Baltimore - Aurora 2025

T-5:00
The aurora charts were the most promising they'd been in a year, approaching last year's peak - the bible put it at northern Pennsylvania, as opposed to the Mason-Dixon viewline from last year, but there have been some cool flares in the last week (I've been nerding out over space weather). So for the first time this year I texted the family chat that there might have a chance, and then promptly forgot about it.

T-0:55
Hours later I was deep into editing my Scotland photos when Adam texted "Partly cloudy in Boston and nothing yet". So I checked my 5 favorite space weather charts, and they looked promising. Bz was plummeting, and 20 minutes from now was supposed to be great. Ten minutes of research later I went out for a look (with a camera, even a cellphone will see it before you can) and saw nothing. So I checked the charts again, and the early-warning satellites [Satellites a million miles out at the L1 provide a few days warning on ion flow, and GEO satellites provide a 20 minute warning for the magnetosphere - both have to collide for a good show] were putting out the best numbers I've ever seen (-200 Bz!). I dashed off some texts, found a coat to disguise my bathrobe, and headed away from the streetlights.

A thing!

T-0:12

I saw a thing in my camera. A red blob, but that's a thing. Charts were still improving, so I headed to the graveyard which is my closest darkest place. I found a tree to use as a foreground and snapped a pic. Even stronger. Now that I knew where to look, I could make it out by eye. Basically just glowing clouds, but I'm gonna count it. Trading pics between the DSLR (50' @ 6s - should have gone wider) and my  phone, things are definitely happening and green is kicking in. I texted a shot to the family chat and got a response from Lancaster that was gorgeous.

(Lancaster)

T+0:03

My fingers were numb but I kept the both shutters popping, and now I could tell by eye when to snap. (Not that it was good to the eye, or that I wouldn't have shot anyway). Then two distinct green spots flared up before everything faded out.  

T+0:20

Charts/apps said we might get another peak in 20 minutes, so I rubbed my hands together and stomped around in a futile attempt to warm up. Not 37f is that cold, but it was upper 60s yesterday and I'm not emotionally prepared for it to be winter. A brief red glow in the sky, a few final pics, and it was over.  Definitely not the transcendental experience of my first aurora, but even a bad aurora is a great evening.

Scotland 16 - Edinburgh Redux

Since A/D/S/O missed the first few days, they never got to see Edinburgh. So today we took the train downtown - which is far more pleasant than driving. Faster by half, cheap enough (£9 round trip) and overall less hassle.  You get to chat, admire the old manses and byres passing by, and there are zero worries I might miss a turn (which I now realize is a luxury shared by the conductor...)

We hopped off at Edingburgh's hub, hiked up to the Royal Mile (again), and then past our old BNB to the castle atop the hill! Two observations: First, this ascent is so much easier than it was before the last two weeks hiking uphill. Second: the castle looks far better without all the structural steel from the tattoo around it. It's not quite all gone, but they're working from the castle back, improving the views as quick as they can manage. 

A few doors down from our old BNB was Gladstone's Landing - a national heritage site they've restored and dressed to reflect multiple eras of the building's history. A bit too nerdy for the youngest of us, so A/D/S/O headed out to find a snack and wander the city on their own, while my parents and I headed up the Land for a descent through history.   

The 4th floor is the modern era, and it's a flat on AirBNB. The tour doesn't cover this, but it's so poetic and accurate... The tour officially starts on the third floor, in a 1920s era tenement. They would have lived 2-3 people per room, so this would be your day-laborers or semi-skilled tradesmen. In the 1920s all the money had fled to The New Town, which was newer and cleaner, featuring amenities such as "plumbing", and wasn't in danger of being deemed "unfit for habitation" - a fate which befell this building a decade later in 1934. The hostess was very great - she spoke her piece, and then answered all our questions ranging from the building itself to everything else we'd wondered about the last two weeks.

The second floor was set in the 1740s, right before New Town was built.  At the time, this floor was leased by a merchant-draper, so the room was staged as it would have been at that time - bolts of imported cloth, a table for taking tea, samples in various stages of dressmaking... this was the sort of place where you choose a fabric that suits your liking, take some measurements, and whisper about the latest on-dit. Later, you'd send one of your servants to handle the practicalities of payment and transport to your milliner. 

Descending to the first floor we entered the 1600s, and met the first tenants to move in after the building was rebuilt.  A merchant family let these two rooms, along with the basement.  A (bedroom/entertaining room/dining room) opened into the kitchen where the servants slept, while the cellar housed storage and a tavern - where the maid served, swept, and kept the peace. The build included painted walls and ceiling beams - which have survived to this day solely because the style changed and they were all plastered over a few years later, secretly preserving them until the heritage foundation started peeling back the layers.

Tour over and back in the current age, we tried to reconvene with ADSO for lunch, but they were across the tracks at the Walter Scott monument - so we got sausage rolls from the cafe and headed for The Palace of Holyroodhouse.  HolyRood [named after a fragment of the True Cross, which those uppity protestants were having none of] is another palace owned by the crown, and the Royal Family stays here one week each summer on their way to Balmoral. My mom really wanted to see it but didn't really care to go in, which was nice because it seems extensive, we'd already walked a fair bit, and none of us are as young as we think.

