A trip we will NEVER forget!!!

 

Spring Break Day 1

Levi:  A couple of days ago we decided to rent a car and just go some places to enjoy all of Scotland and what it had to offer. We planned where to go, made a list, and booked a car.  I cannot remember all of them but we eventually got to see some nice places and views that were amazing. It's Scotland, it's hard to find a place that isn't scenic here. But before the result, I have to explain what happened to get to this point.

We all woke up at around 8 am and got ready to go, lunches packed, bags packed, and we headed down to the train station to get to the Enterprise rental company to get our car, we didn't exactly know what car it would be, but we knew it was a stick-shift and my mother grew up driving one so we were alright. Or so I thought...

We got there and talked to the employees, they said the car is being delivered to the location and has to be disinfected before giving it to us. After waiting 40 minutes or so for them to give us the keys, they came back out and said since we are from the US we need to show them our passports to be accepted for having a rental car. This was not good because we took a train here and walked from the station to the building. This was unbelievable, we decided we had to send Jackson to go back and get the passports so we waited somewhere around like another hour.

Once Jackson got back we showed the people and they gave us the car and we inspected it for scratches or anything just to be safe. There were no scratches so that was good. We got in and got ready to go, my mom got used to the seat and stuff and started going. Since the building we were in was under another one (we had to walk down the car ramp to get there) my mom had to drive up the ramp.

Usually in my experience cars have no problem going up a small ramp, but this one was a little different, halfway up the ramp the car wouldn't go any further and was shaking in small intervals. Then smoke started coming out of the engine and filling the car, it was quite a scare because usually when I am in a car I am not trapped in a smoking car while breathing in the smoke. I rolled my window down and asked what happened. My mom said the car had stalled or the clutch has been burnt. This of course I have never heard of before because I have never experienced the workings of a stick-shift. So we sat on the ramp for a couple of seconds waiting to see if the smoke would go away and it did thankfully. 

The problem was that we kept going and Jackson and my mom wanted to continue the drive saying "If we get on the highway the engine will be fine." and maybe I don't understand what they meant fully but first of all, the engine was still smoking a little bit and would smoke a lot every time we tried to accelerate. It eventually even caught the attention of a biker and a taxi driver. So we had a smoking engine and they wanted to go on the highway. On the highway there isn't always time to stop and figure problems out, some highways don't let you just slow down and pull over. So I was thinking if we were on the highway with a smoking engine and it just stopped, what would we do? We cant move to the side or anything so we would need to at least push the car over to the side. 

I just couldn't understand how they both wanted to continue driving IN A SMOKING CAR. I am pretty sure that is not normal. So I kept saying we should go back because I wanted a car that felt comfortable like it wouldn't explode at any moment. 

After some driving around and testing of the acceleration, I think I convinced my mom to drive it back and we got there. They looked at the car and said the clutch was burnt out. "Great, now we have to rent another car." I thought. While I was thinking that the man working there said they have an electric automatic car that they can let us rent for free! That was relieving to hear and I was not as regretful that we came here.

Basically, after all of that paperwork and cleaning the second car, we got the electric one. The interior was cool and I loved it, you can look at the "Vlog" videos Kitty took from inside the car and you will see it is quite nice and comfy. There are videos of this all that you can see for yourself. I have no idea where she posted the videos but I am sure you can ask her to see them. (videos @celtic.kitty on instagram)

After all the bad that happened, we got a nice functioning car and got to see some cool things! 

Here is some of what we did and saw:

                                                                        (The Kelpies)

                                                                         (A pretty view)

                                                      (Old Church in the town of Saint Andrews)

St. Andrews

    

        (Old exotic buildings also in Saint Andrews)            

                                            

Overall it might have been a bad start but a great lesson learned, and as Jackson would say.

 "Why would anyone want to drive a Stick-shift?"

-Levi

A couple of clarifications (read excuses) from Car-talk Kitty:

-I NEVER stalled the car (or said that I did), I just got really close...

-How can you burn out a clutch in one go?  (google answered that for us)

-My High School drivers-ed training needs a tune up.  

-Enterprise could not prove that a passport was needed or that they told us to bring one,,,,arggggggg

-Levi was the only sane one in the car.  I didn't take it back until the third taxi driver waved us over to tell us the car was smoking.  

-It took us 4.5 hours to leave Glasgow that morning.

-Nothing we did that morning was free, as Levi seems to think above.

-I almost threw in the towel and went home sulking, but I'm no quitter!  Shaking hands, feet, and stomach be damned....

-I'm done renting manual cars and electric ones for that matter.  (more to come on that later)

Isn't vacationing fun!!!???!!!

I say yes, if you are still alive to tell the story!

SMDH

Crazy Celtic Kitty