Jared Norris 6/15/25 Jared Norris 6/15/25

Deja Vu All Over Again

Waking up this morning was much easier. It probably helped that the actual sun was actually visible, along with mister blue sky. We did find out the source of the water on the floor in our bathroom last night. We thought some of the shower-takers had been careless, but it was proved to be coming from under the pedestal sink. Our hosts were duly notified.

We loaded the car quickly and headed to Edinburgh, with a quick stop off for breakfast at Starbucks. The map showed that the neighboring petrol station had an ATM, so we had planned on getting some cash as well. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be one, and the clerk on duty stated when asked “I don’t know, its my first day.” So we got back in the car with our coffee and food items and searched the map for another ATM.

After one false alarm, we did find one. Walt and I got out and navigated the obtuse ATM menus. Hint, they REALLY want you to get your balance (we were each asked 5 times) because they can charge you even if you don’t end up completing the withdrawal. With our plastic Monopoly money in hand, we continued to Edinburgh for our tour.

We had pre-paid for our parking spot right by Edinburgh Castle, and I had a handy QR code to scan for entry. Unfortunately, every time I held my phone up to scan, the screen shifted, or did whatever it took for the scanner to fail. More and more people started enjoying the show of a stupid American failing at technology. Eventually, it scanned, and allowed us entry.

We parked and headed up the stairs to street-level, and met up with our guide, Sam. She took us across the car park to start off showing some of the castle features. We loaded in the van and started touring the city. Carrie was convinced that we had seen our driver Steve before. She asked if he led Outlander tours in the past, and he had. So, Carrie dove into her photo library and found a pic of him from our previous trip - Small World.

Sam was a fantastic source of information, and it became clear that we had taken a tour with her as well. It makes sense, as they are the same company. Actually, they ARE the company - and a family, as they are husband and wife. If you are planning a trip to Edinburgh, you should check with Carrie, as they have our hearty recommendation.

We took a stroll through the village below the castle and took lots of great photos. Sam shared lots of insight about life here. After a long walk, we got back in the van to see more of the city. Walt got to get a definitive answer to his questions about the vast number of chimneys visible on the roofs of all the houses. No, they no longer use them for heat, but it does provide ventilation to the individual homes. They also didn’t really use wood, but rather, coal. There is now a “no burning” rule here, so, no fires.

We made it to the Royal Mile, and stopped off for lunch. The restaurant had a traditional Sunday Roast, which Walt selected as his Father’s Day lunch. Unfortunately, in this case, the “traditional” in Sunday Roast meant “like mom used to make” if mom wasn’t a particularly good cook. Pat and Rosanna enjoyed their fish and chips, though Rosanna wasn’t sure about the mushy peas. My bacon burger was good, and Carrie’s sandwich was “Meh.”

We finished up the tour, and made it back to our car to head back to our lodging. When we had taken the tour with Steve, he had taken us to Smiddy’s Farm Store for our lunch. So we stopped off there to grab some quick items for dinner. Even though the cafe was closed, they had some take and heat items for a nice quick dinner.

Back at our cabin, we got comfortable, and photo organizing began. I relaxed for a nice nap, and waited for them to get all organized. Once it was time for photo selection, I came back downstairs and we all voted on the photos of the day. Once all that was done, I jotted down some quick notes to share with those of you interested in our progress. It is our last night here, so we will need to get fully packed up in the morning. It was nice to have such a warm place to spend our first few nights in Scotland. Tomorrow, off to somewhere new. Good Night

Jared Norris 6/14/25 Jared Norris 6/14/25

Now, go away or I shall taunt you a second time

So, I feel like I should clarify one thing. On yesterday’s entry, I listed a “Photo of the Day”. We decided to add an element of competition to our trip photography. We are selecting a Photo off the Day each day. At the end of our trip, I will put up a gallery of the daily pics to have you, dear readers, help select the Best of the Trip photo. Due to the highly lucrative element to this, we will keep the identity of the daily winners secret. Well, back to today’s adventure….

Today, we didn’t have to get going super early, but we did want to run into town for a quick breakfast and some warm go-juice. I REALLY needed some caffeine, as my body was not happy with me. We all got ready, and drove in the quest for coffee.