So instead of walking all around the palace-museum, we started considering King Arthur's Seat - a volcanic hilltop that looks out over the city! But that's also a lot of walking... so instead we hiked up a slightly smaller hill! We passed the art-deco Scottish Governmental Building and wound slowly up Calton Hill until we suddenly emerged from the wood to a view over the city and the Firth of Forth - all the way to North Berkshire. We could clearly see the Law (which is the official name for the volcanic plug A/D ran up yesterday) and Bass Rock (the bird sanctuary I keep posting pictures of).  Finishing the climb to the peak, there were views over Holyrood and across to Edinburgh Castle at the far end of the Royal Mile. Looking closer we could even pick out various places we'd stopped along it - St Giles, the entry to Diagon Alley, the graves of Adam Smith and Greyfriars Bobby.

At the very top of the hill we entered an acropolis, built in the finest Scottish tradition: started bold, but given up half done and utterly skint.  Which is way better than a finished Parthenon, as it's just some enormous steps and a few columns perched over the city.  I found a chink that let me scale it after a few tries, gave my dad a hand, and then we pulled up a few randos (as you do). The perspective wasn't any better than it was from the brow nearby, but framing the view in ruins gave it a certain gravitas it lacked before. I'm a sucker for ancient stones, even if they're fake. 

Edinburgh conquered, we limped down to the train station and rode back to North Berkshire. (As an aside, the town names here all sound fake. Here, I'll give you the name of the stops on our route, and you tell me which one I made up: Drem, Longniddry, Prestonpans, Wallyford, Musselburgh, Brunstane.)*

Back home, we hiked the final mile back to our place, with short stops at the coop (for snacks to take home), and the old kirk. We'd been curious about this skeletal church near the center of town, and it turns out when the church outgrew this chapel (which took over from the last one that plunged into the sea), they decided to strip it down and leave it as an aesthetic folly, expanding the graveyard around and into the gutted sanctuary. 

Finally home, it was time for reading, recovering, and a few chocolate-coated digestive biscuits. After nap-time, we entertained the kids (because we love it) and had a final dinner of sausage and left-overs. One last hurrah for Scottish cuisine, a toast to the our Scottish adventure.

...

But food has rejuvenated us, and we've got miles in these legs. My dad and I have been scouting trails just south of town... and mom decided to join us!  We wandered a nice mile out - examining rocks and seaglass, attempting artistic photos, and enjoying questionable routes across the intertidal strand. At the end of the beach we hiked up the plateau to the overlook for one last cloudy sunset.  Final frame captured, we strolled home in the gathering dusk, hopelessly attempting to pick a favorite memory of Scotland.

*(those are all actual towns)

Scotland 15 - I never got to fly on a Concorde

 After breakfast and some baby-cuddles while A/D went for a run, we headed out for today's main event: The OFFICIAL NAME National Museum of Flight!

Just five miles outside North Berwick, this old Royal Air Force base from WW2 is awesome. East corner of the base: Highland Coos (or as Sage pronounces it - "High End Cows"). North runway: Supercars taking tourists on highspeed runs.  South Runway: Amateur motorcycle trackday. And at the center of it all: a museum full of fighter jets. 

The first thing you see is... The gift shop! Grammy got Sage a high end cow (and they are adorable together), I got a smashed penny. The penny smashers have finally come to terms with the cash-crisis -  they now take credit-card and provide the pence. Expensive, but worth it for a penny with a Concorde on it, which brings me to:

The Concorde.  To quote the quintessential British poet Tinnie Tempah, "I'm pissed I never got to fly on a Concorde." The closet I personally came are hazy memories of watching it pass far overhead, climbing out of Dulles on it's way to London - like any other jet but a bit louder and pointier.  Years later, I now appreciate just how cool the Concorde was. And this museum has displays featuring engines, seats, dinnerware, and an entire Concorde you can walk through. They don't let you sit in the cockpit, but you can poke around the maintenance hatches underneath which is arguably cooler as an engineer. It was a purpose-built high-performance machine well ahead of it's time, and we're still trying to catch up.

Other exhibits in the hanger included a BAOC 707 and a Jetstream, but it's a hard ask for those to hold up next to supersonic passenger jets.  The next hanger was the civilian hanger, which had a huge range of smaller aircraft. It was packed to the gills with gliders, autogyrocopters (the closer you look the more terrifying they are in practice), STOL shipping aircraft, and all sorts of antique planes from the era where crossing the Atlantic was a major accomplishment.

The third and final hanger was military, which had planes dating from WW1 to the gulf war. My favorite was the Nazi rocket-plane, which used hydrazine and peroxide to flirt with the speed of sound... but only for 20 minutes, tops, and if you landed before you ran out of fuel there a strong chance of exploding. (6 wins, 14losses). Close runners up were the Harrier and the Jaguars - which I remember from my 4th grade fighter jet trading cards because they look that good. The whole museum was great, but we were getting hungry and approaching nap-time (Oli was well past nap time and took to screaming until we deposited him in his carseat) so we had to keep moving. 

