Sunday, May 30, 2010

Miscellaneous



To the left is a picture of something we saw thousand of times in Scotland - stone walls. They are literally everywhere. Through fields, around houses, and along roads. A fair percentage of roads are bordered by a stone wall, sometimes only a foot or two away from the asphalt. One thing that you do not have alongside many roads is a shoulder. Many roads have a stone wall, or bank that comes right to the edge of the road, with perhaps 6" of space between the road and the bank. It's like driving in road construction all the time where you have a concrete barrier on your left and oncoming traffic on the right.

Today we played the New Course at St. Andrews. It's called the New Course since it was the second course built at St. Andrews. The old course has been around since the 1400's, but when the second course was constructed in 1895, it naturally became known as the "New" course and the existing course became the "Old" course. A neat experience today was getting to watch the end of a ladies amateur competition called the St. Rule Trophy. It attracts the top women amateurs in the UK and the world. We saw golfers from North Korea, Wales, UK, Austraila, England and Scotland. There was a three way playoff for the title, and we followed the action up the 18th hole and watched the winner hole a 10- 12 foot birdie putt for the title.

Tomorrow we will tee it up on the Old Course at 4:00 PM.

More miscellaneous pictures:
Road to Ford. We actually drove up this road for a ways but never found Ford. Funny story though - when we stopped to turn around, a workhorse in the field across the road walked up, opened the gate and trotted up to us. We could not shoo him back into the field, so we left him there by the road. He didn't seem concerned about being out. Note the requisite stone wall.






Funny sign in Crail. The sign referred to somebody allowing their dog to poop on the sidewalk and leaving it. The sign asks "Did your dog do it?" Clean it up!

We didn't get a picture of it, but the restaurant we ate at it South End on Kintyre had a sign that said "Behave appropriately or you could be thrown out of every bar in town" Of course it was the only bar in town....

Another sign on Kintyre in front of an elementary school (actually a big banner) read "Parking in front of the school is dangerous and selfish". Never see that in America, too blunt and to the point.






The sign read Shiskine - 5 1/2 miles. We were going there, but decided not to take this particular road! Again, note rock wall. They are everywhere!

3 comments:

Lucky13 said...

I've been noticing the stone walls and their construction. We have them along the west side of our property, but built much differently. I wonder how the stones don't roll placed like that...very interesting. Love the photos and adventures, especially the horse near Ford! Continue having a great trip and hoping for perfect weather. Love, Aunt Julie

Lucky13 said...

By the way...that road to Shikine would have been nothing in a red pickup, with a helmet and "apple juice" in the cooler!

Granny Sue said...

Julie you made me laugh! I've been picturing that horse telling all hus buddies about the 2 Yanks he met.