restaurant – the Coruisk House, where we also happen to be staying…





(we’re in the building to the left – Robin, the owner, has turned it into a three room plus bathroom guesthouse); and, secondly, at the very tip of the village, there is a pier from which a small boat can take about a dozen people to the mouth of Lake Coruisk; and finally, Elgol is the beginning, or the end (depending on how you take it) of one of the most beautiful trails in all of Great Britain – from the lake, along the shoreline to Elgol.

You would think that hiking it would be a sure thing for us. But I’ve been waffling -- on account of the well known in the area, much talked about, and amply described in guide books “Bad Steps.”

But when you wake up to another splendid day of cloud and sun, you begin to think that maybe one should give the trail careful consideration. And so we set out – by boat to Lake Coruisk and from there, if the mood stays, hike back to Elgol.

I’m in a chirpy mood. It’s so beastly lucky to have this spell of bright skies. The breezes are strong and so the midges have stayed away, the rains have stayed away as well – all in all, it’s been near perfect out here, on the Isle of Skye.

We walk the meandering road down to the sea, passing the usual sheep of every size and hue.










At the dock, we look toward the mountains, hiding the lake that is our destination for the day. A small group has gathered for the trip. Most have binoculars. Bird watchers.










The captain of the tiny boat goes through safety advice and we set off. The waters are calm, the views toward the hills – magnificent!





He talks about the islands to the west of us. Once fishing communities (shark fishing was big here once), now nearly empty. These days, Skye fishermen bring in shellfish. Lobsters make their way to Spain, where they're sold at popular seaside restaurants. They're eating Skye lobsters and they don't even know it! -- the captain tells us. Yes, I've seen the traps on shore. Plenty of them.





As we get nearer to the lake, he shouts out – anyone walking back? Ed and I raise our hands. We’re the only ones. Well then, let me spin the boat around toward the Bad Steps. You should take a look and decide if you’re up for it.

We pull up close to the shore line: the Bad Steps are a cliff that shoots out at a very minor angle from the sea. There is no way to get around it except to lean flat against it and make your way across it (a distance of some 8 meters) by finding foot holds in the small crevices. There’s nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep you from tumbling to the sea below.





We heard stories about this place – how two tourists threw everything they owned into the water and plastered themselves naked against the rock, hoping to lighten the load, how two women started out bravely enough, then terror took hold and they remained for hours stuck, unable to move one way or the other, how our very own host, Robin, had to make his way across the rock to help someone who froze right there in the middle of the rock – on and on. Big tales, little tales, we’ve heard them all.

You would think that there’s no chance that I would want to join the list of tales. I remember well my most terrifying hiking experience to date – when I froze on a slope of endless scree high up in the Canadian Rockies. I have issues with heights and precipitous drops.

And in the end, this is why ultimately I decided to hike the Bad Steps: manipulating the rock is hard, but the drop isn’t significant: 10 meters down and you’re in the water. Rocky, sure, but I figure the price of a slip would be a few broken bones rather than certain death.

[I should insert a disclaimer here: in all our hikes, what I consider to be dangerous or terrifying, Ed calls tame and inconsequential. So do note that there is another perspective to all this. Neither is less real than the other. Robin, an expert rock climber, tells us of his friend who is world renowned in his ability to manage great climbs. When asked – how do you do it? He answers – I do very well at 10,000 feet what most people can do very well at 10. In other words – there’s a lot of mind play here. If you think it’s easy, it’s easier. If you think it’s hard – as I so often do – it becomes much tougher.]

The boat pulls away from the Bad Steps and moves slowly toward the tip of the lake. I take my mind off the hike and focus on the slabs of rock. Harbor seals are everywhere. Their heads bop out of the water and then disappear. Their cousins and friends are spread out on shore, resting, as if the very effort of lifting a flipper and rolling their blubber bodies over is too much on this pleasant day.





We pull up to shore and disembark. The boat will pick up the day trippers later. Except for Ed and me.

We hike to the lake first. Turner painted it, guides rave about it. Take a look at the jagged peaks, so majestic over the body of fresh water.