After a slow roll-by of the supercars and the Coos (where I was again on the wrong side to get a picture) we made our way back to North Berwick and the Lobster Shack! Despite the name, we got very little Lobster. I had shrimp, mom had "lobster rolls" that were mostly crab, the chowder was a bit of everything... Mind you it was good and a two-block walk from our house, just a bit of a misnomer. 

After lunch, we took turns going out while the babes napped.  First up, my parents and I walked over to the Scottish Seabird Centre to the sea-bird center. On the way passed a church first built in the 600s, replaced in the 12th century with a stone church... There's only a single room left, as half of it fell into the ocean in 1656b and most of what was left was scavenged, but the life-saving station set up a lookout post in the foyer, preserving it against the classic Scottish instinct to borrow a stone or two.  At the SSBC itself we took the catwalks to the tip of the breakwater, fully surrounded by crashing waves and expansive views. Adding to the fun was it was high-tide! Scotland has large tidal swings: the long rocky beaches became compressed sandy strips, entire peninsulas disappeared, and the saltwater swimming pool could sit five feet over the ocean or beneath it. We saw a half dozen gulls, a handful of orange legged furballs featherballs hanging out on a rock [definitely puffins], and few pelicans in the distance -  but we weren't really at the Seabird Centre for the seabirds.

Then we took our turn at home, supervising naptime while A/D literally ran up that rock we spotted yesterday. I was tempted to join them, but I'm still sore and there is no way I'm running up a mountain. Instead I read a book about the chaos of parenting which struck hilariously close to home after the last two weeks... 

Dinner was lobster ravioli (not very lobstery but very good and covered with shrimp) at a local Italian restaurant, with wine from the co-op next door. Everyone was well behaved - we didn't have to rip every napkins to pieces or walk around outside or anything, which was a nice relaxing change. On our walk home afterwards we sheltered from a passing shower by ducking into a gelateria, and just like that another day ends. 

Scotland 14 - St Andrews to North Berwick

Another day of packing up and heading out - emptying fridges, loading dishwashers, checking under beds for  toys... Today, we're off on our final repositioning to North Berwick - a small town just north of Berwick. Another quaint seaside town, this time at the mouth of the firth (bay) that Edinburgh is set upon - but we have some stops along the way. 

Our first stop is Saint Andrews! Saint Andrews is known for three things. 1) St Andrews Golf Club, 2) The University of St Andrews, and 3) St Andrew's Cathedral.  So we did them all! 

The golf course is a Mecca for golf-people, who call it The Old Lady and consider it the birthplace of modern golf. It's the oldest playable course in the world and commonly hosts The Open. We parked in a public lot near the first tee and the last hole, so of course we wandered over to the course to take a look. The shop$ on this end of town make it clear that this is a Very Big Deal, and I expected some decent action... and we watched a woman drive an absolute worm-burner straight off the tee.  Not that I'm one to judge, in our family golf is played by choosing a single club and wandering around our old elementary school aiming for playground equipment or trying to ping a dumpster. 

Next was The University of St Andrews! The third-oldest British university, founded in 1413, it's quite cute. My dad really wanted to see the quad, so we did, and next on the list was the campus chapel. St Salvador's Chapel was closed for a wedding... as attested to by various groomsmen milling about, kilts and all. Outside the chapel, we found the PH on the pavement that marks the martyrdom of some tiresome protestant. [Patrick Hamilton was the very first of the tiresome Scottish Protestants. He attempted to reform the Catholic church, of which he was a priest, and was promptly arrested for heresy in 1528. He was sentenced to death, and - to preclude any chance of rescue - burned that same day at the stake, right where we stood. Students will not stand there however, as it's rumored you'll fail your exams if you do.]

Our next stop wasn't on the top three: Lunch! Nobody much cared where we ate as long as we did, so we ended up at some small spot Rick Steves recommended. Still on the campus side of town though, we're not paying golf-people prices. Good food, a lot of it, and every single waitresses stopped by to flirt with Oli. 

Rounding out the hit list: St Andrew's Cathedral! Speaking of troublesome protestants again, the cock's come home to roost. Scotland banned Catholicism in 1560 [just 30 years after they burned PH,  sparking a reformation], leaving their gargantuan cathedral vacant and unused.  So, of course, it was slowly robbed for parts. One thing lead to another, and eventually someone burned off the roof to steal the lead. Then a storm blew over a wall, which was scrapped for cobble, and so on and whatnot until today, with a few architectural bones tower amid cropped parkland. It's beautifully eerie to walk down the nave, on grass, admiring a east wall reaching towards the heavens with neither transept in sight. Definitely the high-point of the day, we spent a great half-hour wandering the ruins and deciphering shards of history.

