Many people travel. And many people write. Many people do both. I do both and try to sprinkle in some humor and humility
as I take you along on my journeys.

My favorite part of the world is Northern Europe. If it’s misty, rainy, surrounded by water and has Game of Thrones-looking scenery, I’m all in. Scotland holds the top spot in my heart, but I’m still taking applications. Runners-up are Norway and Iceland.

On these pages, I’ll tell you a little bit about my travels to these places and why they have captivated me, and continue to do so.

Not All Kind Creatures

*Awarded Honorable Mention in the Humor Category in the 92nd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition

The sheep stood, staring at me menacingly, and I found myself wondering if sheep can kill a person. I mean, I’m sure it's possible, right? I could sense him sizing me up. I was in his field, after all. It's not as though I could blame him.

“Don’t make eye contact,” Bonnie muttered under her breath.

“They’re just sheep! What can they do?” I said, with considerably more bravado than I felt.

“I feel like they are plotting something,” said Bonnie, with mounting fear in her voice.

At six feet tall, I'm bigger than the average person, which gave me a distinct advantage over my traveling companion, who was barely bigger than the guy staring us down. I made a mental note to throw her in front of me, should they charge. Sorry, Bonnie. 

“Don’t be ridiculous - sheep are notoriously stupid.” I offered.

“Maybe that’s just what they want us to think,” she countered, swatting a swarm of midges away from her face.

As I looked from one sheep to another, I had a creeping suspicion that she might be right: they were definitely up to something. Not for the first time, I questioned the life choices I had made that led to me standing in a field, in a foreign land, facing off against perturbed farm animals.

A hobbyist photographer, I was in Scotland to capture the beauty of this incredible coastal country. A small part of me - like one percent, was there to pay homage to my ancestry. And when I say one percent, I mean it literally. My mother is Czechoslokian, and my father is Irish. Growing up,whenever the subject of ethnicity would arise, my fraternal grandmother would puff up her chest and say “We are Irish!” and then under her breath, she would mutter something about a “bastard Scot” who had somehow infiltrated the family tree. I always assumed it was a joke - my grandmother had a great sense of humor. When I was in my thirties, I decided to have my DNA tested. When the results came back, I laughed out loud. I’m 50% Eastern European, 49% Irish,and - you guessed it - 1% Scottish. Turns out the bastard was real.

Having left my husband and children back in the States, I was on a solo trip - a fairly large indulgence of both time and money for a busy mom of three. I intended to take not a moment for granted, and I had an itinerary full of castles, bridges, animals and coastlines planned. Sleep is for the weak, I told myself. I was determined to cover as much as Scotland as I could in nine days.

Partway through the trip, I met up with another photographer and we decided to spend a few days exploring together. Bonnie was from Atlanta, and she shared the same desire as me to photograph the iconic scenery and animals of Scotland. We shared a love of food, a proclivity towards profanity and we liked the same music: we were a travel match made in heaven.

This particular day, we were determined to find and photograph some of Scotland’s famous “heeland coos” - a breed of cow whose adorable tufted manes had begun to grace farmhouse-inspired decor in stores everywhere. I had been obsessed with coos for more than a decade - the world was just now catching up to me, is what I like to say. 

With an exuberance driven primarily by sheer ignorance, we set off to find coos. I mean, how hard could it be? It’s not as though Scotland is big.

I’m guessing you can see where this is going.

We hopped in my trusty rental car - whom I had named Fiona. Fiona was a midsize car, and in the States would be considered a petite little thing. In Scotland, it felt as though I was driving an obese, clumsy bull through a china shop with narrow aisles. 

Let me tell you about the roads in Scotland - they fit approximately one and a half Fionas. In America, it would be a foot path and we’d complain about it being so small. The speed limit, (which is clearly just a suggestion), is 65 MPH. There are blind hills and curves as though the road designers were saying to each other “let’s see if we cannae git ‘em wi’ this one, Davey!” Let’s not mention the errant sheep, aggressive shrubbery and a rogue coo or two thrown in for good measure. Meanwhile, locals fly towards us, eating a sandwich, sipping a drink, rocking out to music and maybe crocheting a doily, unperturbed by the fact that we are playing a rather dodgy game of chicken. Driving in Scotland was a near-contact sport that even my years in Los Angeles didn’t come close to preparing me for. 

With me as the driver, that left Bonnie as our coo lookout. While rounding blind corners and looking through a rain-soaked windshield, she would occasionally shout “COO!” which would immediately be followed by “Never mind. Regular cow.” Or, in one rather confusing incident, she mistook a sheep for a coo and I’m still perplexed by that one. We see what we want to see, I suppose.

We drove north. We drove south. At a certain point,  I said “Look kids - Big Ben! Parliament!” as I was relatively certain we’d come this way already. Several times. Bonnie, our de facto navigator, was delightful company but was also seemingly unencumbered by any sense of direction.

After what felt like hours but was likely 20 minutes, we spotted some coos, much to our delight. Unfortunately, the coos were grazing in the far side of the field, quite an unfavorable distance from us, even with our zoom lenses. 

