Erbusaig and Plockton Slept in a bit today - yay! We had breakfast at the Tingle Creek Hotel as it was included in the rate. I had Scotch pancakes, they were yummy but a bit sweet and the ‘maple’ syrup was more like honey than traditional maple syrup. I met a cute and talkative black kitty in the hotel parking lot when we were leaving. We headed north up the coast from Erbusaig to village of Plockton. The picturesque village is at the seaward end of Loch Carron. This small loch side hamlet is an idyllic place. A row of neatly painted cottages hugs the shoreline following the curve of the tiny harbor. Palm trees line the main street and the whole picture is framed by a craggy landscape of heather and pine. Plockton is also ... read more

North from Oban to Mallaig Figures - mom was up before the 7:30am alarm today - the one day that I wanted to sleep in a bit. Plus a tour bus must have been leaving around 6:30 am because doors were slamming up and down the hallway. It was too noisy to sleep anymore, so I’m really tired again. I think I wore the arm brace only about 4 hours. The thing makes my arm ache in a nauseating way. Stinks! We had some breakfast at the hotel before we left. I tried the sausages and boy they were super spicy hot! After that I decided to just stick to the scrambled eggs, potato scones and toast. Castle Stalker We headed north out of Oban up the A828 which is a pretty good road, curvy, but ... read more

Via Loch Lomond toward Oban We woke up to absolutely pouring rain! We decided to just grab a quick continental breakfast at the HIE, I had Frosties and yogurt. I had gotten some advice on our plans for today from the desk clerk; he used to be a coach driver and was really nice and helpful. He said the drive to Oban should take about 3 hours. The plan was to drive along Loch Lomond stopping to enjoy the beauty of the Loch, but it was raining way too hard for that. We also were going to stop at Lochawe and see Kilchurn Castle. We did end up stopping at a rest area on Loch Lomond, but there was no visibility at all. The GPS couldn’t find Kilchurn so we thought we could drive to the ... read more

Moffat Wake up call at 8am! I had another restless night; I think I only kept the brace on for about 2 hours. My arm ached something fierce. I really wish I could get a good nights rest. We had breakfast at Burt’s Hotel again and it was good but not really filling. Apparently the trick was to order scrambled eggs, not fried. One fried egg is what I got and mom had at least 3 scrambled. We literally dragged 1 big, heavy bag each down to the car before breakfast. Then we managed all of the rest in one trip. I carried one of mom’s bags with mine. Mom hit the ATM and the post office again and we headed off to Moffat intending to stop at the Grey Mare’s Tail Waterfall on A708. The ... read more

Dublin Airport Layover and Glasgow We had a four hour layover in Dublin. We were a bit clueless, but apparently we cleared passport control for the UK/EU there in Ireland. Thinking that it would be a good idea to find our gate first, we headed off. Of course the gate was just about as far away from the main terminal area as possible. We got all the way down there to discover that there really wasn’t any hot food to buy. All the restaurants were back by passport control, which was about a 15-20 minute walk back the way we had just come. Oh well - we ended up with apple turnovers, they weren’t bad, but they weren’t filling at all. After this we still had two and a half hours to wait for our flight ... read more