St Andrews complete, we hiked back to the car, passing a castle! It looked rather ruined and "mid". How spoiled are we to dismiss castle ruins triple the age of our country so casualy? [In retrospect... I wouldn't have skipped it. There's a full drama of mine and countermine dug out beneath that castle - a history I only learned about now. I love sketchy tunnels and weird military strategy, so I absolutely would have crawled down there.]

We then left St Andrews for my last spin behind the wheel. Driving on the wrong side, hitting roundabouts at highway speeds, surprise single-lane... I'm finally accustomed to all of it. But now that there's only 7 of us, we don't need two 9 passenger vans. So we dropped my van off. "No hubcap?" "Nah we lost it on some single track between..." "Aye nae bother, sign here an' ye're sorted."

Rather boring stop, but that's for the best. One final leg to North Berwick -  and once we got off the A-road we passed some Coos just outside town! I might finally get a picture of them now since I'm not allowed to drive. We also passed a giant rock. I'm pretty sure it's the basalt core of an ancient volcano scraped away by glaciers, but I'll learn more and get back to you. 50/50 odds we end up hiking it, seems like the out sort of Sisyphean daytrip.

We got two BNB's this time, right across the hall from each other. They're both almost-undecorated in a very aesthetic way, and they look out over the North Sea. A much angrier, windier north sea, with chop crashing against undersea rocks beneath overcast skies and some barren isles in the distance. It's a melancholy vibe with the frisson of a threatening storm, and I love it.

A/D went out to pick up dinner (Thai-Chinese), which we politely scarfed down, as Sage was melting. She refused to nap for the second (third?) day in a row, which meant anything was a tragedy.  Can't sit next to mom, can't drink water from the blue cup, not allowed to smash rice-crackers into her brother's face... Soul-crushing injustice, all of it.  The Thai was great though.

Afterwards, I just lounged in my room (the living room - I've got a couch tonight) and blogged, smothered in a pile of blankets and half-watching the the sun set over a brooding ocean. My parents stopped by to chat and mom found an astrolabe on the bookshelf - so my dad and I had to take a crack at astronavigation based entirely on the hazy memories of the Horatio Hornblower books we'd both read as kids. With a decent guess (though nothing I'd trust over the horizon), it's time to burrow into my couch, turn off the light, and let the wind howling over the chimney gently tug my consciousness loose.

Scotland 13 - Stonehaven and Dunnottar

I spent the first half the morning hanging out with the kids: E/H/A went out for a hiking trail, and A/D went for a run. A nice, slow-tempo morning, sitting out on the patio and watching the harbor, playing feetsies on the couch. Chill.  Once A/D finished up their showers, and it was time to try Dunnottar again! But this time we drove... and this time it was open!

Dunnottar is the best ruined castle we've seen so far. In addition to being on a spit of rock out at sea - always a great selling point- it's also relatively intact by Scottish standards.  I realize that's not saying much... Most of the buildings have most of their walls! Some even have a second floor, and what more could you ask for, really? There were one or two fenced off spiral stairways heading towards third floors I'd have chanced, all the same I can see why the solicitors said no.... 

Touring the grounds (entirely self-guided), you walk through time from the oldest keep, to the expansion into a castle, to the full grounds as it became a more refined manor. Scottish history is as much legend as it is fact: William Wallace allegedly forced the English forces to retreat into Dunnottar in 1297, then snuck in through a postern (a hidden back-door - inconveniently not added until the 15th century).  Once in, he burned the garrison and all 4000 troops inside. Or he stormed the island, and drove them all off the cliffs.  Or a few hundred English took refuge in a chapel, which he obligingly chained shut and burned down. Nobody is quite sure, but naebody is much worried about it.

[My mom and I took the same picture... and hers was better]

The crown jewels were also stationed here in the 1650s, and held out for 8 months of siege as  Cromwell attempted to batter his way in, before being smuggled out by the minister's wife disguised as a washerwoman, and buried under a local church. Enough history, what is it now? It's wandering through basement cellars, massive kitchens, and ruined dining halls. Looking up through ancient chimneys, admiring the stables across a pasture, and watching the sea through lichen-lined windows. Imagining the daily life of Presbyterians (my personal sect) locked in a dungeon 500 feet above the North sea - a great view, but a crevice for a privy. The whole experience castle was great, and tempting as it was to walk home, I got back in the van.

Lunch was a mishmash as we did our best to empty the fridge, and afterwards we dropped Ethan/Hanna/Ada off at the train station to head back to the airport.  And, of course, then it was nap time.

I took my mom's (repeated) recommendation and headed over to the Tolbooth  museum (no idea why it's called tollbooth) museum, swinging by the harbor and the lifeguard station on the way. The Tolbooth was a wonderful mismatch of Stonehaven history. There was geology (Stonehaven is on another tectonic fault line, running parallel to Loch Ness and a distant cousin in the same continental collision) , paleontology (The oldest air-breathing fossil - a sort of devonian millipede - was found nearby), archeology (obviously, with castles all about), and more recent history - newspapers, school yearbooks, sailing and farming equipment, and then random antiques of all kinds. Like prototype showers or iceboxes.  Perhaps most interesting (though I do love fossils and rocks) was a short video of the fireball ceremony for Hogsmany. For over 100 years (and in truth nobody knows how far earlier) they ring in the new-year by walking up and down high-street swinging flaming cages of flotsam soaked in kerosene, before hurling them into the harbor. I've been known to swing some firepoi, and the video was shot from directly in front of our bnb - so it was a very on-target history lesson. They had a few sample fireballs in the museum, which were surprisingly heavy. 

