Scott: I didn't really have a plan other than to get to Europe and make decisions about where I would go from there. It took me about three or four days flying space available on a military hop to get from Washington State to Dover, Delaware. I met people along the way and shared my goal: I wanted to immerse myself in another culture, to get out of my own shit and do it alone. I was learning how to be sober. By then, I'd been a non-drinker for about a year.
From Dover, I flew to Berlin which was in East Germany at the time. I was only there overnight and the next day caught a hop to Prestwick on the west coast of Scotland, the home of poet Robert Burns, who wrote Auld Lang Syne. It was also location of a castle that Dwight D. Eisenhower had commandeered while getting ready for the D-Day invasion. I later visited both Robert Burns home and the castle.
Bonnie: What were your first impressions of Scotland?
Scott: The Scottish invented macadam (asphalt). As I started away from the airport, riding on the left side of the road instead of the right - easier to think about than to do, I was amazed by the smoothness of the road. It was like glass. With 60 pounds per square inch in my tires, I would have felt a hair, if I'd run over it. (Laughs). It was evening; the ocean was on my right as I headed south; it was hot (the hottest summer in 300 years) and the sun was going down. The homes I passed were all similar with thatched roofs and painted stucco walls. It was against regulations to build any structure unless it looked to be 500 years old. The Scottish mists were rolling in. I was really starting my trip in a different time, place and culture.
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