by Michael_D
My absolute favorite memory in all my travels was on my first trip to Scotland. We took a train from London to Edinburgh and both started to feel feverish and like we had the flu. We were extra worried because we had just been through Yugoslavia the week before and read they had a yellow fever epidemic. We were bone tired and realised that we would arrive in Edinburgh at midnight leaving us in a weary lurch to find a place to stay.We agreed that our best bet was to get off the train somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh to get some shut-eye and tackle the big city in the morning.With no premeditation or map consult we simply jumped off the train at a wee town called Linlithgow (Lin-LITH-go). It was already 'dark-thirty'(that is what we called after midnight) as we wandered around like beggers looking for a place to flop. We found nothing open. Now..we had a pup tent and had not used the entire 10 weeks up till now but we were so dog-tired we pitched the tent..crawled in and were dead to the world untill morning.
The next morning we awoke amidst a thick fog so typical of Scotland that we could barely see our hand in front of our face. As we began to pull up stakes, in the nearest of horizens..almost rising from the ashes...the mist parted slooowly and we bagan to make out a brick like structure...then the mist parted almost like an opening curtain in a play!..to our amazement, we saw we had slept almost in the backyard of Mary Queen of Scots castle in Linlithgow! What a mystical..and pleasant surprise!
