Highlights from the Highlands

When Peeps & Tom were here we took a three day road trip into the Highlands. This was a first for all of us. We stayed in a cabin in a little town called Fort Augustus. The cabin was literally right on the banks of the Loch Ness (regrettably though, no sightings of Nessie). We had pretty great weather and it was seriously gorgeous. These are just a few major highlights...

Urquhart Castle was just about a 20 minute drive up the loch (lake) from where we were staying. Justus' favorite part was running around the big grassy hill (despite all the 'please keep to the path' signs). You can barely see him here - he's in the bright red sweatpants so that helps! The only thing that the town we were staying in was really known for was the canal that runs through it. We ate on the second floor of a little pub and got to see the canal in action with some old school fishing boat that looked like it was off the set of some Disney movie or something! Not a bad way to keep a toddler entertained during dinner though... The property that our cabin was located on had its own horses (including one mini-horse!) that roamed freely on the grounds and also its own highland cows. The lady who owned the property (Jenny - just a great gal - HA!) said that the cows were very friendly and approachable and to pay no attention to the "Bull DANGER" signs. I wasn't there when Trav had this conversation with her so of course I tripled-checked to make sure that is exactly what she said and meant as we led our son into the bull pen. They did seem friendly enough though! I'm sure we could have gotten closer (and Trav probably would have) but I wasn't going to push it!! A true Highland experience, I guess :) We did take an evening boat tour up through part of Loch Ness. If you know anything about Justus' obsession with "big wawa" then you'll know that this was definitely one of the highlights of his trip! Next we headed onto the Isle of Skye. It is incredibly beautiful - so much that we were taking pictures out of the car window as we were driving. Those never turn out. But it was just that pretty. Just before you cross over the bridge onto the island you come to Eilean Donan Castle - one of the most recognized and photographed castles in the world. It was raining when we arrived (really the only time on our trip it rained) but it had cleared up by the time we finished the tour. Justus was not all that excited to be there (probably tired from sleeping in a weird bed and being strapped into his car seat for long amounts of time) but it was definitely worth the visit. There were several places along our drive through Skye that you could pull over and walk around and take in the amazing scenery. Seeing as how Justus is obsessed with water and equally obsessed with throwing rocks into the water, he was pretty much never allowed to be on the ground at any of these stops since they led us up to cliffs that dropped off hundreds of feet into the sea. But Trav and Tom did step about 2 feet away from him so we could take these pictures of him hurling a rock off the cliffs (don't worry - not as dangerous as it looks, grandmas). And what better way to end the road trip than sharing ice cream in Inverness with Uncle Tom? All in all, Justus was a little trooper, like he always is. I think we were all glad to be back in our own beds drinking from our own coffee mugs (inside joke) but it was definitely worth the trip. It is how you imagine Scotland will look before you've ever been here. So now come visit us and see it!!