High King

**I'm sorry for not posting yesterday. Life happened. I thought it might, from time to time. Blame Carol. (Read on, and you'll meet Carol.)

"It'll be seven p'ind and ten pence."

I handed the driver a tenner and put the change in my breast pocket, which clunked and jingled as I walked down the bus and I took a seat, full to the eyeteeth with accumulated tuppences and five pees and ten pence pieces, useless souvenirs of all the non-integral sums I'd paid over the last five days.

I discovered, upon sitting down, that I'd paid for a much longer fare than I actually needed, and it was touch and go whether my ticket would work for a ride back. Normally this would alarm me more, but after a rainy morning spent inside planning travel and being bothered by Americans (who for some reason didn't turn the Americanicality down a bit despite my protected status as a fellow American), I was more than okay with getting lost for a spell in the fields and clouded mountains I had come to see. I got off where I wanted to and set off down a farm road that I thought might be the trail I was looking for. I liked it better with my hood off.

I've been thinking of Skye as a personal Mecca, a place where all my stresses and woes would be wiped clean by the hills and mists and fairies; but thus far, it had all seemed a bit too sharp, a bit too perfect, a bit too picturesque for me to know, deep down, that I wasn't looking at a picture. It might be the tourists; it might just be that at this stage of life, I'm not good at getting out of my head.

The walk started out on asphalt, with the occasional herd of sheep glowering at me and trotting improbably the other way. Clouds covered everything above knee level. Two miles in, I looked back and realized that the sun had been clearing the fog out behind me, and was now making inroads towards the huge cloud bank ahead, revealing a secret ridge of stunning, rock-hiccuping hills, real Skye Vintages, right out of a Hero's Journey. At first, it was too obvious a beauty. "More damn mountains" summed up my state of mind, whether I liked it or not.

I reached a wide boggy area and sank to my ankles. A picnic table sat on the edge of the clearing, tumbling slowly into pieces. This, clearly, was the loch. What a loch it was.

I checked my watch. I still had three hours before I had to be back on the road. I looked at the path behind me. I looked at my shoes. I looked up at the range of hills, trailing bits of mist, looming above me like a gauntlet. I giggled, and set off cross-country.

The first thing you learn when you turn left off a Highland walking trail and start walking across a sheep pasture is that wool is not, in fact, the material that sheep produce in the highest quantity. You are largely fine with this, because like any true American you learned at age nine that all water has been, at some point, dinosaur urine, and you're frankly more delighted than anything else at the--highly probable--scenario that every square inch of the ground you're walking on has processed at least one dose of sheep poop.

"La dee da," you trill gaily, except no you don't. Your breath is too busy supplying your muscles with the necessary oxygen to climb up sideways ground to do something so Julie Andrews.

It took me about forty minutes to get from the "loch" to the peak of the hill I aimed for. It was still wet at the top, but I no longer cared. I stepped around a bit, just to remind the hill that I'd gotten all the way up, and then I realized I was probably the first one to stand on that hill since the last time a farmer had to go up. At last, the wind was the only thing in my head.

I sat down on a rock on a a fairly central promontory and pulled out what I'd been thinking of as the "fantasy protagonist" lunch: a loaf of bread, little round hard cheese, and an apple. You'll always read about your Eorns and your Kvitnes stopping by the side of the road for a quick bite of cheesebreadapple, and it sounded like a nice flavor combination. I enjoyed it immensely, looking over the world.

A little ways into the descent, I slipped on a patch of slick grass and fell neatly on my back, and thus on my backpack, and thus on the plastic container of vanilla custard which nestled therein, and which promptly burst like a universe.

Licking mid-grade custard off a water bottle and my room key, it occurred to me that this incident still had mythical antecedents; it's exactly the sort of thing that would happen to Loki or Coyote, on their way back from an act that left them especially pleased with themselves. The sort of thing Odin would arrange, to keep his blood brother from getting too uppish. (Side note: somebody really needs to keep Odin from getting too uppish. Like, it's a real problem.)

I took the scenic route back to the main road, getting as lost as I safely could. Once at the road, I walked another four miles towards the nearest bus stop, getting a ride for the last kilometer from three nice American boys named Sam, Pat, and Patrick.

The highlight of the evening was Carol, an Australian woman aged 63 who's staying at the hospital and who has adopted me. We played raucous cards with Abby, who's also Australian (read: sounds funny), and who's teaching at a prep school in England on her gap year. Abby has since popped off, but I'm due for Bananagrams with Carol after dinner tonight.

I woke up with a bit of a sore throat, so I went for a walk to the bigger co-op and got a load of fresh fruit and vegetables, and a box of chamomile and honey tea. I'm doing much better than I'd expected money-wise: I'll probably be able to afford gifts/souvenirs! Gosh!

I'm in for a quiet day today, which is all right. I don't want to exacerbate the (probably fatigue-related) cold, and it's nice out, so I'll do some sitting and walking. Hope people at home are having at least 60% as much fun as I am, because in that case you're having a great time.