The Great Rental Car Adventure

Carrie and I have been sharing the driving since arriving in Scotland. Picture waking up at 6am to get to the airport. Flying all day and night, arriving at 8am with no sleep. Jumping into a strange car that you have to drive on the opposite side of the road than you are used to…. Oh, while shifting with your left hand. Leave the airport, which is crazy busy like any airport exit, and drive on curvy back roads that are about 1.5 lanes wide, with vehicles crowding or sharing your lane from the opposite direction, while they weave out around cars only halfway parked on the sidewalk (which leaves their other half in the road, thus the cars on your side of the road). Now drive for 10 hours with three other people in the car shrieking and sucking air and clutching the back of your seat because they are scared of the cars headed straight for you (oh, and scared because the driver keeps running off the road on the left side due to the above mentioned lanesharing!)
Not so bad, right? Now add in darkness, and single track roads. What is a single track road you might ask? As a cost saving measure or space saving measure (not sure!) the Isle of Skye has mostly single lane roads, used by vehicles traveling both directions. Every so often there is a “layby” (tiny pull out) that you use if it’s on your side of the road, and the driver from the opposite direction uses if it’s on his side, allowing the other car to pass. Simple. Except when you are on this skinny road and another car approaches and speeds up instead of slowing down, as you would expect. As they careen toward you and your life is passing before your eyes (don’t forget the shrieking passengers), they suddenly pull off into the layby and you pass by unscathed. That’s how it usually goes…
Except when the driver of your car tries to pull off the road to allow someone to pass and they pull OFF the road. Literally, off the road! Let me just state at this point the I DIDN’T DO IT!!!! Let’s just say it was the OTHER driver of our car. One minute we had 4 tires on the road and suddenly only 2. The other two were deeply entrenched in bog. Swampy, muddy, tire sucking bog. Carrie (oops! I mean “The other driver”) jumped out and said “Hollie, you drive” Hmn, (you might say, as I did) I jumped in the driver’s seat as the other driver, my 70 year old mother, and my pregnant daughter got out to push. Ha! I know you are laughing at this point. So was I so it’s OK. Just then some German tourist drove by. Literally DROVE BY. But why not? They had plenty of open road between us due to the fact that we were pulled over so far! They did eventually stop to help. (How do you think I knew they were German????) He spoke no English and she had to translate everything we said. He was bulky but our car was STUCK. Along came a car of locals to the rescue! They jumped out and asked if we had a tow rope. I don’t know, are tow ropes standard on rentals in Scotland? One of them then asked me to “turn it round” as he motioned with his hand, so I tried to crank the wheel the way he motioned. He looked confused and thought a moment before saying something that I understood to mean that he wanted me to “rev” the engine. Ah, the joys of both speaking the same language and yet still not being able to understand each other! With a lot of pushing and maneuvering, (during which all I could think about was the fact that they all thought I WAS THE ONE WHO DROVE INTO THE DITCH…..I was behind the wheel when they arrived remember!!! As they were pushing and sweating I just wanted to say “I DIDN’T DO IT!”) Safely, and gratefully with 4 tires back on solid ground, we were off to more adventures.