Enter lengthy Scotland travelogue with excessive photos, but including funny bits.

Brad and Kimberly headed up to Edinburgh via train last Monday, and Josh and I joined them by rental car a few days later for a whirl-wind tour of Scotland. We left Durham in the morning darkness and saw a beautiful sunrise over the Northumbrian coast. We also stopped, briefly, at Bamburgh Castle, a lovely fortress that I am sure was placed in its particular position with a mind to future photo-taking tourists. The castle is four long, winding miles from the main A1 thoroughfare, and while remote, it seems a popular destination, so the excessively narrow road closely bordered on both sides by tall hedgerows and the odd farmer warily watching us pass by was a delightful surprise. It was closed until Easter, not that that stopped Josh from driving right past the "deliveries only" sign on up to the front gate. I think he was still enjoying the thrill of being behind the wheel again.

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After a bit of navigational confusion, we headed North out of Edinburgh, crossing over the Firth of Forth and up towards Pitlochry. Our wonderful driver (photo below) did an impressive job on the shoulder-less roads barely, if at all, wide enough for two passing Class A Mini Hired Cars, like our lovely Ford Ka. The left-handed stick shift was actually not the confusing part, but rather understanding what to do when and where with the multitude of roundabouts.
We made a quick stop at the smallest whiskey distillery in Scotland, Edradour, for a tour (which was my second, oddly enough for a non-whiskey drinker like myself. The first taken seven years ago with sister Jennie) and a sample before heading up to Inverness and then along Loch Ness. We decided not to pay to walk among the ruins of Urquhart Castle below, but it did provide Josh somewhere to flaunt authority by way of ignoring signs. Since he looked so nice in his new hat (purchased in York last weekend), who would say anything?

Eventually, we did find Nessie, who was also recently found by Dr Jorn Hurum of the University of Oslo.
And after wrestling Bird away (Bird is quite tasty, as you will see from another animal encounter below), we spent the night in Inverness.
The next day was spent driving through the highlands, west and then back east. The scenery was fantastic and the roads even narrower and windier. Our road options were quite limited, making for an easy drive next to stunning loch (lake) after loch and even next to the sea for a bit. Of course, it being the west coast of Scotland and all, it up and rained on us. A lot. Still, what we could see of it through our rain-splattered windshield was quite nice.

We stopped for lunch and a nice view of the Isle of Skye (below).
And spent some time at the beautiful Eileen Donan Castle. It was incredibly windy, comically so, in fact, as I struggled to get a Bird shot without Bird flying away and Josh struggled to keep his hat on...
We spent the night in Fort William and headed through the lovely Glen Nevis (glen=valley) next to Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK. The valley was stunning, especially with the bit of clear-ish sky we got. As we drove down the road, we even encountered a few furry animals:

Since they were posing so well for us, we got out to get in the shots. Kimberly and I posed nicely:
And then the Hairy Coo thought, 'Gee, she looks yummy' and turned to take a wiff (noticed nervous look on face):
Before coming all the way over to check out what I had to offer:
No big deal, you might say? It's just a cow, for goodness sake? Well, look at those horns! And their thick bodies are nearly as big as our Ka! And they kept doing this to me. No one else seemed to be as enticing as I. Brad claims it's because I kept trying to get a photo with Bird, thereby looking suspiciously like I was a treat-offering tourist. There was that one time the coo actually did manage to get Bird fully in his mouth before I could extract his now gooey little yellow body from a surprisingly strong tongue (below), so maybe Brad was onto something. I take the above photos as proof, though, that offering or not, I am one attractive babe to a Hairy Coo.
Also, we encountered some charmingly stupid sheep whose heavy woolen bodies looked far too large for their skinny legs. Josh, having been holed up in the tiny Ka for 2.5 days, took the opportunity to stretch his legs in pursuit. Notice the top of a car in the distance? Poor sheep. Poor Josh. Both had a bit of a scare for a minute there.

From Glen Nevis, we headed through Glen Coe, an incredibly beautiful, desolate valley. I am skipping all the rich Scottish history in this lengthy post, so read this to find out about the valley's sad, bloody past. And, just as we were leaving the highlands, the sun came out. Go figure. We stopped at Doune Castle (below), filming site for much of Monty Python's Holy Grail, and did a quick wave at Stirling from the dual carriageway we were to get lost on in about 18 minutes. We intended to bypass Glasgow, but now we can all say we've driven through the city centre. Oops.
We made a quick sunset photo stop at Hadrian's Wall while cutting straight across the country back to Durham and were all exceedingly glad to peal ourselves and our stuff from the tiny two-door vehicle that served us so well.
One last shot: Brad, Josh, Kimberly, Megan, and (not quite on the picture) Baby Nydam

PS We took full advantage of the hired car and headed down to Barnard Castle and the Bowes Museum on Saturday. I took my turn at the wheel, thinking it would be easy having been riding for a while now and naturally looking to the right as a pedestrian. First thing, I pulled out into the right lane. Oops. (Trust me, I did fine after that...)