After nap time I had a cup of tea, and my parents took Sage down to the ocean (she always wants to go to the ocean, she's girl after me own heart). Once I finished my cuppa, I figured I would go hang out too, and jumped our patio wall to see what the fuss was about. They were picking up pretty rocks and throwing them in the ocean. It was a great time, though a few of the best rocks may have slipped into my pocket. Then we wandered over to where the stream fed the ocean, threw rocks at that, saw some dogs, slipped rocks into the dolphin statue... it was a good time.

Dinner was a massive salad that A/D prepared while we were throwing rocks, we did a puzzle, we had some icecream because someone did a poopoo on the potty! and a bit of reading / planning wrapped up the day.

Tomorrow we're off to North... Brrrrrsomething. Just north of Edinburgh. We'll probably stop at something along the way? It mostly depends on when Sages decides to nap. With A/H/A headed home, the mood is a bit wistful, a bit like the trip is wrapping up. In fairness though - we're all beat.  My legs are spent, my back is sore from hoisting babes, and everyone is a bit knackered. As always, we need a vacation from the vacation.

Scotland 12 - Stonehaven and Dunnottar

This morning we set off for a castle! Dun Otter Dunnottar is within walking distance of our bnb, a mile and change around the coast, and at the top of our Stone Haven list.  So we headed a few blocks through some alleys and then uphill to the coastal plateau. Good views of the city, but still no castle, so we climbed up the gentle hump of the plateau - into more and more wind.  It became so windy I could walk slightly overbalanced, leaning on the wind to hold me up.  A short detour to the top of the plateau lead to the war memorial - Built to commemorate those lost in The World War, and later updated to include those lost in the Second. From here I could see our castle in the distance, and then jogged back down to catch up to the rest of the family.

We continued hiking toward the ruined castle, fighting yet more wind, while the view continued to improve (though the pictures did not, as the sun was directly behind the castle the whole time. If I do include a picture here it'll have to be HDR'd from a handful of exposures). On the final approach to the castle cliffs our conversation had to get louder and progressively more clipped to be heard, and when we got to the stairs to the castle itself, we were shouting "Closed for Weather?"  - That was a hard push for a 'closed today' sign. 

HDR couldn't save it, but it did do fun things 
with interference patterns on the sea...

Ethan and Hannah turned back immediately, my mom soon behind. Adam+Fam went to the cafe for snacks, it was Oli's feeding time so they had to sit down somewhere. My dad and I headed down the short trail to another castle overlook, which offered a vantage point with better lighting, and then we went to find Adam and Fam. The cafe was a snack shed, with outdoor picnic tables to eat at, where we held our tea to keep it from blowing away, and did our best to keep dust from the parkinglot out of our eyes.

[It's all photon angles]

Once we'd all finished our warm drinks, we headed back towards the castle, and down to the beach beneath it. Sage loves every beach, which... fair. I do too.  We checked the tidepools, collected seashells and cool rocks... and took our time meandering across a few hundred yards of gravel. I was personally distracted by the shingle: The entire beach was wave-rounded stones, which ranged in size from from softballs to marbles, and sorted themselves into bands. Annoying to walk on, especially in loafers (I assumed we had an easy paved trail today, my bad), but very cool from a geologic perspective. A few might have ended up in my pockets.  After the beach we hiked up the steep trail on the far side and reversed our initial hike, eventually getting home for a lunch of leftovers, which were even better than they were last night.

After lunch... everything just sorta died. Naps were had by all the children and most of the adults, I had a shower that started nicely before turning ice cold two minutes in, finished my book, and went for a short wander around town.  The five-and-dime store was interesting, everything from yarn to nails, birthday cards to insecticide. The beach here was also shingle, but less littorally sorted,  and the stream outlet sluicing across the beach is almost exactly one stride wide at full sprint.  <This part is boring, dress it up? Talk about the boardwalk? Talk about the town being old and classic and pretty and all the houses having a dozen chimneys?> [Nah, authenticity]

I looked out the window just as mom walked by....

Back home, people gradually woke up and we shared a bottle of wine on the patio before heading over to the harbor for dinner. The harbor is a two minute walk away, so we luckily arrived far too early and spent 20 minutes wandering out piers, looking at boats, misidentifying birds... harbor things. 

Dinner was fancy fish+chips (and Scottish egg, and turbot, and venison) at Mariner Hotel - all great, and since we were in shoulder-season the staff spoiled us. Totally recommend if you're ever in Stonehaven. Tomorrow E/H/A have to head back to the states, unfortunately. The rest of us still have a few days, so.... castle? 

