Our first stop today was Edinburgh Castle. It is a pretty big complex. We saw the batteries where they had the 18-pound cannons, and one cannon is still in use today. They set it off everyday at 1pm so people can set thier clocks to it. They said that the reason why they didn't choose high noon was because they didn't want to use up 11 more rounds everyday. Another building we went to on the castle grounds was St. Margaret's Chapel. It is the oldest building in Edinburgh. They still have weddings there today, and the brides' fathers really like it because it can only hold 20 people. In front of St. Margaret's Chapel is a huge cannon called Mons Meg. It could fire 330-pound stones nearly 2 miles. We also went to see Scotland's ... read more

This morning we checked out of our hotel and caught the train to Edinburgh. Luckily, we got seats this time. When we arrived in Edinburgh, we went to buy bus passes for the week. We had a little bit of trouble finding the bus stop, then a lot of trouble finding the hotel/apartment. The rain didn't help either. Then, when we had finally found the hotel and the receptionist was giving us our key, we learned that we'd have to walk all the way around the building to get to our apartment. It wasn't that bad, but we were jsut so tired of walking at this point. When we entered our apartment, 2 maintenance workers were in there and told us we were going to have to find another room, so we had to walk all ... read more

This morning we had to get up really early so mom could drop us off at the train station before going to work. We ended up being able to catch an earlier train than expected on each leg except for the last one. We had to kill 2 hours in the Edinburgh train station because we had just missed the train. When we finally went to catch our train, it turned out that almost all the seats were reserved, so we had to spend the entire trip in tiny little fold-up seats by the doors. It was ok, but not very comfortable. Thankfully, when we arrived in Inverness, our hotel was right next to the train station, so we didn't have to walk far at all. For dinner, we went to a pub. It was very ... read more

After a slow start to our day, we headed out to Castle Acre Priory, which is about 20 miles away from mom's house. When we arrived at Castle Acre, we parked (a lot farther away than we needed to) and walked to waht we thought was the Priory. It wasn't. It was a church. So, after walking through the cemetary and seeing the actual Priory off in the distance, we made our way there. Joey and I bought an overseas visitors pass for 2 people for 43 pounds. The Priory is a bunch of ruins now, but you can still tell how beautiful it once was. It really is quite something to see with the gray rock of the ruins contrasting with the bright green grass growing all around. The rocks that were used to build ... read more

We decided to join my parents for a day trip to Mt. Rainier. We went to Paradise, which is where we have gone several times before. We packed a picnic lunch and ate as soon as we reached Paradise. We were so hungry, we just camped out on the hillside right where we had parked--not even bothering to find a picnic area. After lunch, we decided to hike up the trail to see the glacier. It was beautiful up there. We even saw some wildlife. ... read more