Inverness Day 1

We saw a very cool bridge over the roadway this morning:

On our way to Castle Leod (Leoch) we saw signs for "Muir of Ord" and "Kilmuir."  We are everywhere!

Castle Leod is the castle Diana Gabaldon used as her backdrop for Castle Leoch in her Outlander series.  The first photo looks like her Lollybroch description, but the rest look like Castle Leoch.  The Earl of Cromartie was in residence at the time we were visiting; he walked with us and showed us around a bit.  He is the clan chieftain of the Mackenzie clan; he is also known as "The Mackenzie."

  Another amazing day!  Off to bed!

Banff and Pennan

We left Edinburgh this morning and drove to Banff by mid-afternoon. On the way, we saw a location reminiscent of my sister Keri:

We drove over to Pennan on the north coast of Scotland.  Pennan is the filming location for the film "Local Hero".  The Pennan Inn factors in large in the film - that's where we had dinner this evening:

Leslie looking pensive on the seawall:

while Isaac combed the seashore for rocks and shells:

The other item that factors large in the film is the red phone box outside the inn where Isaac took a load of 10 pence pieces and called his friend Meredith in Tucson:

 The evening sky was magnificent on our way back to the hotel:

What a beautiful day we had.  Afterwards, we watched the Local Hero video from Rob's iPad and that pretty much rounded out our day.

Cheers!

Edinburgh - Day 2

Well, first things first - the car has 2 new tires at this point, so we are rolling again without the need of tow trucks.

While Rob was getting the car sorted, Leslie and Isaac walked up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle:

Isaac managed to stand guard at both the Edinburgh Castle and the Holyrood Palace:

There were lots of gents in uniform about - with pipes and without:

 

 

After lunch, we were at Holyrood Palace.  The queen was not in residence, so we were able to go into the palace.  We only saw places that were largely used by the previous occupants going back hundreds of years:

We then went to the "World's End" Pub.  It has a basement wall that is famed in song and story and which they do not show to guests - Leslie did ask:

We all tried haggis and chased that down with sticky toffee pudding.  The haggis was interesting - not has crazy as advertised - and was quite pleasant (we don't look that happy to be eating it, do we?):

We finished the day off with a ghost tour of some of the underground areas of Edinburgh - we did not see any ghosts down there but we did hear a ton of spooky stories:

Off to bed.

Cheers!

Edinburgh at last

We took the taxi to church today and that was nice, so there was a good start to the day.

Well, the folks helping us out with the car could not get the car fixed in Carlisle yesterday or today, so they put us on a tow truck and brought us up to Edinburgh.  You can see how knackered the tires are on the tow truck:

We spent some time on the Royal Mile this afternoon.

We ate in a middle eastern restaurant:

This bus is going to some place called "MUIRHOUSE"  Wonder if we can get in there.

There is a jazz festival going on in town today in our neighborhood - lots of great music coming through the window.

Cheers,
Rob

Carlisle and Car Adventures

We got up first thing this morning and went to see the Preston LDS Temple:

It is closed for cleaning, but a very nice man who is on the security detail met us and gave us a nice overview of the building of the temple and President Hinckley's involvement with it.  There is a stake center, the Missionary Training Center, a Family History Center, and a Distribution Center on the grounds!

We then went to visit Barrow-in-Furness and saw the Furness Abbey:

We then went into Dalton-in-Furness to see the Dalton Castle:

After a great lunch, we headed up to the lake district to see the sights.  About 20 minutes into that drive, there was some debris in the road that punctured both passenger side tires.  We spent about 4 hours waiting by the side of the road, but really it was near a campground.  We met a few people who were very nice and had a bite to eat there.  The first tow truck took us as far as Keswick where we walked around the town center and had some ice cream. The second tow truck driver took us as far as Carlisle where we are tonight at our planned hotel stop. There is a local pub with live music that is going strong still at 10:30, but is unlikely to keep me awake much longer.