And now it’s time to start the hike back. It’s not a short walk under the best of circumstances. For us – five hours at least. If I can make it across the slab of stone.





This last photo shows just the beginning of the cliff part. I handed my camera over to Ed once I felt that even it’s slight sway was making me jumpy.

I wont go through all the minutes (hours?) I spent on that slab – the words of I can’t, alternating with I wont. My shoes had a decent grip, but often I could not find even a crevice to attach my hand to. My back against the rock, fingers searching for any nubbin of stone – it all was part of the drama. But the reality is that once you get your mind to let go of all the I can’ts, you move forward. (Especially if there is an Ed who makes the journey ahead of you and then comes back to suggest the best possible ways to navigate the cliff.) And so, eventually I inched across. As others have done in the past and will continue to do in the years ahead.


After that, I would like to say the hike was a breeze. And it probably would be for most anyone. For me, it remained a bit of a challenge because of sudden drop issues. Still, there was no more scrambling against stone slabs. In tough areas of sheer drop, I have learned to look anywhere but down.

And when it was okay to look across, the views were predictably stunning.


















We pass almost no one. Just sheep.















One last glance back at the sea, the hills and cliffs, the flowers along the trail...









And by evening, we are back in Elgol.





Exhausted, spiritually upbeat, hungry.

At dinner (of traditional Scottish cod and the most wonderful Skye beer), Robin tells us – then there was this couple who went over the Bad Steps with their little dog. That was tragic!
Oh! Did the dog die?
No, but he fell into the water and broke his foot.

We wake up to our first morning on this northern island. Not to be believed! In between the high clouds, there are streaks of blue sky. The forecaster was wrong: we will have a bright day ahead.

And that’s so important, here, on the Isle of Skye. I’ve heard stories where you can travel here for a week and never understand that the beauty of the landscape is in the rugged Black and Red Cuillins (“an adrenalin-drenched challenge with sublime hill and sea vistas” says one book). It’s not unusual for them to be completely hidden on a typical low-cloud cover day.

Downstairs, Tony and his wife (and their little boy) fix us a superb breakfast. Eggs, salmon, yogurt, heaps of fresh fruit, muesli, toasts, and jam made from the berries of Skye.

We eat leisurely. There are only two buses to where we are heading today and we’ve already missed the first.

Our son is jumping off the wall this mornin’ I think he’s so worked up on account of the sun, Tony says.

Well, me too. We pack up our gear and hike up to the village (Broadford -- the second largest on the island) toward the bus stop.









There is a narrow, one lane road that winds up the hills and down to Elgol, a small fishing village on the other side of the island. It dead ends there, so that the bus (a small vehicle that seats maybe two dozen) turns around and comes right back again.

The driver is not in a hurry. Realizing that I liked taking photos, he pulls over several times and suggests a shot here or there. But really, he drives slowly enough (what with the sheep on the road and the occasional car going the other way) that I can take plenty from the seat of the bus.



the older Red Cuillins





the younger Black Cuillins

Finally, he comes to a sharp stop. You’re here, he tells us.

Elgol is small (population: 75) and so I hardly notice that we are anywhere. True, somewhere down the road, there is, they say, a wee general store. And even a coffee shop that stays open only during slow times (“the man doesn’t like to work so if it gets too busy, he closes shop”). And a school with 15 pupils, ages 5 - 11. Where we're dropped, there is also a restaurant with rooms. For two nights, this will be home for us.


Robin, the restaurateur/inn keeper is yet a repeat of the same old story – lived in England, came here as a child, returned for good.

I should learn about people here in Scotland who hold a passion for outdoor life: they think and talk differently than I do. Andy, down at the Water Sports Center, the man who rented out the kayak to us, claimed the rapids were nothing more than a ripple, to be scooted over with hardly a thought. And now, here I am engaged in the same back and forth with Robin:

Can you suggest a hike for today?
Do you like mountains?
Well, yes, but (and listen, Robin, these are serious buts!) I don’t like big drop offs or paths that go through cascading scree.
But you’re okay with going straight up?
Yes… (he has to realize that I have my pride).
And you’re fast enough?
Here Ed jumps in to put a reality check: Robin, we’re old.
Robin laughs. On my sixtieth I practically ran up the mountain, just to prove that I can.
I’m thinking – I’m 56. I can do this. Without the run of course.

