Day 2-4 Scotland

We had an amazing three day tour of the Highlands. We got to see tons of great sites and great scenery. We had tons of fun, even if things didn't quite go as planned, but we all got out alive. Haha!

 Do you recognize this castle? Well you should. Need a hit? I got a great hint for you.

"You're mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now go away, or I will be forced to taunt you a second time!"

Guess it? That's right! Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They used this castle for all the castles in the movie. Just using different walls to do different castles. Pretty cool, right?

 Such beautiful scenery. You can't quit tell, there is a blob of grey in towards the lower right corner along the road. That is a Highland cemetery. It's pretty far from the little village. We also saw a cemetery on an island, though we couldn't stop to take pictures. They said they had put it on the island to keep the wolves from digging up the graves, but most people think it was because the Scots thought the farther away the cemetery, then the ghosts would leave them alone. Interesting. Or I thought so.

 We definitely got to see the ocean. A lot of the lochs in Scotland are salt water lochs. We sat on along the coast of this little loch for a picnic lunch. This little guy came to check us out.

 This was a total nightmare to get down and back up from. I thought I might die! But luckily I didn't. Since I'm here to show you the pictures after the fact, you know I didn't perish from a steep fall from a really steep staircase. But it was beautiful.

To the very left of the last picture, it just right after the picture cut off, I was sitting on a rock on the hill, just a few feet away from the path. The baby, here, got separated from it's mother. The baby escaped us through the fence, but the mom decided to come and check us out. She didn't eat me. She was pretty close to me, I was prepared to hop down and back up, but she just mozied on up the hill.

Ah! The most famous loch of them all! Can you guess? That's right... Loch Ness! And if you can believe it, and you should, we actually got to see Nessie! It's the find of the century!

Okay, so maybe not. But I thought these little guys were cute! Of course, Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, doesn't really exist. It's just a really well done tourist scam. By the amount of people there, I can tell you they aren't hurting with the question of 'Does Nessie really exist??' Well, I'm sure the answer is no. Sorry!

The last castle we saw the inside of.  Well, we found out when we went inside, it was a replica. It was built 1918 or so after the previous castle was destroyed. It was actually blown up with all the gun powder that was stored there. It went a couple hundred years with nothing done with the ruins. I was a little disappointed with the inside. Too much modern stuff to get the feel it was a castle.

 Tons of rivers running through places, which also means tons of waterfalls. There was one just up from this little spot.

 We managed to avoid most of the rain, but just barely. But we did get to see some pretty awesome scenery with all the clouds.

 These yellow bushes were just about everywhere. Jeremy really likes them. If I thought they might grow in the desert climate (I highly doubt it, Scotland is no where near a desert climate) I would plant some in the yard.

 Not just a beautiful mountain. It was also the favored hiding place of the McDonald clan. They liked to steal cattle from other people and would hide them here, in the middle.

 This was the view from our Bed and Breakfast while on our tour. It was a beautiful sight! It was hard to really go to bed. It didn't get dark. Not really. The last night we were there it was just barely getting dark around midnight. I mean dark, not just fading light. The sun was coming up around 3 am. Crazy!

 This was on the first day of the trip. The pictures never seem to get on here in the order I put them and does funky things when trying to rearrange them. But it had rained pretty well the day before so we got to see a pretty good waterfall.

 The Isle of Skye. Beautiful, isn't it? The ocean was such an incredible blue color. The water was clear, so clear. The picture doesn't seem to do it justice though.

 Tons of pretty plants all around the cliffs. I really liked these. They are just a tiny flower that grows everywhere, kind of like grass.