We woke up early again, and there's only so long we were going to be able to put off adjusting to this time zone. We resolved to take it as easy as possible (absolutely no death marching) so we didn't need a mid-day nap. It was also time to do some laundry. Since we weren't sure whether we'd have good access to laundry facilities later in our trip we opted to take care of that today.

We had planned to do laundry in Edinburgh when we first put together this trip last July. At the time we saw there was a laundromat 100 ft from the Raeburn, so we thought we'd get to do laundry while we waited on the comfort of our room. Well it turns out that laundromat had a fire a few weeks back, and now the closest one was 2 bus transfers or a 20 minute walk away. The death march was back on.

The laundromat that didn't burn down turned out to be its own adventure. None of the machines took modern pound coins, so we had to purchase the old coins from the lady at the desk. Also, apparently the custom around here is not to wait for your laundry at the place, so the fact that we made use of the provided chairs seemed to really put everyone off. We felt awkward about it so we did what came naturally - we went walkabout.

As it happens there's a well manicured walking path close to the laundromat that abuts some beautiful gardens. The sign by the path details the HOA-like drama that made up late 19th century Edinburgh. The sign is worth a read.

They had tree ferns in the garden there, which I always like to see.

By the time we finished doing laundry (£10 lighter and 6 miles more tired) we acknowledged that maybe we weren't doing this whole rest day thing right.

A proper Scottish picnic.

We stopped by the local co-op to pick up the essentials, namely Egg and Cress sandwiches and Vienetta. There's park a ways from our hotel that was recommended to us as a picnic spot, so we walked over there and started to unpack our bags.

Up until this point the weather had been sunny and anywhere from 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit - unheard of for Scotland for more than a few days each summer. We had been keeping an eye on the forecast every day but the 40% chance of rain didn't seem very threatening.

But of course we had been too lucky today (what with the burned down laundromat) and the very second we chose our picnic spot it started raining. We stayed fairly dry under the huge beech trees in the park so we got to watch everyone else run for cover while we enjoyed our seasonally appropriate frozen dessert. We didn't get too wet so it felt like a proper Scottish picnic.

Once we got back to the room it really started pouring again. There were lightning flashes and long rolling thunder that reminded us of a summer monsoon back in Arizona. The rain was coming down so hard the water was running down the stairs outside our room.

We took the opportunity to make some tea and do the vacation reading we've been too busy to get to. We started planning our route to Oban and wrote up a few more postcards. Maybe we'll be a little more well rested tomorrow.