He gives us some tips. Follow the path toward the bay and then veer toward the heath. Just go up, cross country, until you get to the ridge. If it feels like it’s too much, turn back. But, you’ve got the weather for it, that’s for sure.

We head out. Initially, it is an easy trail. We know where we're going: toward the jagged peaks of the Skye hills.






But an hour into the trek comes the challenge. The path up the mountain tapers off. We are on our own. We scramble across heather-covered banks, past streams, up up toward the ridgeline (before the peaks, there is a saddle which we think we can manage without the need to climb rocks).







first heather buds


As the incline sharpens and the boulders turn into cliff-like structures, I waver. I have a wild and uncontrollable imagination as to tumbling down steep mountains. We haven’t a trail: we’re making it up as we go along. A slip and a fall would be bad news: too many ways to crack your head on the boulders even before you get half way down the mountain. Though, damn it, it would be a beautiful roll down to the sea!





When it becomes clear that we need to finish the climb on our hands and knees, I’m ready to call it quits.

And yet, we’re so close to the ridge! Still, I say to Ed – let’s turn back. He’s agreeable. This is no place to push someone to do more. As we retreat, I do an about face and, without comment, head back up. I don’t know what switch went off in my mind, but suddenly, reaching the ridge becomes all important. Look ahead, don't look down, keep steady, I'm only 56, I'm not running, shut off the imagination, don't slip, just a few more steps, well maybe more than just a few...

And we're there!



(the other side of the mountain)


The wind is vicious up there! I am convinced that it will toss us down if we linger – and now with a choice: I can tumble on either side of the mountain!





We don’t linger. Going down is arduous, but without the scare, it’s simply a matter of finding an optimal way to reach bottom.

Ed mutters – sheep do this without batting an eye. I mutter back – they have four legs.

Sheep do this, deer do this. Magnificent, fearless stag.





The clouds are hovering over the peaks now. An occasional gust of sprinkles hits us, but we know we're safe from big showers.





As we head home, we look at the extraordinary sky, showing off all that it can do in one corner of the island.






Seven hours later (it took us that long to do the hike) we're back in our room next to the restaurant. I’m delighted with the platter of local seafood that Robin cooks up for us (including the delicious Skye "squatties" – little langoustine-like shellfish that I’ve not seen before).





Ed is dozing off before our plates are cleared. I tell him to go on to sleep. I’ll finish up here. With a glass of port to give a sweet taste to the end of an island day.

You talk! I can’t hear a word. I hand the phone back to Ed. The wind is ripping me apart. There is some protection from the side of a house, here, in the village of Broadford, but it’s not much. We’ve just stepped off the bus and we’re on the Isle of Skye.





It took a while to get here, but we are now utterly brilliant (in the UK meaning) at figuring out the cheapest and best ways to get from point A to B in Scotland (helped tremendously by the best public transportation website I have ever seen – travelinescotland.com). And today, we traveled, for the first time, as seniors, on a rail discount pass that for L15 would get us to any point in the country and back. [Truthfully, nothing has made me feel as old as realizing that I am eligible for an elderly pass!]

First leg – we head east to Inverness, oh lovely town, that always breaks up the clouds for me when I am there!

And then, back to Scotland’s west, past a landscape constantly teased by a threat of rain...










...past villages with fanciful names and lovely spring flowers...





...to the edge of the sea – to the village of Kyle of Lochalsh – where we catch the local Skye bus that takes us over the bridge to the Isle of Skye. Fifteen years ago, you would have had to take a ferry. But now, the ferry service is obsolete.







Images of this island have been with me for a long long time. From history books (on the escape of the bonnie Prince Charlie here in 1746) to children’s books (we had a beautiful one on island life here that I would always pick to read to my girls), to photos of the rugged hills and barren coast – I’ve painted a canvas in my mind of what it's like to live on the Isle of Skye.

