The Struggle
/Just back from a wonderful trip to Scotland and England’s Lake District to visit my daughter Teagan, who knows me oh so well, organizing an itinerary that catered to my every interest. I don’t vacation well - the architect side of my brain doesn’t shut off; even if you dropped me on a tropical island I’d find myself wondering about how the huts were constructed and how I might be able to improve them, so this was really neat.
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 took the opportunity to hang out in the countryside, passing through Ambleside on The Struggle, a five-mile winding road, to get wool from a boutique farm where they spin wool and knit crafts, entering pieces in the farm show competition. The Struggle took us to Windermere, where the Windermere Jetty Museum with a boathouse on the lake and wooden boats in the water, stored as they should be, resonated with all my boatbuilding memories 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.
Being a car guy who loves driving cars and fun country roads, Teagan set the trip for backroads only (or maybe because they drive on the wrong side of the road over there, the backroads don’t have a side to drive on - they are only about ten-feet wide in total!) The Lakeland Motor Museum had all the English marques - Jaguar, Triumph, MG, Land Rover, Rolls-Royce - brilliant examples of engineering and style. Plus they had a Kawasaki KDV 200 - my race bike from 30 years ago (an Enduro dirt bike). Did I mention I still have it?
I guess I could say I made a splash at the Lost Shore Surf Resort in Edinburgh but I was in over my head in the Turns session, mostly getting oriented and comfortable in a full body wetsuit with hood, gloves and boots. Paddling out in a manmade surf pool in 52° water was definitely different than jumping into the open ocean. It was confining, and that limited my confidence. This wasn’t the same old, same old - this was a new experience with its own complications.
Instead of being able to see the sets coming from far off, reading the waves and paddling into the pocket, this experience made me feel like a first time skier trying to get lined up for the chair lift, waiting for my turn to position myself alongside the wall, right at the #5 (take-off spot). Here, you waited in a queue proceeding to the launch spot as swells systematically popped out of nowhere at a rate of about 8 waves per minute. So when it was your turn, you paddled to the take off spot where you don’t exactly catch the wave - it catches you, ready or not! Unfortunately I wasn't ready, or prepared, for this new manmade surfing experience. I’ll be better prepared next time.
Lunch in Ambleside allowed me to see The Bridge House and other sites such as Hadrian's Wall, a former defensive fortification (stone wall) of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Engineering, architecture and construction - a trifecta!
About that ice cream shop behind Edinburgh Castle - we both go chocolate. Every time, every place.
Usually a vacation is a struggle for me because I’m wired to work, figure things out and solve problems. This was a refreshing change of pace, and I’m energized and inspired as a result.