We stood and watched them for a bit, but they showed no signs of wanting to move closer to us. 

Rude. 

We hopped back in Fiona and went a bit further up the road to see if we could find a back way to get closer to the coos. “Sheep!” Bonnie cried, as she spotted a flock in a neighboring field. I started to pull over to the side of the road, but Fiona apparently decided that visiting sheep was not a good idea because she saw a teeny, tiny flower in her front motion sensor and slammed on the brakes, spewing gravel and terrifying both sheep and passengers. Bit of an overreaction there, Fiona.

We stepped out of Fiona and stood by the fence, trying to determine if it was okay to go into the field. Just then, we saw a lady and her dog come out of the woods on the far side of the pasture. We asked her if it would be okay if we also came into the pasture to photograph the sheep. She told us it was no problem, but to keep in mind that a sheep had very nearly killed a friend of hers last year and that we should probably be careful. “They’re not all wee kind creatures, you know. Some of ‘ems mean.” Okay then; beware of mean sheep. Got it.

Which leads us to where we are now: facing down some sheep who were less than pleased with our presence. 

Now, we’ve already kind of pissed them off because of Fiona’s dramatic outburst, so they looked borderline peeved when we stepped through the gate. One sheep glared at me menacingly, then bleated out something to his buddies that sure sounded to me like “let’s take out the tall one first.” Bonnie and I kept our distance - tiptoeing around to get different angles and such. The big one never took his eyes off of us. At one point, he took a half step in our direction and we both shrieked - the warnings of our friend still fresh in our minds. So much for bravado.

Satisfied with our images, we said our thanks to the sheep who did not acknowledge our gesture of goodwill as we bid them goodbye. 

We hopped back in the car and continued on the road to see if the coos had moved any closer to any fence. They had not. 

Rude.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the lady walking her dog reappeared as I was standing at the fence. She looked me dead in the eye and said “Don’t go in the field wi’ them - they’ll git ya!” Then she disappeared into yet another forest, like some sort of mythical Scottish forest warning fairy. I’m still not sure she was real. Whoever she was - she seems to have a lot of animal trauma to work through, poor lady. We gave up on the lazy coos and decided to soldier on.

For our next stop, we decided to check out Duirnish for its rumored coo population. We headed that way but somehow managed to take a wrong turn and found ourselves in a glitch in the matrix with no cell service. We were lost.

We saw a gentleman walking his dog (they love their dogs here in Scotland) and asked for help. He gladly obliged and gestured wildly and included such helpful tips as “look for the big tree” and “there’s a horse up there.” He concluded by telling me “you’ll come upon a fork in the road and you could go left but I don’t want you to do that - please don’t do that,” as though he’d be disappointed in me as a human being if I were to make that choice. Why he didn’t simply say “go right at the fork” I couldn’t tell you. We thanked him and went along our way.

Thanks to the excellent directions (we did indeed pass a horse), we arrived at Duirinish, which is a beautiful quaint little village with a stream running down the middle. I’m “ooohing” and “ahhhing” at how very Scottish this village is, but Bonnie is uncharacteristically quiet. I’m about to look over to see what’s wrong when she screams “COOS!!!” and I about jumped out of my skin. Good heavens, Bonnie. Simmer down.

There are coos indeed. Yay! These coos are not behind a fence. Yikes. Forest fairy warning in mind, we kept our distance, but were finally able to get some wonderful coo photos. One Kardashian-like gal even seemed to be posing for us. All was right in the world. 

We spoke our thanks to these beautiful creatures and hopped into Fiona. As I start to drive, Bonnie says “I think that coo was a solid 6, maybe a 7. But she was no 10 coo.” And I said to Bonnie that maybe that coo had seen things and been through things and that we shouldn’t judge her because then what kind of people would we be, to judge a coo on her looks. I don’t want to be those kind of people, nor the type who turn left at a fork in the road, apparently.

Our mission complete, Bonnie and I headed back to the town we were staying in when Scotland decided to provide us with a final reminder as to who is in charge, While driving well under the 65 mph speed limit, on a road not much wider than Fiona, we came around a blind corner to find an adorable and fluffy, yet inconveniently located, sheep in the middle of the road. I shouted “O bloody ‘ELL!” as I swerved and managed to just barely miss him. Dude didn’t even flinch. He just looked me dead in the eye and kept chewing. 

Rude. 

Bonnie and I ended our day satisfied that we had met coos, we had met sheep, and we had mostly survived. To make conversation during our drive, she and I came up with a list of things that can hurt/maim/kill you in Scotland. Included (but not limited to) are the following:

* Territorial highland cows

* Angry sheep in a pasture

* Stupid sheep in the road

* Midges

* High speed limits on the sidewalks they call roads

In summary, should you go to Scotland, prepare yourself to negotiate with curvy, narrow roads, aggressive insects, aloof coos and perturbed sheep. Particularly the sheep. Some of ‘ems mean.