As I document our trip I will use sections from Greg's journal because we all know he is fabulous at recording details, capturing moments, and never missing a detail about animals viewed. When it is from his journal it will be in a different font and in quotation marks. The rest of the entries will be the low quality ramblings, and silly moments that that only I could record, with a lot less about animals.😉
"Lisa and I rose bright and early Saturday morning and went in search of our rental car. While struggling to activate the data plan for our phones so we could use the maps we met the car rental shuttle on its way to the airport and minutes later were picking up our cars. The van options were either too limited or too expensive so we rented a pair of small cars. Lisa was not excited to drive a separate car, let alone on the left side of the road. When we were shown to our vehicles are faces dropped and we tried to suppress a chuckle. Could we fit 4 people and their luggage into a Fiat 500? We would certainly try. A manual transmission with the gear shifter on the left side made the driving adjustment even more challenging. I was glad to have the car to myself to start working out the kinks. Back at the hotel Mack pulled off some packing wizardry and we had all but one of the large articles in the mini-trunks. Two lucky kids we would have large travel pack between them in the tiny backseat as we explored Scotland and England for the next 3 days. We finally got the data plan activated just as we left for what would be the first of many bakery stops."
Our first stop was Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness. We all enjoyed wandering the ruins and imagining what it used to look like. I loved wearing a jacket - love jacket weather.
"The driving challenge increased as we continued on towards Eilean Donan castle on the west coast. The roads were so narrow there hardly seemed room for two vehicles and I was glad on that front that our vehicles were so petite. Each time I passed an oncoming car it was hard for me to not slow down and I frequently did. We began a list of road signs that made us laugh do to the British use of English: oncoming vehicles in the middle of the road, blind summit, blind dip, give way, windy road indicators that showed literal u-turns rather than curves, emergency layby, and are your eyes fit for driving? And somehow these exceedingly narrow windy roads had speed limits of 60 mph—I couldn’t have driven that fast without endangering ourselves and anyone else out on the road. In many places there was no shoulder at all, in other places a 3 inch curb lined the immediate edge of the road that acted almost like bumper rails on a bowling lane. I might have rubbed up against it once and Lisa admitted that her car may have caught a bit of air once when hitting it at highway speedsMuch of the road we covered was narrow enough there was no need to bother with a painted center line to divide traffic. Like seriously driving these roads at night would be not fun at all. How can you possibly do back to back u-turns at 50 mph?"
Things were little tight in the car but that didn't stop the girls from laughing, fighting, flying (oops) and sleeping.
"The Eilean Donan castle sits on a small island at near the convergence of three lochs with the Isle of Skye visible across the water to the west. A walking bridge leads over the water to the stunning structure. I had no idea until we were on the tour that the castle had been more or less fully rebuilt about 100 years ago. The earliest structure on the site dates back about 800 years but all of the ancient castles had been ruined. The castle is still used today for family functions and was filled with memorabilia and family artifacts."
This castle was a favorite, partially because it was reconstructed so they could feel what it would have been like to live there. The kitchen had an imagined scene complete with plates of food, a cat and several hidden mice. Lily's favorite part was trying to challenge everyone to find all the mice.
The wind was just right on this turret to send Lily's hair every direction but down.
The boys wandered all over the property, even the areas that sticky prohibited walking on the rocks. Then they led us all around on said rocks before we found the restriction sign at the end of the bank. Thus the beginning of breaking laws in Scotland.
I failed to mention that Thursday morning I woke up with that "I'm getting sick" feeling. So I threw in a bunch of cold medicine just in case. Good thing I did because by the time I went to sleep in Inverness I was sick. So here I am driving hours and hours, on the wrong side of the road, stick shift for the first time in 21years, add in that the stick shift is on the left and the roads are so narrow and fast and I am totally sick. Thank goodness I packed drugs!
"We had the first of many successful grocery store lunches in Kyle of Lochalsh. The heavens opened and the skies darkened as we crossed the bridge to the Isle of Skye. It was probably just as well since I had decided my epic 14 hour road trip day with three stops on the Isle just wasn’t in the cards if I wanted functioning kids (and wife) the next day. It was the first of many places we put on the list worthy of a return trip."
Next stop Glenfinnan Viaduct made famous by the Harry Potter movies. We pulled into the parking lot and started walking toward the bridge. Mack stopped us and said, "Let's use the bathroom first." Those words saved us, or at least our bladders. We all needed to go to the bathroom but when we entered the souvenir shop we realized they were closing very soon. Lights were off and they were trying to get people out but we managed to squeeze in and use the bathrooms before they locked the doors - Mack for the win! From the bathroom we realized there was a little hike with a train view point, a viewpoint superior to the one we were walking towards previously so again- Mack for the win!
Some tiny car love...
At some point on the drive Kate decided to brush her teeth. She spit into a little cup and set the cup on the floor. Lily, reasonably so, started to complain and worry that some of this spit would get on her. Kate reassured her, "Trust the process." We were cracking up. Then later things got even sillier for everyone but Lily when, as prophesied, the cup spilled on Lily 😂.
The drive was long but the scenery was gorgeous. 
Stopped at a scenic overview the kids were laughing at our cut little cars so we had to take a silly pic. We must have looked a little like clowns at a circus when we all piled out each time.
"As we pulled into Glasgow shortly after 8 in search of dinner I received a WhatsApp call from the owner of the B&B we would be staying at that night. Suffice it to say she was not happy. Check-in ended at 8:00 and we weren’t there and we wouldn’t be able to get in. I asked if she could text me the instructions—no, email? I guess, but I’m ready to get on with my evening. She emailed the instructions and asked for our breakfast order. We were sitting down to dinner and it took me a while to respond and of course she had follow up questions, how many of each item. I just wanted to keep it simple. I had put down 6 people for the 2 rooms on our reservation and I realized then we might have an issue at breakfast in the morning so I figured I would just skip the meal.
(The drama of this story will continue tomorrow)😂😫
The bathroom floor was about the grossest I’ve seen in a restaurant. As I stood to pee, my legs started sliding apart and it was a race to finish before my feet got so far apart I would have to move!"
Apparently only dad and I's shoes slid on the bathroom floor. The kids didn't slide at all, yet dad and I couldn't even hold still if we wanted to - I think it may have been the cleaning solutions or something - so weird.
More wandering led us to a churro/gelato shop - happy kids.
We also found Glasgow University, one of many buildings speculated to have influenced the idea of Hogwarts.
It was a long day of driving and being sick and exhausted I crashed when we got to our bed and breakfast.
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