Today was another driving day. This time to get us to Glasgow, where we would wind up our little Scottish adventure. We left at 10:30 am and headed back the way we came just two days ago. The weather was rainy and overcast though I hoped it would make for some great photos on our drive down.
The drive from Isle of Skye was mainly down the A87 and A82 and through some of the most beautiful country in all of Scotland. I also discovered Scottish approach to signage on the highway. Sometimes they post signs that give you lots of warning about the turn coming up and other times it seemed like the notice was right at the intersection. Needless to say I overshot the mark a couple of times and then had to try and hunt up a spot to turn around.
The following is a gallery of the photos taken by Helen on our drive. For space sake I won’t post all 182 of them!
This second gallery are the photos from Loch Lomond, which is located outside of Glasgow and is a mecca for the summer crowds.
When we finally hit the M8 we knew we were close to Glasgow and here is where the driving became a bit more of a challenge. The entire time we were driving the GPS, for the most part played nice and then we hit Glasgow.
We happily followed it’s instructions for getting off the freeway and getting to our hotel and it was doing a great job, after all we could see the Marriott right there in front of us as we got off the freeway. Problem was, just like in Edinburgh there is a lot of construction going on in Glasgow too. And wouldn’t you know it, the road that the GPS wanted us to take was part of that construction. We didn’t realize it until, after following Instructions we were all the sudden back on the M8 heading back out of town.
So we hopped off at the next exit, reset the GPS and tried again. This time we covered the distance on surface streets. This has to be better right? Wrong, instead here is where my opportunity to get us killed comes up. As we followed the directions we came to a stop light under the overpass and the GPS tells us to take a right. Got it, right hand turn. I look up and on the cement post in front of me is a sign that says no Left turn, check no problem I am going right anyways. So following the GPS guidance, obeying the sign on the post, I turn right. Unfortunately the GPS and post meant that I was to follow those directions AFTER I passed the post. Instead I turned into on coming traffic.
Good news is there were only a couple of cars and they didn’t get excited, they must have clowns like me more often than they care to admit. I find a street that will let me get over to the correct side of the divided highway and I turn, bad news is, I am headed the wrong way again. Now this person I encountered was not happy, he laid into his horn for about 15 seconds, continuing even after we made it out of his way. But good news we are now on the right side of the street so all is good now and it’s back to the directions.
We follow the GPS directions and before we know it we are about to get back on the M8 out of town again, fortunately there was a little side street we shot down, which would have worked great if we had been staying at the Hilton which was at the bottom of this little street. But since we weren’t we had to turn around and make another attempt at getting to the hotel. This time we get to the M8 decision point and I decide to pull into a parking lot, figuring I would walk to the hotel and get them to tell me how to get to them. Fortunately, or so we thought, there was a very nice person working the lot who was happy to give us directions. He whips out his Iphone and proceeds to give us the same directions as the GPS!!
Finally I put myself in Helen’s hands and she ignores the GPS and helps us get to the hotel based on a little common sense and logic. Good news is I think I only broke one more traffic law accomplishing it. But at least we got there.
Central Coast Senior 
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