And even before, in my youngest school years, this was my most favorite music class song (listen to it here):

Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry.
Carry the lad that's born to be king,
over the sea to Skye…

You could say that Skye has been in my lullaby dreams from childhood onwards.

And now, here I am, trying ineffectively to put a call through to our b&b.

Loud the winds howl,
loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air,
Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,
Follow they will not dare.





So far, in the short time that we’ve been here, I can say that Skye is as dreadfully rugged and beautiful as I imagined it to be.

Our b&b host tells Ed – walk up the road a bit and I’ll come out to meet you!
And from Ed -- Could you repeat that please? Can’t hear you over the wind…
He does. And within minutes we see him. As I zip my fleece to the top and brace against the wind coming in from the water, I note that Tony Breen (our host) is in short sleeves. You’re not cold?
I was playing with our boy in the sun five minutes ago! Then the clouds came, the wind picked up – that’s Skye for you.



In the bright light of the northern evening, we set out for dinner just up the road to Creelers of Skye.





Oh, new Scotland, you! You show up when I least expect you!

We eat scallops and mussels and shellfish, all served with a promise that it’s locally sourced. With great care and respect for the ingredients. Fresh and honest.

We sit by a window and look out to catch the play of wind, rain and sea.





Outside, the skies are clearing. I know, only for a minute. Enough to give us a safe passage home.





Though the waves leap,
soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean's a royal bed.
Rock'd in the deep,
Flora will keep watch o'er your weary head.


Yep. Just as I had imagined.

The kayaking hero returns: wet, tired, hungry. He eats the rest of my Walkers shortbread biscuits (factory: a few miles up the road), plugs in the computer and probably likes the idea of being left there, under the quilt for a few days.

But I’ve been riding buses and staying put and my energy is boundless. I think surely a hearty Scottish breakfast will perk him up a little.

[Do you know what b&bs serve us each morning? Always there is porridge (oatmeal), and then there are the eggs – with cooked tomato, mushrooms, beans and a variety of meats, if you want them.]

In the morning, the man eats heartily and then retires yet again while I spread out his wet clothing, basking in the pleasure of tending to such rudimentary duties again.

By lunch, the man is willing to go up the hill for a hearty meal of soup (sweet potato) and sandwich, while I sit gazing admiringly.





We stroll into the village in search of a water bottle (his old one went overboard and he needs a replacement). It’s not a big village, but it has a number of sporting goods shops. And lads, cavorting after school.





And then I gently prod him for at least a half day hike.

Initially, we repeat the direction I took yesterday – to Loch an Eilein. It’s a steely gray day, with occasional sprinkles to make it interesting, in a Scottish sort of way.





It’s empty and quiet here, in the woods. Birdsong, yes, there is that. And the snap of dry wood as a deer scampers off. And the croak of wild pheasant.





We go up a bit toward the high hills. Yes, that’s a good way to remember the highlands: some covered with dense pine, but more frequently made bare, with only the heather waiting for it’s moment of purple hue, and wet dark clouds tumbling low over it all.











And just when you’re sure that the rain is going to come and soak you through and through, there is a break in the clouds and the evening becomes an unknown again. Wet? Dry? Cold? No one can say.





We head back. Dinner at the Old Bridge Inn again. I like it there. Something about the warm pub feeling, the food, the people watching…









A last plate of Scottish cheeses (Isle of Mull brie, Inverlochy goats, Strathon blue, smoked applewood cheddar) to finish things off.


Friday we leave. Up to Inverness and then west again. To the Isle of Skye.


IMPORTANT NOTE: for the next four days (until June 9th), my Internet access is going to be very uncertain. Over my years of blogging, I can think of only a handful of times where I could not post because of a connection problem. This may well be another such time. I will try; stay patient please!

When last I wrote, my occasional traveling companion, Ed, was kayaking solo on the River Spey while I was studying Scotland bus schedules to get myself to the point where he would reach the sea and we could reunite.

You could say that I spent Tuesday on the regional buses of Scotland.





