Post 1: Bucket List: Golfing Scotland (and whatever Beanie wants to do!!)

Greetings to all and welcome back to Bean Pod Travel!  It's been a while since we last traveled (see our India blog) so we're very enthusiastic about our upcoming trip to Scotland, home of golf, and some very nice spirits.  We’re travelling with 13 other friends for the first week and will be in St. Andrews and then Monifeith and then spending another 5 days in Edinburgh with Bill (workmate from days gone by) and his wife Kim.  The plan for that portion of the trip is to take in some sites, visit some fine Scotish distilleries, and perhaps fill any golfing gaps from time spent in country to date. Oh yeah! We also planning on seeing the Nessie (come on - you can figure that out!!)

The schedule has us starting out on a hope and a prayer to get onto St. Andrews.  We put in for early ballots (tee times) but our request wasn’t drawn so we’re hoping for better results with the two-day ballots.  Should that fail, I think I’ll just drag my clubs and hope for a walk on.  After St. Andrews, we move on to Kingsbarns Golf Links, www.kingsbarns.com.  Kingsbarns is the site for the 2017 ladies British Open and we’re going to play it two days after that tournament concludes so it should still be in tournament condition. From what we’ve seen so far on TV, that means killer rough, glass greens, and really crappy weather.  How did golf ever take hold in Scotland?  I suspect that is a question I’ll be asking myself over and over again in the coming weeks.  After that we move on to Carnoustie Golf Links, www.carnoustiegolflinks.co.uk.   Carnoustie is the site for the 2018 men’s British Open.  Should be a real treat, you know, until we actually have to play.

The first part of our trip is a ten day, quasi-organized tour led by a good friend and PGA profession, Dennis.  Dennis was born in Scotland, and currently a member of our Wednesday golf group.  We’re going to spend some time at his “home” course which should be really fun.  It will be interesting and enlightening to just play a local course without the flair, pomp, etc. of the marquis golf venues.  The course is called Monifieth Golf Links, http://monifiethgolf.co.uk and there are two 18-hole courses.  The course is not without some fame as it’s only 20 minutes from St Andrews and the great Tom Watson played practice rounds there just prior to winning his first British Open.  Hey, if it’s good enough for Tom it’s good enough for me.  That’s the highlights of the schedule WRT to golf.

My travel agent (yep, that would be the Bean) also lined up what we believe will be a very cool event called the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, www.edintattoo.co.uk.  The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is an annual series of military tattoos performed by British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and international military bands and artistic performance teams on the esplanade of Edinburgh. The event is held every night each August as part of the Edinburgh Festival and sells out every year.  Beanie managed to get tickets for us and Bill and Kim.  Really looking forward to it. 

Day 1 - 4 Aug.  Randy:  The first grueling day of travel takes us from Phoenix, AZ all the way to Los Angeles, CA.  Hey, don’t laugh, it’s well over 55 minutes of flight time.  The funny part of today’s travel was Beanie and I were sitting around yesterday wondering why we didn’t just do a one-way car rental, have a nice road trip, and not have to fuss with the airports.  Kind of a duh moment.  Anyway, the flight was pretty uneventful with the short moment of panic when we thought my golf clubs didn’t make it to LA.  We checked into the Marriott LAX and will catch a flight to Edinburgh tomorrow evening with a short layover in Dublin.  Landing in Ireland is kind of an emotional event as it was always one of my father’s dreams to make it back to the “old country”.  He got close, but that’s another story . . . . . 

Day 2 - 5 Aug.  Kathy:  We spent last night here at the LAX Marriott.  The hotel is very old and in the middle of a complete renovation.  We’re in a new room – very modern (not really to our taste and I hope all the Marriot’s aren’t going to this design) but with a good view of several runways and the planes taking off.  We had dinner in the lounge on the 18^th floor last night.  It’s a beautiful lounge with amazing views of the runways and very good food.  Love, love, love plane watching at airports.  Got to see two heavies, a 747 and 380, land and also an Iberia 340-600.  We know it’s a 340-600 because Randy took a picture of it and then showed it to a pilot sitting at the bar.  Don’t see many of these anymore!

Airbus A340-600

Our flight leaves at 7:50 tonight.  We’ll do a late check-out here and spend a couple of hours in the lounge at the airport.  Looking forward to experiencing business class on Ireland’s Aer Lingus.