The Struggle
December 12, 2025
I’m just back from a wonderful trip to Scotland and England’s Lake District to visit my daughter Teagan, who knows me oh so well that she organized an itinerary around nearly every one of my interests.
I don’t vacation well. The architect side of my brain doesn’t shut off. Drop me on a tropical island and before long I’d be wondering how the huts were constructed, why they were sited that way, and how I might improve the details. So this trip was different. It didn’t ask me to turn that part of myself off. It gave it room to wander.
Challenging roads — check.
Wooden boat museum — check.
Motorcycle museum — check.
Automotive museum — check.
Surfing — check.
Architecture — check.
Ice cream — check.
Can’t make this stuff up.
Knowing I love to drive challenging roads, Teagan routed us through the countryside, including Ambleside and The Struggle, a five-mile winding road that took us toward Windermere. The Windermere Jetty Museum, with its boathouse on the lake and wooden boats stored in the water as they should be, brought back memories of boatbuilding and time shared with my grandfather.
A motorcycle museum on the Isle of Man recalled my younger days when I owned a bike and had me revving my engine again, if only in my mind. The Lakeland Motor Museum hit the car-guy side of me just as hard, with Jaguar, Triumph, MG, Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, and other brilliant examples of engineering and style. They even had a Kawasaki KDX 200, my race bike from 30 years ago. Did I mention I still have mine?
At Lost Shore Surf Resort in Edinburgh, I guess I could say I made a splash, though I was mostly in over my head. Surfing in a manmade pool, in 52-degree water, wearing a full wetsuit with hood, gloves, and boots, was definitely not the same as paddling into the open ocean. Instead of reading sets from far off and working into the pocket, I felt like a first-time skier trying to line up for the chair lift. The wave didn’t feel like something I caught. It caught me, ready or not. Mostly not. I’ll be better prepared next time.
Along the way there was architecture, too: The Bridge House in Ambleside, Hadrian’s Wall later in the trip, and countless reminders that engineering, construction, landscape, and memory are never really separate things for me.
And about that ice cream shop behind Edinburgh Castle — we both got chocolate. Every time, every place.
Usually, vacation is a struggle because I’m wired to work, figure things out, and solve problems. This trip was a refreshing change of pace. It didn’t fight the way my mind works; it fed it. I came home energized, inspired, and grateful — especially for a daughter who knew exactly how to plan a trip I would actually know how to enjoy.
