Today is my last night in Scotland. I have no idea what my web access will be over the next 8 days. Worst case, there’s a Starbucks down the road from where I’ll be staying. It looks like my base camp will be Hitchin, with day trips out and some time to just hang and [...]

We went for a ride out in the country. Aviemore is the staging point for climbing the Cairngorm mountains. We had lunch in town, which is pretty much a hole, and then went up to the mountain car park at roughly 2000′ to see the fog coming down off the mountains and have the car [...]

Dad and I took a morning drive down to Cromarty, one of my favourite places in this neck of the wood. I got GPS coordinates for old snarfs, and even found a new one. It was quite nice when sheltered, but cold enough to make my ears ache in the wind. We gave up when [...]

A very enjoyable book! You have a great writing style, and I loved reading about your journey, both physical and spiritual, and the warts and all story. It was quite inspiring!

It’s nice that the American National Trust has a reciprocal agreement with the Scottish National Trust (but not the NT of England and Wales, oddly enough). We got into Brodie Castle for free. Normally it’s closed when I show up in Scotland, so it was lovely to look around. There is a lot of artwork [...]

After the castle, we went up to Nairn Harbour, where with eagle eyes I spotted about 15 new snarfs, which can be saved for some other trip. We walked to the end of the pier and back, looking out to sea, before heading on home.

From top to bottom: Duntulm Castle. It perches atop a precipitous cliff. I’ve been there a couple of times before, once in strong winds where only me and my (ex) husband were the visitors. Today there were hordes, and you can’t get into the site any more. It will eventually fall into the sea. The [...]

From top to bottom: Craggy mountain seen by the roadside. The Black Cuillins are volcanic rock, the Red Cuillins are of red granite. The Black Cuillin range, among the hardest mountains in the British Isles. The Old Man of Storr, a volcanic upchuck and one of the few things I remember about my first trip [...]

From top to bottom: Locks from the Caledonian Canal, at Fort Augustus, postcard and loo and snarfage stop. ;-) A bonnie view down Loch Somethingorother. Once again, with parents. ;-) Another loch, where the sun was so bright the reflections were vibrant. It’s hard to explain how *rare* days are like this, especially in September. [...]