Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness

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We had a great night's sleep and breakfast across the street was, as they say here, brilliant. We headed out to Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness after breakfast and checkout. We have no hopes of seeing Nessie...honestly, if all the guys on Nessie tours with fish finders can't find her we're not going to waste our time lol. However, Loch Ness is breathtaking and Urquhart, even half in ruins, is gorgeous.

Ali and I, once again, go our separate ways in Urquhart but the way it's set up we can almost always see each other. I got a little bit artistic and tried taking some interesting photos here. I'm not a good photographer but it's hard to take a "bad" picture here. Scotland is so incredibly beautiful.

The morning starts out overcast but the sun comes out before we leave so my pictures look like I took them on two completely different days.

We have to be in Inverness early because our B&B owner (Pat) leaves for work in mid-afternoon to deliver mail (a second job) so we head out to Inverness so we can get checked in before she leaves. There's a terrible accident on the road and traffic gets stuck at a complete standstill. We kept calling her to let her know what was going on and she said to take our time and everything would be fine. Luckily, the traffic broke and we make it just in time before she needed to head out to work. So, we got all checked in to Ivor Villa and she headed out.

By now, Ali and I have gotten smart. We both have one large suitcase and our backpacks (daypacks). The first few B&Bs we lugged everything into every B&B. Now, we've pulled out the extra duffel bag that I packed so I could get my souvenirs home and we throw our toiletries, pajamas, and a change of clothes for tomorrow into it and just lug that in. Wow...I really need to NOT bring a suitcase next time!

We got on the computer for the first time in days and were able to chat with our husbands in Iraq. I did photo share on Yahoo with Matt and showed him the best of my pictures so far and he's really interested in coming here for a visit sometime. I hope he doesn't change his mind...I would love to come back.

So, we catch up on email with our families, post some pictures and blogs, and then decide to head out and see what we can see of Inverness. We walked around, did some shopping, and by the time we got hungry all the pubs had stopped serving food and the restaurants were closed! So we ended up eating at Subway of all places. But, when you're hungry, you're hungry. With it getting dark so late, we're not getting hungry until late too...plus our internal clocks have been off because of the 6 hour time change, so that hasn't helped much either.

There was a baby gull in front of the Subway that would every so often wander through the open door into the store. He'd walk around for a minute and then come back out. I can't believe how brave the gulls are...he hung out near our table like a stray dog hoping for scraps. Who were we to disappoint him? We fed him bread 😊

The Highland Games are tomorrow and we're both tired...especially Ali. We try to go to bed early but having internet access is such a rarity that we end up sitting up until late on the computer. Oh well...one of these days we'll get to bed early!

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