Road Trip Part 3--A Man Named Wallace, Arthur, and the Zombie Apocalypse

"The Journey, not the Arrival matters"--T.S. Eliot

Annnnd we're back in Edinburgh! There was just so much we felt we needed to see so we explored the city more before heading off to our next destination. Just as we arrived at our parking space it started raining... No big deal right? I'm used to it. Except... my stupid self left my rain jacket back in Leicester and all I had was a very permeable sweatshirt. Sarah and I grit our teeth and spent almost the entire morning outside visiting these lovely places:

That's Scot's Monument on the left and "The Shame of Edinburgh" on the right. It was SUPPOSED to be an exact replica of the Parthenon in Athens...

 NAILED IT. They took almost 8 years to do that and didn't even finish the foundation when money ran out. When they got the money again they decided to just leave it...

And that sums up how we felt all day in the rain.
We decided to go indoors to dry off so we went back to the National Museum. This time we started on the bottom floor like normal people and saw something pretty cool and creepy things.

I'll start with the creepy things. Yes that is a glove and dagger from the 15th century. Yes that is actual blood on it.

I just love full face masks that make people look like serial killers. Don't you? This was the mask of a churchman who was wanted for traveling around Scotland preaching against the religious changes that Charles II was forcing people to accept. He was never caught. Personally how dim do you have to be to not realize that is not actually someone's real face? Slightly sketchy situation in my opinion.

Now for the cooler things.

Sarah became and astronaut. We discovered the Lewis Chessmen who were made of walrus ivory and had the BEST facial expressions.

 We saw the first cloned sheep. I didn't realize she was already dead. Oops.

An AWESOME electric cello was there. I contemplated breaking the glass so I could play it, but I had a feeling I didn't want to end up in a Scottish jail.

I FEEL OLD knowing that this gaming system of amazing childhood dreams is now in a museum...





After playing with all of the objects that were mostly dominated by 8 year olds Sarah and I decided it was time to hit the road and say sayonara to Edinburgh. We were once again on the move and I was trying my best not to take out vehicles, pedestrians, foliage, and curbs as I was driving. We did feel really bad for the car at one point on the way to Stirling. There was some road work and a rather large bump in the road... we had passed it once on the way to Glen Coe and hit it at top speed which made both Sarah and I yell WOAHHHHHHHHHH for 20 seconds straight. As I neared it this is what happened in my brain.

"Emma there's that horrendously large bump. What would a normal person do? Well some people would slow down, but I'm not really in the mood. Oh well"

This is the conversation between Sarah and I right after those thoughts.

Sarah--"Hey Emma... do you remember that huge bump we went over before"

Me--"Yup. We're about to hit it again"    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

The car survived... Not sure about unscathed, but we were never charged anything for damage so I'm just going to assume the poor thing is alright. If anyone ever wants a sturdy car get a Vauxhall. I swear Sarah and I should be the people who test them for any kind of damage possible. This car was prepared for us and that's saying something.

We got to Stirling and managed to find the Wallace Monument without any trouble. We decided to hike all 200+ stairs to the top. I'm not sure what midget population of anorexic people lived in the UK way back when, but it really shows when you climb up a staircase an ant would find cramped, especially when it's a slippery stone and it's raining like crazy. Here's some pictures of Sarah's near death experiences and my near heart attacks after we made it to the top and back down without her slipping and used the stairs as a very bumpy slide.

That sword was taller than I was. That man must have been a goliath.

After we had explored the Wallace Monument we were pretty wiped out and made our way back down into England to Kendall where our bed and breakfast was located. On our way we made a wrong turn and tried to turn around literally 10 times, but the space was so narrow we just couldn't without backing into someone's living room. There was a cat sitting on a car watching our every move. I have never felt more judged by anything on the planet. It followed us with those judging eyes at our pathetic attempts at trying to leave this odd residence we randomly found ourselves in.

Just look at those beady little judgement eyes...





We finally arrived at the right bed and breakfast and Me being an exercisaholic decided to go for a run. It had just finished raining, which meant SLUGS. So many slugs. I felt like a mass murderer. I just gave up trying to avoid them because I'm pretty sure the cop I ran past doing a weird avoidance jump run thing thought I was on some sort of  drugs. He definitely gave me a funny look as I ran past on my way back. Sorry slugs...


We then woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to make the 6 hour drive down to Cornwall. Our first stop was Tintagel, birthplace of King Arthur! They had one heck of a castle. It was a 2 part castle set on 2 different cliffs facing each other and the only way to access either side was a steep, slippery, and rickety staircase. They must have had buns of steel climbing up there frequently.

I'm not sure how Sarah and I managed to do this, but we found a back way to the castle by completely bypassing the tourist paths that were easy. We went through a sheep field around a cliff, down a mini valley, over a cave, and up a path to the tourist building to buy our tickets. We still have no idea how we did that. It was an adventure. Sarah and I bought the world's best present for our friend Laura. Sarah got her a pencil sharpener that was a working catapult and I bought a bow and arrow and the arrows had suction cups on them. I ran around the whole site jumping out behind rocks and pretending to shoot things. I love being 5.

Look how terrifying those steps are. The mini blobs on top that are barely visible is the castle ruins...

We tried to get into Merlin's Cave, but we of course timed it so we came right at high tide when they were flooded. We at least got some great pictures.

After that we climbed up the other side of the ruins and explored the entire area only to find a sign that says "Beware this cliff could collapse at any time. It will eventually all collapse and fall into the sea."
THANK YOU SO MUCH for telling me that AFTER I climbed up here and am looking out over the edge. Jerks. The English have a distorted sense of humor sometimes...

Sarah and I completely entered nerd heaven here and ran around exploring the rest of the day. We were kicked out at closing time and went into town to have lunch in a local pub.

We then drove another few hours to our hotel. We woke up the next morning ready to go on an epic fossil hunt. Turns out we have no idea how to find fossils. We spent about 3 hours and all we found are what we are assuming to be fossil poop... Yay poop... Buzz kill.

Our morning was anti-climatic, but our afternoon drive back to Leicester was filled with the beginnings of the zombie apocalypse.

It was a dark, foggy afternoon and looked like something out of a horror film. We were the only cars on the road and had passed under a thick patch of trees so we couldn't see anything but fog. Then suddenly out of NOWHERE a creepy figure of a woman slowly lurches across the street in such a zombie like fashion that the Walking Dead show needs to hire her immediately.

Man, look at that splendid view. Perfect for driving.

The rest of the trip consisted of us discussing:

1. Worst countries to be in during the zombie apocalypse: Any country in Asia... too many people to eat us. Africa... same problem and too many scary animals to eat us.

2. If you could have anyone in history be on your side for the attack who would it be?     Chuck Norris, George Washington, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Batman, Spiderman, The Hulk, Thor, Jason Bourne, Terminator, Houdini, Ivan the Terrible, Abe Lincoln, etc.

3. What skills should you acquire to convince someone they NEED you in your awesome amazing safe house?   Knitting (don't judge you need clothes fixed and made), scuba so you can build a dome of safety underwater, knife throwing skills, sniper, cooking, washing, ninja, ventriloquism (throw voice so zombies think I'm in a different place and then ninja them to death), climb trees, fort building, agriculture, build a batmobile, fire breathing, tank driving/construction/operation, baking, become an electrician, to name a few.

I hope you feel more prepared. Sarah and I do.


"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment" --Hilaire Belloc