Scotland 11 - Loch Ness

New day! Don't know the count anymore.

I woke at 6am to hints of dawn. Oh well, no falling asleep again now, not with the anxiety that bloomed alongside consciousness...  So I packed my suitcase (we're scheduled to hit the road at 8), stripped the bed, and started walking this road for the 5th time. 

By the time I reached the pasture it was light enough to see, and I repeated my search from last night. I know I crossed the stone wall at a shorter section, so I focused on the areas around the two most convenient breaks. Found nothing. Walked the guardrail back to the first house. Found nothing. Hiked back across to the standing stones [the Kensaleyre standing stones are almost as cool in daylight, 4000 years old and surrounded by prehistoric burial sites], and found nothing. It began spitting hints of rain. I walked through all the ferns. Still nothing. Despairing but with another hour before we had to go, I decided to walk the stone wall it's entire width - heading out of town until it hit a ditch, which I know I didn't cross. Still nothing. I then crossed up to the fence and started coming back again, when I finally saw a strap snaking out of long grass and ferns, and an enormous dread weight evaporated in a blink. 

Reconstruction of events: Somehow in the pitch-black night, I got crossed up. Instead of angling east across the meadow towards home, or angling northeast directly towards the roadway, I ended up heading north, crossing far more of the pasture than I needed to before hitting the southeasterly road home. Jumping the barbed-wire fence, the fence snagged the strap on my camera, pulling it out of the half-zipped pocket (the half zipped pocket is, was, a bad habit of mine), and dropping it very gently and silently into the long grasses and ferns growing at the base of the fence.

All's well that ends well I guess, and I even made it back in time for breakfast.

...

Back to the scheduled adventure! We left a rainy and foggy Skye behind and headed to the most famous place in Scotland, Loch Ness!  Ethan drove this leg, and it was pretty chill. Past the castle we didn't tour a week ago, past a very familiar lake ("I bet there's a nice restaurant there!" "Yeah, I bet it has a really easy entrance and then a really crummy one we'd end up using!") and then into new territory, but entirely on two-lane roads. Cake.  We even stopped at a layby where bonnie prince Charlie's lookalike was killed - he died claiming to be the prince, buying the actual prince enough time to flee. TBH, we just stopped so Oli could eat. 

[Not my pic, but without a doubt the best sign I saw the entire trip]

We arrived at Castle Uiraght Urquhart on the midpoint of Loch Ness just in time for lunch. This was the most powerful fort in all the highlands, and it's history followed a familiar theme... it was doing good castle things for hundreds of years, but it was then given to the English in some treaty. The locals didn't appreciate that, so Clan MacDonald made an annual tradition of setting it on fire. After a few years of raids they decided to have a blowout and robbed it blind. In addition to literal thousands of sheeps, goats and cows - they even took the doors, the feather beds, the pots in the kitchen.... complete ransacking to an impressive and petty level. And then set it on fire, of course.  The English were sick of this, and gave up. They blew the entryway so it couldn't be used against them and returned south.

I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the trebuchet. It was authentically constructed and massive.... and I only took a picture of a note to remind myself to find the documentary. Ada preferred the platform around it, as it had steps. 

All of this leaves a bunch of pretty run-down ruins, with great views of Loch Ness in all directions. Fun Fact: Loch Ness lies right on the subduction zone, making it abnormally deep, over 700 feet at the center, with recent research locating pits over 800. This depth means that the volume of water in Loch Ness is greater than that of all other lakes in Britain combined [1.9 trillion gallons - 7.5 km³].  After yesterday's hikes (and panics, for some of us) we could all use a slow day, so we didn't mind that it was a relatively quick tour. Plus, we had to get back on the road, as we were trying to cross the entire country. Again. 

Heading out, we were 5 minutes ahead of the other van, as Oli needed to eat again.  These 5 minutes meant that we got past the crash before the wreckers shut down the entire road, and after a lot of stupid round-abouts (who puts roundabouts on a highway?!) we finally started making real time, on easy roads with fat lanes and 70mph limits. We did learn about a new form of evil though: elapsed-time speed cameras.  These were located on gantries every 5 miles to calculate your average pace in order to be sure that you're not speeding even after passing the cameras.... Occidat Tyrannulis.

We were borderline on fuel... Low, but the dash said we had the range to make it, so I decided we'd fill up once we saw a station. But I decided this as we entered the Cairngorms - and there are no gas stations in the Cairngorms - just sheep, highland Coos, amazing views, and hills. Half way though we started getting desperate, and found a gas station on our GPS - 30 miles away. The range on the van gad said 65 miles before it went dark, but now it only says "GET FUEL NOW".  I did my best to play momentum games and stretch it the range, but the hills were brutal and the needle was dipping.  The mountains were beautiful though.  At one point, we saw a castle in the distance, and then slowly made our way towards it. Once there, we saw two lads laughing and taking pictures... but not of the Corgarff Castle, they were delighted by the street sign in front of it. 

