Extra Pictures

I took over 900 pictures on our Scotland/Ireland vacation.   

These are a few the ones that didn't make the other blog posts.  

 This was a giant ice glacier at Dynamic Earth.  

These were the sinks in Ireland and Scotland.  It was impossible to get warm water.  

You either had cold or scalding hot water.  I guess they want you to stop up the sink and mix the two?

Ethan enjoyed cotton candy at the Highland Games.  

Nate had fudge on the brain the whole vacation.

 The pubs in Dublin were really pretty.

 There was also some really cool graffiti in Dublin. 

 These ladies had some killer heels!

 The fellas were obsessed with climbing everything they could.

 The boys had to be so tired of Nate and I saying, "THAT IS GORGEOUS."  

In this picture, Link just said, "I don't mean to be rude, but they are just some cliffs!"  

 Ethan absolutely loved running and jumping on the rocks at Giant's Causeway.  

I just tried to not twist an ankle.  

 This is Europa Hotel in Belfast.  According to our bus guide, it's the most bombed hotel in Europe.  

 These are some interestingly dressed people in Belfast.  

 In this picture, Ethan is making Nate and Link sign the letters L-E.  He is signing A and P.  

I love that they just went along with it.  

 I had such a hard time taking pictures of this guy.  Both he and Ethan have such light skin.  

They either glow or are too dark in my pictures.  

 These boys are definitely the children of a blogger.  They started asking me to take pictures of them.

 This was just a super pretty picture!

 We did lots of selfies!!!  The sun was so bright here! 

 I love this picture of the little micra.  We brought two duffel bags, two backpacks, and one suitcase.  At the rental car place, we were VERY nervous that our luggage wouldn't fit!  

We kept one of the backpacks up front with us and everything fit.....snuggly.  

Oddly enough, the boys didn't really ask for any souvenirs.  Ethan found a tiny snow globe that said Ethan.  Link didn't ask for a thing.  On our very last day, I showed the boys the flutes and told them they could have them.  Ethan is really good on his recorder, so I thought these would be cool.   

Nate and I came home with t-shirts, scarves, two hats each, and a sweater.  

Loch Lomond Highland Games

I was VERY excited to see a Scottish Highland game, and I had the fellas pretty excited too. We got up early to get a good parking spot and get in the gate quickly.  Little did we know that we did not need to do that.  We were the first car in the lot, and the line was tiny.  (This picture was taken when it opened).  

 

Dunbarton is a small village, and the games are pretty much locals.  

This was the local hero (and Ethan's hero too).  For about 30 minutes, the announcer called him TJ Hunter.  Someone finally told him that his name was TJ Graham.  He won every event but one.  

This was John Leicster.  He was a very experienced competitor. 

 He also had two sons competing in the events too.  

Ole Peter Gallagher had been around the games a few times.  I wish you could here the announcer saying their names with his Scottish brogue.  

 This is David.  He showed up about 45 minutes into the games.  The announcer said he slept late.  I think he would have given TJ Hunter/Graham a run for his money!  He actually won the caber toss.  

The caber toss was definitely the most impressive event!!!  Notice the crowds growing....

At the end of the local games, the triathletes starting coming in.  

Once the locals were finished, the Scottish national champs started competing.  

We watched for a few minutes.  They were super impressive. 

The chieftan of the games spoke. I loved his outfit!  

AND THEN......the bagpipes started.  They were great for the first five minutes, and then we all wished they would hush!

Around lunchtime, the crowds were growing, and the rain was starting. 

We found a seat and enjoyed some yummy pizza.  

AND THEN....the bagpipes started up right in front of us.   

The boys ran off to play on the playground in the rain. 

The boys had been waiting all day for the tug-of-war.   Many of the local highland game competitors were competing in the tug-of-war.  We were all tired and wet, so we left after the tug-of-war.  

We had a blast.  The boys still say that this was their favorite day of the vacation.

The Scottish road system is very interesting.  Our route from Dumbarton to Edinburgh took us straight through Glasgow.  Apparently, they do not have a road that takes you around the city.  

I took this out the car window!  

Scotland was wonderful!  Tomorrow, Ireland!

Day 3 Scotland

I really wanted to go to the Culloden Battlefield.  It was another important part of the books that I love! 

The visitor center gave the boys a scavenger hunt.  So, Nate and I were able to read the information while they scouted out their clues!

The field had red flags in a line for the British soldiers and blue flags in a line for the Scottish soldiers.  They were so far apart!  It really shocked all of us seeing how far apart they were, yet so many died.

Clan Fraser's stone!  Outlander fans had left many rocks and flowers.  

Culloden Cairn.  

Stone for the British who died.  

About a mile down the road are the Clava Cairns.  These are burial cairns from about 4000 BC. 

On the winter's solstice, light comes directly down this entrance. 

While Nate was looking around, the monkeys started climbing trees!  

Next stop, Loch Ness!  I was super excited to find Nessie.  We stopped at the Nessie Exhibition.

We watched about 30 minutes of information about Nessie.  

They were not convinced that she existed after watching the videos.  

We drove down the coast of the lake.  We had a gorgeous weather day!

We stopped at Castle Urquhart.  

It was HOT!  

We had a few hours to go before stopping in Dumbarton, 

so we took a few pictures and went on our way.

We had some amazing views on our drive. 

We've since read that our drive down A82 is one of the top 20 drives in the world.  

It was very windy!  

There was NOTHING for miles and miles.  It looked like the moon!

We stopped in Dumbarton off of Loch Lomond for the night.