At 6:30 p.m., I am in Garmouth. It’s home to the closest b&b I could find by the mouth of the river. The price is up there (L50 per person) by b&b standards, but I'm glad they have a vacancy. This, after all, is the high season for the English tourists who travel to Scotland to watch birds (it’s a national pastime!), play golf (bluejeans not allowed!), hike trails (with sticks, like me!) and basically enjoy the north as best they can before returning to their staid lives south of the border.

I get off the bus and I understand that I am in the middle of nowhere. Which may not be a bad thing. I like nowhere.

The inn looks like it is of another era. Which, too, may be alright. Quaintly old. Us tourists, we always want the quaint, the local, the undiscovered, as if our own discovery is so masterful, so magnificently private! Here’s mine, from the outside:





I open the door and I know right away, by the smell, the peeling wallpaper, the lack of staff, that I have walked into a hole.

I’ve done that before. In Great Britain and elsewhere. It used to be quite common to find places like this – old, neglected, unloved – places that are there for no reason at all except to lure the occasional weary traveler who has no where else to go.

Places that thrive on the pub business rather than inn-keeping.

There is no choice but to dump my bag and settle in. And ignore everything that is offputting – the smell, the cold, the dirty window that doesn’t open. It’s only for a night. Or two. Or three. Waiting for my companion to finish his adventuring on the water.

I take stock: food. Let’s take care of that. I go down to supper (I have to: there’s nowhere else to get food in the wee village). Hmmm – Mexican beef, chicken Normandie, or fish pie. On the inn's website, there is language about regional menus, organics, etc. I ask about that. The waitress shrugs. Don’t know, luv...

I like pies here (they’re a stew, with maybe a few carrots or peas thrown in, baked with a cover of mashed potatoes) and so I order the fish pie.





On the side, additional potatoes and peas. It is, at the very least, regional.

Inn-hopping is never predictable. And in Britain, price doesn’t necessarily determine value (our inn at Inverness, the Avalon, was cheaper than the Garmouth and I would say it is the nicest b&b I have ever visited). The only way to tell what’s worth a stop is to read up on what people say about it. My advice on the Garmouth: stay away!

After dinner, I get a message that Ed has just called. They were too busy working the pub crowd to locate me. That's okay. I know he's movin' along. I go across the hall to the pub where I am told I can retrieve WiFi. I see that I need a password. I ask for this. I wait until the poor, stressed bartender/waitress/hotel receptionist has a chance to find this out for me. Much time passes.

A helper comes in (good! There are so many people in the bar now! Men, mostly men from villages high and lo). She is told that her first assignment is to walk over to my table and tell me that it’s all a mistake – there is no WiFi.

I’m thinking: the Internet is many miles and (infrequently circulating) buses away – in Elgin. The room here is dirty, smelly, cold, overpriced. With a picture hung crookedly on the wall. (The picture almost certainly is cut from the pages of a magazine.) Why on earth am I here?!?

To wait for my old man to come in from the sea.

Except, in truth, I know that my old man on the water does not care if I am here or elsewhere.

I hike out to explore the river’s run to the sea. It looks magnificent. In either direction.









And confusing. I’m not sure that Ed will dock here. There’s no road, no place to pull up – nothing. Just the footbridge that I’m on.

I try to imagine how he can land, how we can meet up, how his kayak can be hauled to a spot where it can then be transported and I realize – this is for my man of adventure to figure out. Not for me, here on the shore.

I put aside my maternal instincts, return to the Garmouth and consider my options. One thing is clear – I am out of here in the morning. [Valerie, my friend, you are called upon once again – relay the message to Ed that I am no longer where he thinks I should be!]

But where should I be? In the morning, I pay my inflated bill and take the bus back to the regional center of Elgin (you Chicago people, you’ve been saying it wrong – it’s El-ghin!). There I find an open pub (a pretty reliable source of WiFi, even as the local Starbucks lets me down – no, sorry, we expect to have it next month). I scour the area for b&b’s. No vacancy, no vacancy.

Finally, I decide on Aviemore. It’s close to the drop off point for the kayak. It’s a well known tourist town. Surely I’ll find something.

Back on the buses. One connection, leading to another. Through towns that have the old blending so well with the new…








(my favorite confection!)


...past hills and vales on twisty roads that make my stomach turn.










