2008 - United Kingdom - Day 10 - Scottish Highlands and Lochs, Glamis Castle, Saint Andrews

Today was a spectacular day. We left our hotel at 8:00 and drove into the Scottish highlands. That is the most beautiful country I have seen yet. We drove past 2 of the Loch’s, Loch Lomond and Loch Tay. At Loch Lomond we stopped and got some Pictures. The mountain around the Loch is called Ben Lomond, which apparently a mountain in Ogden is named after this mountain. By the way, our bus driver is a very loud and obnoxious man from Belgium. He is crazy. He doesn’t usually drive in England, so he has driven on the wrong side of the street, gone the wrong way on one way lanes, and if he misses a turn, he just backs up and expects all the other cars to move. Today, while turning onto the road on the wrong side of the street someone said, “You’re going onto the wrong side of the road.” He replied, “No problem! The cars are smaller then me, they can back up. If something is bigger then me, than we have a problem.” At lunch time we stopped a t acute village called Dunkeld. We walked down to the river and ate our snacks and fed some ducks and gull-type looking birds. It was a beautiful area. I loved our drive. Normally I get sleepy on the bus rides and sleep a lot. But I so loved the view, I couldn’t sleep. We then arrived at Glamis Castle. This was the first castle I have seen that is primarily just a residence castle, not a fortification castle. This castle is more like the Disneyland style castle. This was also the home of the queen mother. We had a guided tour of part of the inside. It was cool. She told us about some of the ghosts that live in the castle and 2 men that were boarded up in a room and the room has never been opened. After we left the castle we drove to St. Andres, the famous golf course. It was right on the cost of the North Sea, so I took a few pictures of the golf course and that bridge that all the famous golfers like to get their pictures taken on, then walked to the shore and collected seashells for my girls. On the way to our hotel in Edinburgh, Mike talked to us about the contributions of Scotland to the world. He talked about Sir Walter Scott and his Waverly novels, but my favorite was listening to him talk about George MacDonald and read some of his quotes about god and religion. It touched my heart. We got to our hotel around 7:00. Mom and I walked across the street to a pizza hut for dinner. One medium sized pizza cost us $24. I stopped at a little market and bought some candy and chocolate to take home to the family.