April 19, 2011: Preface

     Count this as a pre-entry or call it a preface to the Blog, but I know what the first official entry of "Have Pen and Camera, Will Travel" (apologies to Paladin) will be about.  What I don't know is what it will say.  My first official entry will be about the ease or difficulty of traveling from Portland, Oregon (PDX) to Edinburgh, Scotland (EDI) on April 26 and 27.
     Will TSA screening be an intrusive hassle or merely an inconvenience?  Will airline services (KLM/Delta) provide a comfortable journey or a cramped, back breaking ten hours of torture?  Will airline food continue to live down to recent standards or will we want to eat more than the packaged cheese and crackers? These are a few of the topics of the first official entry.  [Also, check in to see if we kill our adopted Scottish family with the vacuum packed KFC wings and thighs or if we can even get through UK Customs with the requested contraband.]
     In the meantime, a little more background might help lay the foundation for that first official entry.  After traveling with my high school speech team to national tournaments each of the last 17 years of my teaching career, wife Anne and I started traveling for ourselves as soon as we retired in 2000.  The first trip was to Scotland for golf and single malt whisky--sometimes both at the same time.  Next was a two week train trip through Germany, Austria and Hungary.  Back to Scotland.  Then to Ireland.  Back to Scotland.  You can see the pattern.  We fell in love with Scotland--the golf, the whisky, the Highlands, the islands, the people.  In the last eleven years we've made sixteen trips to Scotland, four to Ireland, three to Wales, and four to England--that's 18 months in Scotland, 4 months in Ireland, and four months in England and Wales--and more than 70,000 miles driven on the other side of the road.  Besides our British Isles jaunts we've been to Canada a couple of times, the continent once, one cruise to Alaska, and several US golf trips (mostly to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and the Southwest).  The results of all this travel has been three published guide books (Scotland's Hidden Gems: Golf, Pubs, & Attractions, Ireland's Small Greens, and Hidden Gems II: Scotland and Wales), a soon to be marketed book of travel stories (Ten Years of Travel in Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales), and numerous magazine articles related to our travels.  This Blog--once I officially start it--then, is an extension of all those trips and all that writing.
    Officially that ends the unofficial preview to the first official entry to the "Have Pen and Camera, Will Travel" Blog.  Check next time to see how good (or bad) travel from the US West Coast to Europe has become--officially.