When I first heard about the “Ride of the Falling Rain” I wondered why anyone would consider riding 100 miles on a small western Scotland island where it’s guaranteed to rain.  I think we even saw somewhere that it has NOT rained on this ride once in the last 19 years.  But when our friend, D, invited us to join her for this bike ride on the Isle of Islay, we agreed to do it.  

When we thought about packing our tandem into its two suitcases and flying for a few hours, it seemed silly to just go for a one day event.  After looking at the map and seeing that Loch Lomond was just north of Glasgow, the city we’d fly into, the idea of another tandem self-supported tour was born.  Our time is limited as we had to squeeze the trip in between visitors for the Tour de France and Chuck’s choral workshop.

A buddy dropped us off at the Foix train station yesterday afternoon as the first heatwave of the year settled in.  The air conditioning on the train was quite refreshing.  When we reached our terminus in Toulouse, we braved the heat and caught the shuttle bus to the airport.  We arrived at the airport just under 2 hours before our flight and easily checked in our three suitcases.

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As we approached the entry to security, we pulled up our electronic boarding passes and saw a notice that our flight was delayed by 2 hours.  That meant we’d miss our connecting flight in Frankfurt.  We turned around and went back to the Lufthansa desk.  The lovely lady worked through various solutions and we settled on going to Frankfurt on the delayed flight and the airline would put us up in a hotel.  We’d arrive in Glasgow early afternoon the next day.  She even suggested we submit our Glasgow hotel bill to Lufthansa for reimbursement.  Great! We’d still be able to continue our tour and only miss out on one night in Glasgow.  Off we went, flew through security, and wondered what airport restaurant would be best for dinner.  As we wandered looking at our options, we received a text message … our flight to Frankfurt was no longer delayed, it was cancelled.  Have you ever tried to get out from behind security?  It was a challenge.

Back at the queue at Lufthansa, I called Customer Service while we waited.  That call was the craziest thing.  He said I needed to call the travel agent that I booked the ticket through.  I told him I bought it through Lufthansa online - no travel agent.  But his computer insisted that I had used a travel agency.  He put me on hold to research.  Ah, he figured it out!  He told me to go to Lot Polish Airlines to make the change arrangements.  I asked him “what, Lot Polish?  Why them?”  He told me it was because I made the flight arrangements through them.  I told him once again that he was wrong and that never mind, I’d wait in line for the Lufthansa agent.

We lucked out and had the same sweet lady.  She smiled brightly and apologized for our inconveniences.  After much work and phone calls, she rerouted us on British Airways for the next day and we’d arrive at noon.  Lufthansa put us up overnight in Toulouse with dinner.  But we had to retrieve our luggage which ended up not being too difficult.  We grabbed a taxi and set off for the hotel and dinner.  This morning we arrived at the airport bright and early, checked our bags in (which makes me very nervous).  Nervous? You must be wondering why.  Every time we go through Heathrow, one of the tandem cases doesn’t arrive with us and each time it’s taken 3 days to get to us.  So, yes, nervous.  We boarded our flight and I checked our AirTags … looks good.  All three bags are on the plane with us to Heathrow.  In London we had a couple hours between flights, so we found a bite to eat and wandered through the maze of stores.  We found our gate and boarded … the very last row of the plane (yuck).  Beggars can’t be choosy.  Once again, I checked our AirTags … yep, 2 suitcases were on the plane, but one tandem case was still in the terminal.  I knew it!  Turned that phone off again.  When we arrived in Glasgow, we could see that the other bag was still in London.  We reported it missing and this lady said it had already been rerouted and it would be here in 2 hours.  She suggested we grab a cup of tea and wait or they could deliver.  Since we’re booked at an airport hotel, we set off to get checked in and then walked back to the terminal and had a pint of Guinness.  Once my phone showed the missing bag had arrived, we made our way to baggage claim and grabbed it.  The rest of the afternoon was spent building the tandem and getting ready to set off for Loch Lomond in the morning.

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We must also mention that it was sunny here in Glasgow this afternoon.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to go into town and look around.  Guess we’ll have to come back someday to do that.

I promise to start taking photos tomorrow. 

Accommodations:  Holiday Inn Express Glasgow Airport.  Very accommodating and very responsive before our arrival.