Day 24 - Edinburgh Redux and Departure

January 30, 2023

The Tourists boarded the coach at 11:00 to depart the Leonardo Hotel for a coach tour of Edinburgh.

The tour of Edinburgh started with a visit to South Queensferry to view the three bridges.

Then a tour of New Town Edinburgh (started in the 1750s) and Old Town Edinburgh (founded in the 8th century).

The Tourists returned to Curl Edinburgh at Murrayfield for lunch and their final game in Scotland. Having already won the Herries-Maxwell Trophy, this game was a fun exhibition match with the Royal Caledonian Curling Club including previous Tourists. Fun was had be all and the Americans won all the games…and lost all the games. To improve the fellowship, this game featured 2 Scots and 2 Americans on each team with names drawn from a hat to pick the teams.

Before the games, Tourist Steve Shaffer accidentally misplaced his broom.

The Tourists returned to the hotel to get dressed in their F-1s for the final time for the closing night reception.

Tour Couriers Bill Arnot and David McIntyre were invited up to address the Tourists about their time with the Tour. Dave indicated that he learned a lot in the process and that his biggest takeaway was to never be the second Courier. “Bill did this” and “Bill would have never done that” were frequent comments from the Tourists.

The Herries-Maxwell Trophy was officially presented to Tour Captain Leland Rich.

The Tourists were presented with a parting gift, a personalized whisky decanter and glasses. It is an absolutely breathtaking gift but when the Tourists saw the large boxes, everyone of them said to themselves “How am I going to get that home?” But in the end, they were all industrious and made it happen.

Additional pictures from the reception:

During the reception, Tourists Craig Fischer had the Saskatchewan provincials running on his phone because the daughter of Hazel Wood (a much-loved Scot sitting at his table) was playing third on Team Silvernagle in the finals. Winning the match would mean she would be playing in the Scotties (the Canadian Women’s National Curling Championship). Hazel wasn’t going to watch to be respectful of the Tourists but Craig insisted she watch this momentous event. Team Silvernagle was victorious! So Hazel will be booking her flights to Kamloops today. Hazel’s daughter, Kelly Schafer is second from left.

After the reception, the Tourists returned to their rooms to complete their packing.

At 7:30 am, the Tourists said goodbye to their hosts and Couriers and boarded their coach for the bittersweet and Mike has a shirt on talk that’s a favor and trip to the airport.