And now I am in Aviemore. With a reservation at a most congenial b&b – the Corrour House. For L5 less than the hole up in Garmouth.








(view out the front room)


I don’t know where Ed is, but I’ve left messages in good places. Time to think about a decent way to finish off these solo days. I ask my b&b hosts about possible calming long walks. They suggest the Rothemurchus Park.

How right were they? You decide.


























After several hours of walking (no heavy backpack – indeed, I have nothing with me even at the b&b – only my computer, my shampoo (!?), my tooth brush and my rain jacket), I feel like a whole person again.

Late in the evening, I walk down to the River Spey – that same bridge where I had paddled just two days back, where the lads jumped off the side – and I settle in at the Old Bridge Inn Pub for supper. The salmon is simple but wonderful, the salad provides a boost to my ebbing vegetable consumption – life is good.










Back at the b&b I learn that Ed has called. He’s found me and is on his way. Sometime tonight. Valerie called as well (How's that Ed doing? Where is he?). She cares about the ending of a chapter. (We'll have to travel together someday... you, Ed, Kevin and I) And the beginning of another.

I’m content.

1. Speed, Bonnie Boat


I think this is as far as I can go, I tell Ed as we pull the kayak onto a strip of sand by the Boat of Garten bridge.
He knows I’ve made up my mind and his efforts to get at a different outcome are modest.
It’s so pretty on the river…
Yes, sure. Now, let’s haul the stuff up to the village. And we need food.
Do you know anything about this village?
Only that it has food.
Maybe you should scout it and I’ll stay with the gear.

We don’t have much, but it’s bulky: camping things, a change of clothing, two computers, a camera, paddles, life vests.

No. We need to find a place that will let us dry off. Let’s hope for a b&b.

We walk dispiritedly past clumps of wool (sheep have been here; sheep have been pretty much everywhere in the Scottish Highlands) in the direction of the handful of houses.



It had been a fine start. We loaded the kayak at Lake Insh and by 2 pm, we were on the water.

And I wasn’t too concerned. I can’t even recall how many times I asked about the force of the rapids and the strength of the river current. [I am a reasonably experienced kayaker (even if that experience came, for the most part, decades ago), but I have minimal training on rapids. And I don’t like them. Especially when I’m carrying gear and the weather is always verging on cold.] We were reassured: baby stuff. Level 3 at most (on a scale of 1 to 6, that would seem pretty tame).

And it’s true. The River Spey isn’t really a river of boulders and twisting, cascading rapids. It’s Scotland’s largest river and it’s known mainly for its incredible beauty (and for the malt whiskey distilleries on both sides, but I know little about whiskey so that part is lost on me. Sort of like tempting an infant with arugula).

But water levels shift and change and a calm ride can transform itself into a boulder-coaster ride very quickly when the water levels are low. And they’re very low right now throughout Scotland. Something about too little rain, though I can hardly believe it.

At the beginning, there was so much to enjoy!





But very quickly I realize that there would be no impulse photography. Rapids materialize again and again and when I hear them up ahead (there is always an audible roar) I hide my camera in a protective bag, just in case a big splash would send water flying over our kayak.


And still, in between, there is the occasional moment where I can exhale – admiring the lupines along the banks, the birds, herons, ducks…










...the lads jumping off the bridge for an afternoon dunk...










In these quiet stretches, I am happy. We paddle rhythmically, I pause to take a photo, to consider all that is around me.










But an hour into the trip, the river becomes tricky. We pause at the side and think about the right strategy for the rapid before us. And we plunge forward. Successfully. Ed loves rapids and he navigates them well.

I’m shouting back a “well done!” cheer, when our kayak strikes a large branch jutting out of the safe path between the boulders.

Neither of expected the sudden jolt and flip of the boat. I am submerged and thinking – damn! I’m under the boat and in the water.

We were sort of prepared for the worst. Bags were sealed and tied down. Ed’s shoes were tied down. But we were a trifle sloppy. My shoes were suddenly bouncing along with the current some distance from the boat. I am clinging to the paddle, Ed is clinging to the kayak, his paddle, and hunting for my shoes.