We found a nice little coffee food truck, that not only made a good cappuccino, but freshly made some breakfast sandwiches. Carrie and Walt chose the egg roll, and I chose the bacon one because, well, BACON. They fired up the grill and cooked up some fresh bacon, and fried up some eggs for the rolls. Somehow, the cook gave Walt’s roll to the person who ordered after him, so she quickly fired him up one. Unfortunately, his was a little messier than Carrie’s, as it was more over easy than hers was. The loose yolk did escape his roll and found his hands, his shirt, etc.

Carrie was envious, as she had forgotten that bacon over here is more like Canadian Bacon than our good old US bacon - a lot more meat. It was delicious. So was my coffee.

We made it back to our lodging to go on their farm tour. Matt, our host, put on a great tour. He is retired military, and is totally invested in traditional farming techniques, and doing the right thing for his land, his animals, and his community. We found out more about his military career, which revolved around Special Forces. He even lived in the US for a few years instructing our vaunted Seal Team Six. As avid watchers of the Seal Team TV Show, we understood when he brought up “door-kicking”.

After the awesome tour, we ended up at one of their cabins where Allison, Matt’s other half, had prepared a nice tea for us to escape the rain with. Their chef whipped up a wonderful warming roasted tomato soup. I don’t think I mentioned the weather, but what was a sparse drizzle turned into a very cold rain. So, the fire in the cabin, with hot tea, and hearty soup was a perfect ending to the tour.

By the time we finished our lunch, the rain stopped. We walked back to our cabin to get ready to go to our castle tours. First up was a castle Carrie and I visited on our Outlander Tour a few years ago. At that time, unbeknownst to me we were going to be visiting a much more important filming location than Outlander.

Doune Castle was the location for multiple castles in Monty Pything and the Holy Grail. When scouting locations, none of the more posh castles were approved for their use. Doune Castle was the only one available for them to use, and so they changed filming angles to pretend to be multiple castles. If you’re not savvy on British Comedy, this is the reference in today’s title. It was the location for a savage taunting by poorly translated French knights. I guess I can mention that Outlander did use it to film in as well.

Then we headed to Stirling Castle. We had a nice drive to Stirling and parked in the handy Park and Ride. The last time Carrie and I were in Stirling, we fought our way driving through town to get to the castle. Right before we entered the car park, the road was blocked off, because the castle was full. So, I had to drive back through town, weaving in and out of the oddly parked cars and brazen jaywalkers. We decided we would not see the Castle today. So now, they have a nice free parking lot and a very cheap bus that took us almost all the way to the castle - much better!

After the bus let us off by the old Jail, we walked up the hill and made it to the castle. Walking through the car park, Carrie saw a wallet on the ground next to a car. It was full of money, and I’m sure someone would be really upset at its loss. So, we left a note on the car, and took it to the car park attendant, so hopefully it would find its way to its owner.

We made it into the castle, and saw some amazing views, and a beautiful garden. We started back down the hill and visited the Holy Rude church. I’ve met more than a few people in various churches who would be a good fit there. It is a very historic church - where Mary Queen of Scots worshipped. There were also a few cannon there - my kind of church. If I weren’t so tired, I had a whole plan of making a meme out of one of the cannon. It involved making a sign on the wall that the cannon faced, saying “Worship Music Complaint Department”, and a caption of something like “If you didn’t like the worship music in church today, please fill out a form here…”

After the church, we got back on the bus to head to our car. We made it back in, and drove off to see if we could get a closer photo of the William Wallace Monument, as we couldn’t enter, due to it already closing for the day. Afterward, we went to dinner at a recommendation from Allison. It was the restaurant of Nick Nairn, a famous Scottish celebrity chef.

We ate out on the patio, which was covered, and they provided blankets and a heater. It was perfect. The rain came back during our dinner, and we were warm and happy. For being a Celebrity Chef’s restaurant, it was very reasonably priced (for Scotland). After dinner we drove back to our farm, and began the work of sorting photos. Rosanna served up some ice cream, and I made Carrie a mug of hot tea. We planned out tomorrows driving routes, and I sat down to write. My work is done, and as soon as photos are picked, I’ll post. It was a perfect first full day in Bonnie Scotland.

