Just a little Puff(in)
Due to the ever-changing ruleset for our photo contest, I need to clarify that there will only be one photo of the day (whew!), and it will be shown at the top of the daily blog. It won’t necessarily be called out, but if its a big photo, it is the winner. And now, something completely different….
We awakened to the sound of Carrie’s alarm…and then again, 9 minutes later. We gradually drug ourselves from our beds and began the morning rituals. At least the shower was good. We had been told that breakfast began at 8, but apparently, that was pushed to more of an half-eight (ish), so we went ahead and packed everything up first.
Breakfast was an adventure. It started off poorly for Pat, when her fruit salad was filled with little cubes of watermelon, infesting all of the other fruits with its watermeloniness. I had ordered toast and jam to go with my hot tea, but I switched with her, and was happy to, since I ended up with some toast as well. Once the mains came, Pat was nonplussed at the look of her fried eggs - way too underdone for her. She switched with Carrie, and found the scrambled eggs were also rather soft. She had relearned a valuable lesson - she prefers the pancakes and such when she has a choice.
Walt got to taste haggis on his full Scottish breakfast. I also got a full Scottish, minus the haggis, beans, and mushrooms. I was soundly mocked, but was probably the happiest with their breakfast. Duely sated, we fit ourselves in the car to head off on our journey.
First stop was petrol. As the diesel and Unleaded pumps have different colors than we do in the states (totally reversed), I had to endure the reminders of the time in Iceland where I pumped unleaded into the diesel car, and we had to have the tank pumped when it “randomly” stopped working.
From there, we left to go to Arbroath Abbey. This is an extremely historic site that gave us the Declaration of Arbroath, probably the most famous document in Scottish history. In a nutshell, it was a letter to the pope from the nobles of Scotland, requesting his support of Scottish sovereignty, under Robert the Bruce, who had been excommunicated. Its most famous lines are: “It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”
We enjoyed the visitors center, and Pat, Rosanna, and Walt even donned costumes for a photo shoot. Just to clarify, Pat’s costume is a monk, not the dark lord of the sith. After enjoying the center, we toured the abbey grounds to talke pictures. Much of the abbey was off limits, due to restoration and safety work that was under way.
Leaving there, we headed to the Red Castle, a ruined dwelling that, until the 1950’s, was among the oldest inhabited houses in Scotland. We couldn’t really get close, as the grounds are private, but we did get some good photos.
Next, we drove to a beach Carrie and I had visited previously. We got some great photos, and chatted with some locals who were out with their cute dog.
Back in the car, we drove to the Boddin Lime Kilns. Carrie and Walt got out to take some quick pictures, but ended up walking all the way down, and even further, for some awesome shots. Once they made it back, we tried to drive to Scurdie Ness Lighthouse, but the road to it was private, and long. So, we decided to head on to our next stop.
On our way to our scheduled stop, Pat’s eagle vision spotted a sign for another lighthouse, the Todhead Lighthouse. To get there we needed to drive a few miles on VERY narrow roads, weaving through farmland. Rosanna was playing “name the crop”, and Carrie was scanning the horizon for sheep. We happened across a field of ewes and lambs who weren’t scared of us at all. The lambs were very curious, and dang cute. Walt even got out of the car to take some pics. We were stopped on the road for a while, then continued toward the lighthouse. The next serendipity was a field of cows who weren’t scared really curious as well. We got some great photos, and drove up to the lighthouse. It was clear it had been converted into a residence, so we turned around to head to our waterfall hike.
On the way back, we were met by a few cars that had to do the whole “back up until you find a wider spot in the road” thing that is a reality in rural Scotland. Once we made it to our hike, we parked and headed off to see what we could see. Crowton Waterfall is a small coastal waterfall found on a short looped hike. Farther on down the trail is a cave where puffins nest. While we were viewing the waterfall, we saw lots of puffins beating their cute, stubby little wings flying to and fro. Since we are going to be able to see puffins in a much better environment in a week or so, we decided to head on to the next location, as we were all getting tired.
Next up was Dunnottar Castle, a cool coastal castle. Carrie and I had been there before, and I decided to sit this one out in the cool, shaded car. The rest of them headed down to see and shoot some photos. I think they really enjoyed it.
Next up, was heading into Aberdeen city center for our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. Unfortunately, they have limited parking that requires reservations. They only notified Carrie to make a reservation a few days ago. She called them back within minutes of the text, and there were no reservations to be had. Luckily there was a parking garage just down the street. We unloaded all the suitcases, and I went to park the car. This left the “seasoned” citizens and Carrie to lug everything to our rooms. Another lucky thing was they had a lift (not universal in Europe), so it wasn’t too crazy to get stuff upstairs. Though, there was a problem with 2 of the keys, so Carrie had to run back down to the desk to get them re-keyed.
We relaxed for a while in our rooms, before heading downstairs for dinner. “Dinner” was pretty generous when we looked at the menu, so we walked across the street to have dinner. Boy, are we glad we did! We had a great meal, and came back to blog and do pictures.
As I am finishing this entry, the votes have been tallied, and we have a winner for photo of the day. I will attach it and get the rest of the days pictures uploaded. Thanks for reading! Tomorrow, we head to Inverness, home of Nessie.