Finally out of the Cairngorms near Balmoral (the Royal Family's highland estate and summer residence), we were back on the single-track roads, along with dozens of ring-necked pheasants. An animal I'd only ever seen a few times in my life, and now there were three of them running down the street ahead of me, ten in the field, and another dead in the shoulder - and it continued like this for miles. Only 10 miles left. The gauge is bang on empty, and I'm only mentioning it in silent prayers and not to my mother.  Two miles left, we could hike this if we had to, put a jerry can in the pram.... Finally, finally, we made it to town, and then to the fuel station on the far side. 57.08 liters. The tank is specced at 57. 

Emotionally exhausted, I passed driving off to Ethan, and fled to the second row on baby duty. Ada was not napping like she was supposed to, so we were doing anything to keep her happy. I must have put her boots on (to either her feet or her hands) 200 times. At one point, she was sucking on her thumb, and then switched to sucking on her fingers, which turned into shoving her entire hand down her throat until she hit her gag reflex - which she found hilarious. So you'd hear a sound like she was going to vomit followed by peals of coughing-giggles. The rest of us started laughing, which only encouraged her more, and we were all in tears before we could distract her away.

Finally, finally, we made it to Stonehaven.  It's a coastal town on the eastern edge of Scotland, and a quintessential British seaside resort. A bit past it's prime, trying very hard to be cute and mostly succeeding... We unloaded into our bnb (also cute, with views of harbor), then took a stroll along the boardwalk to pick up dinner (Indian - we've had enough haggis). The other car arrived, and we caught up over curries. They'd spent an hour in traffic from the accident, fled down back-roads, and once they made it to highways they were routed around the Cairngorms. Their loss. The day ended with some baby-time and an early bedtime - after taking care to back up my SD cards.

Tomorrow... A castle! Hiking! Surprise!

Scotland 10 - Quiraing and Cursed Standing Stones

 Day 9? [Nope, it's 10]:

Today is Kuerig and Storr! (I'm gonna fix it to [Quiraing], but just know when I wrote this I wrote kuerig the whole time.) We all woke up early (to screaming), packed food, and loaded up both vans to hike Quiraing. Last night we (we meaning Adam and Ethan) planned out a route after consulting five  different trail-mapping apps, and came up with a great through-hike plan taking advantage of our vans. Rolling out, we cut east across the island on a very rough single-track ("Warning: Road may be Impassible in Certain Conditions"), arriving at the upper trail-head before normal people had their morning cuppa. There, everyone unloaded from the vans and set off across the mountain. Everyone except for my Dad and I, who followed me in the second van while I absolutely bombed it down the single track to a wide shoulder on the east coast. There we left one van and sprinted back up the mountain to the trail-head. After triple-checking that we had all three sets of keys, we set off across the trail to catch up with the family, who were planning on starting slow, maybe letting Sagey walk for some of it.

Quiraing is amazing. Our first steps out of the carpark offered incredible cliffs left and right, while the ocean spread out afore, and as we left all signs of habitation behind the views continued to improve. I've said it before, but the landscape doesn't look real. It looks like something out of a fantasy movie where you'd say "earth doesn't do that" - but when massaged by centuries of sheep and man, apparently it can.  Speaking of, we passed several sheep on the trail, though thankfully their offerings were fewer and further between than the last few hikes...   Half an hour in - wondering if our family had forgotten the "take it slow and wait for the carkeys" part - we rounded a bend and saw them chilling in a slopey-meadow-thing! (Is there a word for that? [A corrie.]) They'd stopped for diapers/snacks/a peepee behind a rock!  We exchanged updates and shared our mutual shock at how breathtaking this trail was.  And then just as soon as we were reunited, I split off again, opting for a sheep-trail over a upthrust while they took the trail beneath and around the spur. 

Stepping off the beaten trail - and then out-of-sight of the beaten trail - elevated the otherworldly beauty to a sublime level. All the gorgeous cliffs and views, but you can't help but imagine you're in an age before man - assuming you can ignore the ear-tags on the sheep that hang out in these blind glens. I spent a few quiet minutes waiting for the family to traverse the longer route, just idling alongside the livestock. Soon enough some familiar faces rounded the crag, and I headed down to rejoin the clan for a group selfie.

The next mile was more of the blessed same. Incredible views, easy hiking, great rocks, this might be the best trail I've ever hiked - Via Ferreta is the other contender, but that's comparing apples and ordnance.  In terms of sheer aesthetic pleasure..... 

Eventually we had to hike up through a saddle, which was a bit too athletic to be sheer pleasure, but the views remained viscerally majestic. From there we continued across the face and up to a stone-walled pasture perched atop this massif. Half way through the meadow, however, my brother yelled at us to stop. We regrouped and started checking all the map-apps again. We'd missed our turnoff, and were now on a side trail that lead up to a lookout - a bit more elevation than we really wanted. I recalled a turnoff just after the saddle, so we started picking sheep-trails to shortcut back to the turnoff... Adam finally made it back to the stone wall and realized these trails ended in cliffs, so we sheep-trailed our way back to the main artery, resigned to backtracking a bit.