The lake district is thick with Beatrix Potter lore:

And they have some very respectable mountains:

We've been working with the Avis and Audi roadside assistance folks as well as RAC Patrol and the Keswick Motor Cars tow drivers.  Hopefully tomorrow fairly early, we can get some tires sorted or a replacement rental car.  If not, we will be enjoying Carlisle for a day longer than planned prior to the transition to Scotland. (Come to think of it, "Scottish Transition" would make a pretty good rock band name.)

Oh, and it finally RAINED TODAY.  Just lightly while we were on the side of the road, but a downpour as we neared Carlisle.

Cheers,
Rob

Trogdor

By the way, I left off the obligatory Trogdor reference from yesterday's post: "burninating all the peasants in the THATCHED ROOF COTTAGES!!!"

-Sorry

On to Preston (by way of Stonehenge)

We left Fareham early this morning on the way to Stonhenge

Of course, Isaac has an opinion (shared by millions) as to the actual group who set up Stonehenge:

We had a very nice drive from Stonehenge through a ton of little tiny villages with thatched roof cottages:

But eventually, we got to the M5 and M6 motorways headed west and north to Preston.  Just like on Monday, there were tons of basically unexplainable traffic slowdowns and congestion:

These turned an already long 4-hour drive into more than 6 and a half hours - which is no way to be spending our precious time here in England - even though we did go through some very beautiful countryside.

Now to bed.

Southampton, Portsmouth, and Fareham

OK, we finally got to meet the branch of the family in England.  We met with Leslie's uncle Graham, her cousin Stephanie, Stephanie's partner Stephen, and their son Luca.  First at Graham's house:

It was very lovely catching up with them and exchanging stories about family members that were rumours and notions only.  Luca is a delight and Isaac played with him a bit:

We then went to Portsmouth castle to have a look around and see this beautiful location.  This is the tower of the keep:

We climbed it to the top to have a look around:

The view of St. Mary's church in the castle was very magnificent:

Later, we went round to Gunwharf Quays to see the sights like the Spinnaker:

It's a large shopping center that is similar to a shopping mall:

We had dinner there at an Asian restaurant called Wagamama.  Stephen joined us after work and we had a kind man take a picture of all of us:

This was the most lovely day and we were very pleased to meet everyone and get a chance to know our family.

Off to bed.

On the road from Heathrow to Southampton

Well, today was a day of delays.  We had some significant confusion at the AVIS pickup location at Heathrow Airport where they did not have my reservation in as preferred and we had to wait for a change of car to an automatic transmission in case Leslie has to ever drive it. It's a black Audi wagon and is very nice. It took us a while to figure out the GPS, and other features, but now it is pretty easy.  It should also be noted that a group of three highly intelligent people trying to start this car was proving to be extremely pathetic.

It turns out that the automatic came in handy anyway since we were in a MASSIVE 3-4 hour traffic jam on the M3 - we hear that they shut down the highway between Junction 5 and 6:

As a result, we did not see Stonehenge today, but will see it another day. Since we got here so late, we decided to stay another day in Southampton and give up our day in Torquay.  We'll have 2 days in Southampton - the first night is here in the efficiency hotel (Leslie has the top bunk):

The view from the hotel window could be almost anywhere in the USA:

More photos tomorrow.


For the time being, Isaac will be writing about his day thus far.  Possibly the height of my day was discovering that, yes, air conditioners do exist and properly function in the UK, and no, the Wal*Mart equivalent is not 24 hours for us people with nothing better to do than shopping cart racing.

Apart from that, my ADD was exercised heavily in the aforementioned traffic disquintiation (copyright Robert Muir, 1961).  Also, caffeine doesn't work on me anymore.  What a shame.  I must have downed two or three cokes in total today, and I fell asleep only minutes after the last one.

We had dinner tonight at TGI Friday's just next to the Micky Dee's, not visible in the above photo.  It was loud.  And good.  And they played good music.  Very. Very. Loudly.

After the evening was over, and we returned to our hotel, I found us a TV program that made hilarious satire of the news, and it's very unfortunate that I don't remember what it's called.

Until tomorrow, have fun, don't drink and drive, remember to check your underwear, and don't get caught

-Isaac