Day 75-76 (Post 2/2)

First off, if I remember everywhere I went this weekend, I get double the points.

Bah, this is going to be harder to pull off than remembering Thursday...

Ok. Let's start at the start, we woke up early Saturday to catch our 9am bus up the Inverness, it was a beautiful sunny day in the meadows...

Now the trip. We drove for about 9 hours in total, stopping at various different points along the way. I actually enjoyed it for two reasons, 1) I saw beautiful sights, in which you are about to get a small taste of... and 2) I finished about 3 or 4 complete sections of my study. Perfect.

Well here it goes, I know for sure we stopped at the "three sisters", which are three adjacent mountains... I believe they are what you see here.

We stopped a few other random view points, in which I captured this picture... gorgeous panoramic pictures... at this viewpoint there was a scottish man playing the bag pipe. There were decently strong winds and it just started to rain a bit, but he stood out there letting all of Scotland hear the mighty pipes.

Next we headed to a place called Glen something or another (I am disappointed in myself, too)... it was great! All of these stops were great! We were literally just in the wilderness, I would love to go back and hike up some of these mountains. I recall a story about these hills, it was where the Mac Donald clan would hide all the sheep they stole, as supposedly there was a secret pathway somewhere up there. Another story, riding more of the lines of myth, was that when the Romans came into Scotland, a giant battalion of the army marched in these hills, to never be seen again... DUN DUN DUN.

This shot was actually just out of the bus window... Still beautiful if you ask me.

We actually stopped in a city (more like a small village) called Fort Williams for lunch. I packed lunch/dinner/breakfast so I didn't eat, but I went along nonetheless. Jordan ordered a bowl full of muscles, which came to be about 60 total muscles, it was ridiculous. The pile of shells after was bigger than a football. I tried a couple, for the first time, they were interesting, chewy indeed, but they did have a somewhat good taste to them haha.

At last! Finally coming into Inverness... it was approaching 7PM...This first shot was coming into the city, I don't recall what body of water that was? But Jaime and I swore we saw a baby nessy in it, a little head popped out of the water... and then ducked back under! Marc saw it after it came back up the second time, he said it was a turtle, which it probably was, or a Duck. But I'm going to stick with a baby nessy...

Later that night we headed to a local hot spot called Hootananny, which had live music playing all night. It was pretty fun, there were three floors and three different bands. It actually got extremely packed. Before the live music started we actually went to an ESPN sports bar. I was good and only had two drinks the whole night (I know). Regardless, good time, and good scottish music!

The next day we headed out at about 9AM. Went to the local grocery store for some breakfast, they served hot food, kind of like a big Dennys, except the quality of the food wasn't to die for or anything ( unlike Dennys ;) ). I had a hearty breakfast and also picked up some water and an orange for the rest of the ride.

We then headed to the Culloden Battlefield, in which the Highlanders fought the government for throne rights in 1746. It was a huge battlefield, thousands of people were killed there, each person represented by a stone in the wall pictured above... The Highlanders actually lost this battle, as they were tired and got surrounded. It had a pretty significant history. It was cool being able to walk all around it, there were headstones of fallen warriors, a memorial, as well as the bandage house (above) that was used back in the battle.

Next, seeing as we were on the topic of intense death in battle, we headed to an ancient burial ground. This was specifically cool because it was built in 2000BC, four thousand years ago. Seeing as I had just been to Stonehenge a few weeks ago, I noticed this burial/ritual ground had the same layout as Stonehenge, which was interesting in itself. All the burial sites were directly lined up with the mid-winters sun. All of these tombs were piled around with a few tons of stones, making a circle, with one entrance leading into it. Although it was not present any longer, I read there was once a closed off top of the circle, as well as the passage way, no light could even get in here - until the sun set, which shined straight down the passage way and illuminated the inside of the dome. Pretty cool.

After that we headed back into Inverness for lunch, I headed up to Inverness castle, which you will notice looks quite new. That is because it is, the original castle no longer stands, and this is one made within the last 200 years.

Finally! Loch Ness! It is a huge lake, it is said that if you tipped it up on its side, it would have enough water to fill every loch in Scotland, or the worlds population 3 times (don't quote me on this last one). It was pretty amazing, and went on for 22 miles, and about 700-800 feet of depth... (hence the sheer volume of this loch!). I also had a lady bug crawling on me in the bus, which is probably the first insect I have seen in Scotland, believe it or not, and set her free in this bushy area behind me ;).

Next was Urquhart castle, which is where the most reported sightings of Nessie is from. It was somewhat in ruins at the moment, but I managed to get a pretty good shot of it. There was also an old catapult near the castle, definitely cool to see.

We then headed to a small town called Pitlochry, it was quaint. Jordan Marc and I got some old-fashioned ice cream and then headed to the towns dam, which is about the only thing it had! Not a bad view from up there though. We only stayed here momentarily and then headed back on our way to Edinburgh.

A beautiful trip, a fun trip, and a productive trip.

Now, 2 days until Spring break traveling, can't wait!