This is where the joy of the hike muted, and fell back into the grind. We had a mile to do, all downhill (thankfully), but the babies were done with it, the squad stretched out, and it was all-eyes on the goal. I loitered back with my parents to offer a company and an occasional hand so the pace wasn't terrible, but it was still a slog.  Around every bend we expected to see the carpark, and we always saw one more curve. But we kept approaching the sea, so we knew it couldn't remain eternally one corner away. Finally we saw the road at the bottom. One last push up a berm, and huzzah! A black Benz in a lay-by!

We feasted. Bread, peanut butter, clementines, crisps, luke-cold pizza - objectively mundane but it felt like the meal of champions, the most delicious fruit I've ever tasted. Recharged and in much better spirits, we loaded all 10 of us into a 9 passenger van (Ada loved getting to ride on a lap) and headed back up the mountain to the other van. This time we did not bomb. We slowly slunk through the train of noobs making a mess of single-track and failing to understand passing zones. 

Up top, we split into two vans. Adam and Dani still wanted to do Storr, and the rest of us felt no need to tackle another hike. I drove the second van, and we headed back down the noob-zone single-track so Ethan and Hannah could see yesterday's waterfall, just a few miles east. This was a mistake. We could have bailed west and looped the island in the time it took to get through the first mile of noobtown. The Peugeot ("Peu-GO GO GO PLEASE GO PLEASEEEE GO") in front of us was terrified to put a wheel in the gravel even at walking pace, and I had to bully him down the entire mountain. That said, he at least went. There was one dude who was just stopped in the road - half a dozen cars reversing to wide spots on both sides as he got out of the car and started looking around. After 5 minutes I offered to pass the wheel to my mom - Ethan and I would go push his car off whatever rock he'd hit - but the woman in front of us put her car in park, and started marching down the mountain berating him. He jumped in his car and drove away.  You're #2 on my list. Not as bad as the jobsworth at Castle Stryker, but it's a near thing.

Off the mountain, the rest of the drive to the Mealt Falls was dead easy. We parked, jumped out, and checked out the falls (and Brother's point, yesterday's midday hike) quick as you like - it's still a very meh view of a very cool waterfall. And with that done and dusted, we boogied on home.

We got home around 2.30, didn't really feel recovered until 3.30, naps lasted until 4, and dinner was at 5.... so it was just a very chill afternoon without any major "thing".  Adam and Dani got home with their report on Storr ("we jogged the shorter loop - ok views, too many people, not nearly as cool as Kuerig"), and my dad had a very different report ("Got a hot chocolate at the Storr-store, played with grandbabies in the parkinglot, it was fantastic"), and then we attempted to eat all our leftovers for dinner, with decent success.

I just wanted to post another Keurig picture

Tomorrow, we head across all of Scotland to the eastern edge via Loch Ness and the Caigherhorns  [Cairngorms]. Honestly, I would spend another week in Skye - every hike is gorgeous, whether it's a world-class banger like Kuerig or a rando goat-trail behind some carpark. There's every chance Stonehaven is just as amazing though, and only one way to find out. 

11k steps for the day.

...

Actually, Scotch that. I've still got miles in these legs and hours before a chance of sleep, time for a bonus adventure! So after finishing up my blog, I loaded up my camera gear and set off for the standing stones about a mile up the road, on the shore of the saltwater loch. Are these ancient? Don't know. Will they look good in a long-exposure photograph? Also don't know, but we're gonna find out!

It's a totally moon-less night with no city-glow, so it's ridiculously dark, but 90% of the hike is on sidewalks so that's just a fun twist. I did have to use my phone flashlight to cross the fence/ferns/wall and into the pasture.  Even this close, it was too dark to see the stones, so I checked the GPS for a final hint.  And I found them! 4-5 feet tall, definitely stones, definitely standing.  I set up my tripod, propped my cellphone on a monolith to pull focus, and dialed in some basic astrophotography settings. It was ok.. I tweaked the settings, and experimented with light-painting the stones to balance the exposure - settling on running back from the camera and giving the stones a single slash with the flashlight. I got a handful of pics that look gorgeous on the back of the camera, we'll see if they're as good fullsized, but great success! I packed up, tromped back across the field, jumped the fences, and trudged back to the house. 

As I neared the house, I realized the camera flap on my bag was wagging open. And more importantly... there was no camera in it. My heart sank, and I had to double check my sanity... Am I sure I had my camera? Yes, I used it. Am I sure I don't have it now? Yup, definitely not here. That's also half my pictures, with no backup. I never heard or felt it jump... Maybe it fell out hopping fences? 

So I walked the mile back to the monuments, and then searched the fenceline, the wall, walked the field multiple times, all with no sign of my black camera amongst the moonless night.  After 45 minutes I had to call it, having seen nothing but a rabbit. I continued to search entire hike home, but no luck.  So I set my alarm for 6am and hoped. 

18k steps for the day

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