The Forth Bridge: Edinburgh Scotland

Britain From Above: Month by Month by Jason Hawkes

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Both bridges over the Forth but it is the railway bridge that steals the show. Britain from Above: Month by Month published by Dorling Kindersley.Picture: Jason Hawkes

I was visiting Scotland with my wife, two daughters and my older daughter's boyfriend. We were leaving Edinburgh in our rented Black Mercedes Stationwagon. But, we ran into traffic like I had never seen even when I lived in Los Angeles. It appeared after 4 or 5 hours of waiting in traffic that a combination of events had taken place. The first thing that was happening was that the bridge was being worked on. The second thing that really made this situation a mess was that someone was threatening suicide by trying to jump off the bridge. This combination of events made the worst traffic jam I had ever seen.

But because this was a very unusual event for Scotland they were not prepared for an event like this and the needs of those stuck in traffic were not considered the way they would have been in Southern California. Tell me what happens when thousands of people stuck in their cars are stationary for 5 hours? Yes. That's right! People have to go to the bathroom. Get hungry. Have medical issues or worse. So, people started to get out of their cars and go off into the bushes at the side of the freeway. I realized that sensibilities are much different in Scotland than in the U.S. regarding this sort of thing. People put up with things that they wouldn't put up with in California. But, I guess this is to be expected because we were visiting a 2 to 3000 year old culture or more whereas the U.S. wasn't settled by people from Scotland, England and northern Europe until the 1600s and after. And California didn't really start to be a part of the U.S. until 1848 and 1849 around the start of the Gold Rush there at Sutter's Mill.

My problem was that I couldn't just sit in a car that long and I and my daughter's boyfriend finally just got out of the Mercedes and starting walking around asking people what was going on? It was then we found along with thousands of others of us walking along the lanes and the freeway what had actually happened. So, other than being 6 hours later than we expected at our destination in Aviemore, Scotland in the Cairngorm Mountains everything turned out okay.