I cannot get my footing. The current is strong, the stones are covered with slippery growth. Definitely, my contributions to the rescue effort is minimal. All I can do is hold on to the paddle and get myself to shore.

I climb up the stones, leaving Ed to fight the current as he chases down first one shoe then the other. I stand on the stones feeling completely helpless and still a little confused. How did we wind up under the boat??

With a lot of strength, chutzpah and luck, Ed manages to rescue it all. We review the damage: Ed’s bags from home had kept my camera and the computers safely dry. Pretty much everything else is wet. (Take note, Lake Insh Water Sports Center: you need waterproof dry bags!)

In fact, I am not a little lucky: there isn’t any permanent loss. One banged up toe and a lot of wetness, but even though I’m cold, the sun is out from behind a cloud and I slowly stop shivering as I give in to its warm, calming rays. But I am shaken by the experience and when we get back into the kayak, I become obsessed with avoiding a repeat of the flip. As the boulders and rapids continue (in truth, never beyond level 3), I worry at each turn about navigating. Twice, I get out of the boat and walk as Ed works the river.

And that’s when I decide that one day of this has been perfect for me but I need to stop now. The joy has been shoved to the side as I have slipped into the constant worry mode. This, in spite of the incredible beauty of the land around us. From the middle of the river, even the ubiquitous sheep are still enchanting and for once innocuous – ticks don’t jump water, so far as I know.








(a very pregnant ewe)


And so I suggest that Ed continue the next day without me (it’s not possible to get him to stop now, not with only a fourth of the river trip – maybe some 20 miles -- behind us), and that I make my way to the mouth of the river on land, to meet up after several days at the Bay of Spey.


2. The People of Boat of Garten

We haul our gear up the banks of the Spey and down the road into town. I look around for someone to be out and about so that I can ask about rooms and food. A woman is working in her yard. I call out to her.

Meet Valerie McDonald Fairweather. Was it good fortune to find her in the garden? Oh, more than that. It spun the day around and made it brilliant. (And I use the term in the American way, because in Britain, everything is “brilliant,” – the right change, the proper direction, mail delivered to your hand, etc.)





Through our many conversations, I learn that she is an artist, married (Valerie - to a much younger man! Ed – is he number four or five? Valerie – you’re cheeky, aren't you! Actually number two, and number one was much older, I can’t seem to match with men my own age), learning Gaelic (Valerie – my grandfather spoke it), knows every trail in the National Park here (Valerie – I climbed that summit with Kevin on my sixtieth birthday), -- oh, and so much more.

She insists on hanging out our wet gear to dry, points us to a b&b in town and tells us to come back and give her a report on our progress.



(Valerie and Kevin's home, our gear)



We eat dinner at Anderson’s. I finally am brave enough to order Scottish lamb stew (sorry, all you sheep out there! I had to try it!) and it is quite wonderful.














Anderson’s is the new Scotland. We’ve seen a lot of that – a gradual move toward a new style of cooking, a new way with bed and breakfasts. Indeed, nearly every b&b we have stayed in is run by escapees from England (“quit the rat race in London,” or – “came here because I loved vacationing in Scotland when I was younger,” etc). I think the food, too, has benefited from the pressure from the outside world.

(For a comparison with the “old ways” see my next post – tomorrow!)

The next morning, we pick up our dried out gear at Valerie’s. (Valerie – I hung it up properly. Your husband just threw it on the line. Ed – husband? Valerie – oh, well, I didn’t get married immediately either! No reason to really. Ocean author, to herself – we’ll just let that one roll by.) We’re in her studio – shared with her husband, the guitar maker. We admire her art here and throughout her house.





I want one of her prints, but even at her reasonable prices, I can’t afford it. I promise to purchase something if at the end of the trip, if I have cash left over.

I send Ed off (Valerie, standing on her toes to peck his cheeky cheek – good bye, flower pot – I call people that, don’t know why…) on his boat journey, solo now. I watch from the bridge – the kayak is there still, on the beach, where we left it (on the far right of the photo).





