Thursday turned out to be day 2 of staying in Fort William
and it seemed we’d done little, but that little bit had been great. Either we were spending all of our time in the best parts of the country, or we were going to need a bigger vacation!
The days started like this: I'd wake up around 6-7am, and hear
rain and freezing wind outside. I'd get up and make coffee while Pam pulled the
covers over her head. We were surrounded by our stuff everywhere. This was the
opposite of our big house. If we were in the bed, the suitcases were on the table. If
I wanted to use the table while Pam slept, the suitcases would be in the aisle…and so on. It really was like a small sailboat inside. Next time, I'd need to bring
collapsible suitcases…and less stuff.
Pam would finally get herself together around 11am and we would have had a bowl of porridge, which tastes just as good as oatmeal, only the locals eat it cold. By the time we got the van all packed up, it would be almost lunchtime, but we hadn't eaten a lunch yet on this trip. Our internal
clocks were so off that we were eating right when we got up and when it got dark. On this day, we actually made it about a mile down towards town, before I saw
this cool little strip of asphalt that said “Ben Nevis Ahead”. I did find out that the
largest mountain in Scotland is not really named after a guy named Ben. It is
the closest English sounding phrase to the Gaelic name for the mountain, which means “poisonous
really bad place”…so I really had to go there!
We drove for almost 30 minutes down a road that finally was
something just like what I thought Scotland would be: little country roads with
no traffic and sheep everywhere. I was kind of surprised that the sheep were
really not that friendly. They stood right by the side of the road looking at
you, but if you stopped and tried to converse with them, they quickly took off.
My best guess is that they associate people less with food and more with
somebody that grabs them roughly and gives them a fast shave.
We finally came to the end of the beautiful road and found
that our van was too big to park in the little car park. We headed back, but I
was determined to put my boots on Ben Nevis, and sure enough, not a single mile
from our campground in the other direction, there was a visitor center and the trail. Pam and I hiked
for several hours and I have to say that hike was worth
the price of coming to Scotland. We spent the first 15 minutes of it admiring
the young lambs and their mothers, while hanging over a barbed wire fence, not knowing that soon
we would come to the end of the fence and have sheep everywhere all around us. Never
close enough to pet though. They were always eating, while keeping one eye on
those dodgy hikerfolk.
In Scotland, a great thing has to end perfectly and this one
did. When you come down from the hike, there is an true pub on the trail. We went there and had great food and drink once again. I guess these guys do
not understand how much more money they could make by serving crappy food. I
hope they never find out.
From there it was on to Fort William, a cool little town
with lots of tourist traffic. Pam and I were quite a team with me pulling into
yet one more roundabout yelling “Tell me what to do!” while endless streams of
small cars caromed through the circle. “Look right, go left!” she replied
encouragingly. We got lost, took wrong turns, and laughed about it all. We were
not on a timetable, and she was able to look at all of the beautiful buildings
while I wondered how much easier it would have been to ride with a group on a
bus.
Pam wanted some British Pounds to spend and searched for a bank. She finally found one and after about 3 U turns, I pulled our giant
camper into the world’s smallest bank parking lot, taking up only 2 parking
spaces this time. I had that smug satisfaction of having made it into a tight
spot with a split second decision, wondering why a bank would have such a tiny
parking lot. Then I looked up at the sign “The Bank Of William Inn and
Restaurant”. No, there was no shouting. We just laughed and Pam got out and
stopped traffic while I backed our monster vehicle out into the busy road.
Thankfully, even the tourists in Scotland are nice drivers. We finally were able to get some sterling at the local Post Office...which was staffed by folks just about as surly as the ones we have.
There was only one really upsetting thing about the day. The
van was just not working right. The power for the back went off and would not
come back on. Almost everything that went wrong was fixable and the support
staff was quite good, but Pam wanted a pound of flesh. Every call to support
had her in the background, telling me what I had better tell them. I think they
finally felt sorry for me and said that they would deliver a new van to our
location. Their only request was that I keep Pam from hurting their driver.
Well, there are some things in this world that are
universal, and men from any country can understand the plight of a man whose
wife is on his case. 
We decided to stay another night in the Ben Nevis campground
and discover if that restaurant nearby was really that good, or did we just
happen to order the one dish they did well…no, it was not a fluke.
The dinner started off nicely with a beautiful young woman
asking Pam if we were “booooked”. Pam said “Whaaaaat?”, and immediately fell in
love with the girl’s accent. Pam finally understood that in Scotland, you "book" a table, you don't make a 'reservation'. Pretty much the rest of the night was spent with
Pam trying to get the girl to talk so she could imitate her accent. Truly, I
could barely understand her, but I knew that back at home, she would be
fighting off the boys. Pam told me, no worries, there was a hot scruffy-looking
young guy working the bar, and the girl kept mentioning that he surfed and they
rode mountain bikes together. They like downhill riding here. With the sloping mountains everywhere, I could see how they’d do
it. Perhaps I would get a photo at some point...
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