likethebeer

We had to vacate the B&B by 10 am sharp. I think we got out with ten minutes to spare. I drove to the other side of the bay, and on the way out of town there was a small auto repair shop. It was a quonset hut with a sign out front detailing their services. I stopped and got the tire aired up. This was the view while I waited:

You've seen these hills before. These mountains are part of the Cuillin range. In the middle of the island is a crossroads called Sligachan. There's hotel/restaurant/bar and a campground, and Old Sligachan Bridge, bypassed by the newer highway.

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This doesn't seem like the Highlands, does it?

low_delta

We made plans to be out of the house by 10 am. I figured it would be more like 10:30. I was ready to go by 9:30, but Larry didn't wake up until 10. He seemed pleased that he had "slept like a brick." I had already eaten a little bit of breakfast (the B&B host had left some snacks and food for us), but the cafe at the bottom of the hill had opened by then, so I went down and got a sandwich. It took longer than expected, but when I came back, he was still in the shower.

We intended to go to see The Old Man of Storr, a pinnacle of rock in a part of the Trotternish Ridge called The Storr. We finally left and drove to Portree, the biggest town on Skye, and halfway between home and the Storr. By this time, Larry was hungry for lunch, so I dropped him off at a cafe and went off to find air for the tire with the slow leak.

I came back and parked near the harbor and walked around there a while. That was nice because though I'd been on Skye before, I hadn't seen this town, only drove through it.

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low_delta

We had tickets for a tour at Talisker Distillery for 11:00, so we had to get out of the house before 10. We made a quick stop along the way to get some photos, and made it there with a few minutes to spare.

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low_delta

The day started out sunny in Fort William. Seems like we got a reasonably early start, but I don't remember a breakfast. The first task was to find someone who could air up a tire, since I'd had a low pressure alert on the dashboard. I Googled service stations and found three. The first didn't look inviting, or even open. The second was down a residential street. A shed with two overheard doors and a few expensive cars. The guy was super nice, and even helped figure out how to reset the alert.

After that we drove over to Ben Nevis Distillery, at the foot of Ben Nevis the mountain (shown above). We had a nice talk with a couple of the people there, and tried a few whiskies. And then had lunch, since they had a cafe. Afterward, we went off toward Loch Ness.

The Loch is surprisingly hard to see. I mean, you can often see it, since the road runs alongside it, but there aren't many places to stop. I finally found a layby, which wasn't really made for tourists. We had to cross the busy highway and stand by the guardrail to get a good photo. I actually stood on the guardrail.

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low_delta

On our second day in Scotland, we checked out and took the tram back to the airport, where we walked to the rental car park.

When I got to the desk, they were deciding what car to give me, and they asked if I needed seven passengers. "No!" They pointed to what looked like a minivan, and it still seemed a bit big, but it turned out to be a four-door thing, with a trunk just large enough for all our bags. However, it turned out to be fancier than I expected. It was a hybrid which got 60 mpg, and the electronics on the dashboard were quite detailed. It showed a graphic of the lane and where I was in it, which was handy, since I was never too sure how close to the edge of the road I was. In the past, I had trouble keeping it on the road. It displayed the speed limit. It had full access to Google Maps on the dashboard, so we could program our routes there (though we seldom did). It was a Renault Austral.

Unfortunately, it had a speed limiter (mandated by law in the UK EU) which was set on 20 mph. It took me a while to figure out how to get it going faster than that. And we had trouble following Siri's directions, with all the roundabouts. But finally we got on the road. I'm thinking they gave me the wrong car. At first I just figured they were out of mid-sized cars and upgraded me, as is common. But later they sent an email saying they'd been having trouble with their system, and asked me to confirm which car I got.

The farther we got, the rainier it was. ( see more )

low_delta

I picked up Larry at 1:30. I wasn't originally going to leave that early, but he's a bit nervous about things, so I moved it up. We drove to (Chicago) O'Hare. I parked offsite and we got a shuttle to the airport. We had a little more time than necessary, of course, even factoring how slowly Larry walked. But that's OK. I didn't really have anything else going on that day.

It was a seven hour flight. We arrived at 8:30 local time, which gave us all day to see Edinburgh. First we took the tram to our hotel. I got us off at the wrong stop (Edinburgh Park Central vs. Edinburgh Park stop), and we had to walk ten minutes to our hotel. Fortunately, Larry had data on his phone so we could look up where we were supposed to go. So we dropped our bags and got back on the tram to city centre.

We got off in view of Edinburgh Castle.

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Scotland, day 6

Scotland, day 5

Scotland, Day 4

Scotland, Day 3

Scotland, Day 2

Scotland, Day 1

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