So anyway, Friday morning arrived and Lacey’s plane was due to land at 7:30. I figured I would try to catch the 7:03am bus from City Center to the airport, so I got up around 615, got the bus to City Center and arrived about 2 minutes late to catch the bus. So then I had to take the 7:33 bus, which meant sitting at the bus stop for 30mins all alone in the cold wee hours of the morning… When I got onto the bus, the stack of morning papers all had the headline “Jacko has heart attack” and in reading the article, I learned that he had a heart attack and was in the hospital – crazy! When I arrived at the airport, I found that her flight was delayed and hadn’t landed until 750, so I actually didn’t end up being late at all. I went to Starbucks and got a Chai Latte and Banana Nut muffin and saw more headlines everywhere – “Jacko Dead” (yes, they’re still calling him Jacko here, even after his death…). I was shocked, so I got a seat by the international arrivals door, and read the article while I waited. And waited. And waited. Have I mentioned that Lacey was the last person from her flight to walk through the doors? So around 845am, there she comes through the doors, pulling her two suitcases behind her… And all I really remember is her socks… She was wearing capri-length sweats, since it was so hot at home, but she knew it would be chilly on the flight. Then, in anticipation of it being cold in Glasgow, she had pulled on thick knee high socks to wear home from the airport… which were black with white music notes on them. Haha very cute, Lacey. So I ask her “Have you heard about Michael Jackson?!?” and she says “Oh, yeah, Ben called me and told me!” So of course, my jaw drops because I’m shocked that My Ben called her while she was in the airport just to make sure she heard! So sweet of him!
We got the busses from the airport back to my place, we both showered and packed for our roadtrip, and then we got a bus to Enterprise to pick up our car for the weekend.
Oh, enterprise… and our Prius… that could be a whole blog to itself… So enterprise doesn’t have the car we reserved (size B) and we can either get a smaller one, or upgrade to a slightly bigger one… So we go for the slightly bigger one, and it’s a Prius.. and of course, none of the guys who works there is really familiar with hybrid cars, so they can’t tell us much about how to drive/park it. Their advice: drive it around the parking lot for a little while until you get the hang of it. So I did. Yes, I was driving to start off with. We figured that since Ben and I had driven to St. Andrews and I was the most familiar with the roads and street signs (having already been here for 3.5 weeks and lacey being fresh off the boat…) it made the most sense for me to start off driving and Lacey to handle the maps and directions. We pulled out of the parking lot and got about a block down the road when we realized that the car was beeping… and everything we tried wouldn’t make it stop, so we turned around and went back to Enterprise. Apparently, the foot break was on… and they had neglected to mention that there was a foot break, but now that they noticed it, we would need to put that on everytime we stopped, or turned off, the car. We would also need to first make sure we were using the battery, then push the park button, then turn the power on the car off, then engage the foot break. Every time we parked. That car had ‘all kinds of stop” (as we later started calling it) going on.
Ok, so then we were on our way! We started driving north, and hadn’t been on the road long at all before we were surrounded by the beautiful green countryside that is Scotland. As we were driving up and around Loch Lomond, we passed a parking place that had a great view, so we stopped to take some pictures. Unfortunately, it was on the wrong side of the road, but once we crossed, we saw that we could actually climb down to the rocks by the lake!
We drove on a little further and then stopped at a picnic area by the lake to have our picnic lunch of blueberry muffins, carrots, hummus, grapes, and other odds and ends that I’d packed for us. We also stopped at one or two Tourist Information Centers along the way… About halfway into our trip, we passed signs for the Inverlochy Castle, so we stopped to check it out. Just a little ways off the main road were ruins of a pretty large castle, that we were able to walk around and explore. There was no one else around, except one other car-load of tourists exploring the property. It was really amazing!! The castle was square, with a tower on each corner, and while the stairs were gated off, you could look up and actually see the stone stairways leading up the towers! We took lots of pictures here, of course! When we reached Invergarry, which is a little over 3/4 of the way through our day's journey, we stopped at a pub for dinner. Or should I say, The pub. It seemed to be the only establishment in the town, aside from the numerous Bed and Breakfasts… It was pretty expensive, but what do you expect when they’ve got no competition… I had fish n’ chips and Lacey had a veggie stuffed pepper.
About 2 miles outside of the town where we were staying that night, there's Eileen Donan castle. It was built on an island and now there is a bridge to it for visitors. We were about an hour too late to visit the castle, and would be setting out too early the next morning to come back to visit, so we stopped to take whatever pictures we could from the road. (The castles are only open from 10-5 or 6pm, which makes visiting more than one in a day very difficult in the best circumstances!) Of course, just as we pulled up to take pictures, the sun was setting over the lake, and we were taking pictures of the castle into the sun... so the pictures you see (like the one above) were actually taken from the moving car of the rear of the castle as we drove away from it, slightly disappointed, but glad to have seen it at all.
Around 830 that evening we arrived in Kyle of Lochalsh, the last town before the bridge to Skye, and where we were staying in The Old Bank House that night. We met our hosts – the bed and breakfast owners, Sally, Mike and their son Joshua. They were a little odd, but very nice and hospitable. Sally took our breakfast orders, asked if we wanted anything to drink/eat that night, and gave us our keys. Since it was still daylight out (its light here until well after 10pm in the summer), and still too early to call home (5 hour time difference from Philly, 6 from Nashville) we decided to walk around a little and explore Kyle. It’s a cute little town, with several interesting shops selling homemade crafts and woolen items. I wish we had been there during business hours, but I’m sure we experienced much of the same on the rest of this roadtrip, so we didn’t miss out on much by only walking past. We went back inside, called Ben, Joe, and our parents, and went to bed.
Around 830 that evening we arrived in Kyle of Lochalsh, the last town before the bridge to Skye, and where we were staying in The Old Bank House that night. We met our hosts – the bed and breakfast owners, Sally, Mike and their son Joshua. They were a little odd, but very nice and hospitable. Sally took our breakfast orders, asked if we wanted anything to drink/eat that night, and gave us our keys. Since it was still daylight out (its light here until well after 10pm in the summer), and still too early to call home (5 hour time difference from Philly, 6 from Nashville) we decided to walk around a little and explore Kyle. It’s a cute little town, with several interesting shops selling homemade crafts and woolen items. I wish we had been there during business hours, but I’m sure we experienced much of the same on the rest of this roadtrip, so we didn’t miss out on much by only walking past. We went back inside, called Ben, Joe, and our parents, and went to bed.
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