I exhale. It’s a good decision not to continue (I am noting, too, that every day, the temperatures are dropping and a cloud cover has taken over the once blue skies), but somehow, I did not expect our time here to move in this direction. I go back to chat a little more with Valerie before my bus arrives. A friend, a comforting presence. Listening to her talk is like a long yoga stretch on the central nervous system: when all is done, I feel a million pounds lighter.


I wait at the stop for my bus back to Inverness (it is unfortunately the case that if you want to go up north to a point just thirty miles from where you are, you need to go back to a bus hub (eg Inverness) and start all over again). Someone is tapping me on my shoulder.

What are you doing here – she asks me?
I can’t place her. I am like that: put a person in a different context and I haven’t a clue who they are. (With a few exceptions. I always know who daughters are, for example.)
I’m Susanna. From the Boat Center, where you and Ed rented the kayak. Why aren’t you on it and where is Ed?
I explain. My turn now: and what are you doing here? I know she is from Spain, working in Scotland, but why is she here, in this tiny village of Boat of Graten?
I live here. I’m the single mum now and this is a very nice place to raise a child. And Britain in general is kind to single mums: we get a nanny allowance if we work after our year off. I could not work without it.





Ah yes. These stories make me cringe. No developed country is less hospitable to the working parent than the U.S.

We talk a while. You made friends with Valerie? Good. She’ll keep me posted of how you are doing in life.


I settle into the comfortable bus seat and make my way back to the gateway to the Highlands, where I catch another series of buses that, by evening, spit me out at the mouth of the River Spey in Garmouth.

Calm beginnings. Still waters.





The photo is from the kayak my frequent travel companion, Ed and I picked up at Loch Insh, in the Cairngorms National Park of northern Scotland. Much has changed since then. I’m off the River Spey (while to the best of my knowledge, Ed is still on it, or in it, depending). But, I have only a minute to post as I wait for my bus, so the story (and there is a story) must wait.

As soon as I find a good Internet connection, I’ll continue. Perhaps later tonight.

Over dinner at the Kitchen Restaurant (a fairly new place in town), I lean over and tell Ed: the hostess is Polish; the waitress is Polish; the table runner – she’s Polish too.

So I ask our smiling server – how is it that there are so many Poles in Inverness?
Ten percent of the population here is Polish. She shrugs. We come here for a little while, we find work, we stay longer than we intended.
So you plan to go home?
Oh yes! In fact, I’m taking a vacation back home in two weeks and I am counting the hours! My family back home can’t wait to see me, I can’t wait to be there again!
Don’t you like it here?
Sure, it’s alright, but it’s not Poland. People here are different. For instance, so strange about the weather. It gets one degree below freezing and they freak out. Or, this week – you should hear them – heat wave! Such a heat wave!

Yes, they think it’s hot. And on the trail, on a long stretch of shadeless path, it did seem, under the weight of the pack, very warm indeed. But a heat wave? Only in the eyes of the Scots.

I look outside the restaurant window. Two young guys are spinning around on an inflatable on the River Ness.





On our walk into town, I could just hear the young boy begging for an ice cream to cool off. The dad acquiesces and then throws in – go ahead, take your shirts off, it’s hot enough.





On a patch of green, two people are practicing the pipes. I imagine they’re faces are pink with the effort. And pink from the sun.





The weather here is something of a sore subject. The bar tender in Invermoriston commented – people say – aye, it’s raining, after all, it’s Scotland! Sure, it rains, and we have sun too and all we hear about is the rain!

But the fact is, the weather changes here constantly. This spell of warm sunshine is, after all unusual.

And so we debate as to the neck leg of our journey here. The plan is to take a kayak some ways along the River Spey. How far will we get with this idea? Much depends on the weather. The ever unpredictable Scotland weather.


IMPORTANT NOTE: for the next seven days (until June 9th), my Internet access is going to be very uncertain. Over my years of blogging, I can think of only a handful of times where I could not post because of a connection problem. This may well be another such time. I will try – I’ll be hiking and kayaking with my computer in my pack (scary thought that it is). But we’re not sure if we’ll find places to stay (we have our sleeping bags) let alone places to hook up. So, stay patient please!