Jared Norris 6/14/25 Jared Norris 6/14/25

The Longest Day

It’s probably not the most appropriate title, especially since the anniversary of D-Day is so recent, but it is an apt description of what we are facing today. We woke up at 3am to get ready and load the car to head to Sacramento to fly to Scotland. Our original flight wasn’t supposed to leave until almost noon, which would have had us getting up at a reasonable hour. But, man makes plans and God laughs…

We now will have a 5 hour layover in Seattle, and a 4 hour layover in Reykjavik. So, from when we left Anderson this morning, to when we finally make it to Glasgow, it will have been over 24 hours of travel. The things you do for adventure :). I guess the bright side is that we wont really have to worry about tight connections :)

We are currently sitting in the airport in Sacramento waiting to board. I’ll have more to share later.

We had a slow but uneventful flight to Seattle. Due to the rain (who would have thought - rain in Seattle?), we sat on the tarmac for a while in Sac, then took a serpentine route to Seattle, to burn some more time. Once we landed, we made our way to the Amex Lounge. Unfortunately, it was full, so we got on the waiting list. We got in rather quickly, and found one of the few available seating areas and relieved ourselves of our bags.

We had a nice lunch, and did some iPad tech support for Pat, and waited for Walt and Rosanna to arrive from Idaho. Once they did, we made our way to the gate, to wait the rest of the multi-hours long layover. Icelandair has a somewhat unique boarding policy, which combined with some less-than-stellar communication techniques, resulted in a huge scrum at the boarding aisle. I must say, it was rather awesome to be blessed with the actual Charlie Brown’s Teacher doing the gate announcements.

We got on the flight, and got situated for our long summer’s flight. When we sat down, the AC blew nice and cold, so I put on my hoodie to be prepared for a nice chilly nap. Once we got in the air, however, I think the female flight attendants were in charge of the thermostat, as the cold air vanished (only to reappear right as we landed in Iceland). We had a nice, if cramped meal, though it took them FOREVER to come retrieve the dining implements. This meant that my table had my leavings, as well as Carrie’s and Pats, as they were settling down for some snoozing. It was ok, as I was in my own world (literally) watching shows on my Vision Pro, with the Moon at night environment blocking out the claustrophobic surroundings.

We finally made it to Iceland, and we disembarked for our next long layover. We found some tables to occupy, and had breakfast. It was 6 am in Iceland, but 11pm in Cali.

We still have miles to go before we sleep….miles to go before we sleep. I’ll wrap things up once we make it to Scotland….FREEDOM!!

Well, we finally made it to our destination. The best part of stepping off of the plane was feeling the cool air. Unfortunately, the terminal building’s atmospheric controls could not keep up with the sheer numbers of people lining (well, queuing would be more appropriate here) up to go through border controls. Once we finally made it through (Carrie was grumbling at the new digital gating system, because we didn’t get a stamp - they don’t do that for most people any more), we got our bags and got to the car.

I think driving in Scotland was far more stressful on my passengers than on me. I’ve done it a lot, and it became comfortable pretty quickly. Based upon the (mostly suppressed) gasps, I think it was challenging for them.

We didn’t have that far to drive to our lodging - a nice working Highland Coo farm. Our host met us before we even got out of the car, and made us feel really welcome. It is a really nice, newly refurbished space that is really warm and lovely.

Once we had gotten all our luggage in and up the STEEEEP stairs to our rooms, we settled in. My post-travel routine usually includes a nice warm shower to wash off the ick of flying. Today’s ick was over 24 hours in the making, so it felt really good. Carrie laid down to rest her eyes, and I joined her.

Two and a half hours later, Pat beckoned us, saying that the home cooked meals the host had provided were being heated up. Once we got downstairs, Rosanna opened the door to ask Walt “Do you know where my hearing aids are?” The response was priceless - “What did you say?” Carrie giggled for quite a while.

Once dinner was ready, we filled our plates and sat down to eat. As the weirdo who isn’t really that picky of an eater, but who has one clearly stated food rule - No Beans - I was left with only one option of the choices given by our host - A venison stew. After all the travel today, I wasn’t really that hungry, and I was even less inclined to try something new. I did taste it, and it wasn’t gamey at all, and was very lean and tender. I still only ate some of the veggie sides, but Walt, also not a venison-lover, did try some as well, and said it was really good.

After dinner, we got pictures imported, and I sat down to finish today’s epic travelogue. We got to FaceTime with Emma and Mariana, so that itch was scratched. It’s about 8:30 pm here, and Carrie, Pat, and I got up 33 hours ago, so we’ll probably call it a night before too long. We’re finally here 😎.