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| The Mercedes |
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| The Sign Says It All |
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| Lovely |
It was a tired crew that dragged their bottoms out of bed and took a cab to the outskirts of Edinburgh to pick up our Mercedes people mover aka a mini van. The taxi ride was in a 9 passenger van where the middle and rear seats face each other. I am not typically sensitive to motion, but after a 20 minute ride full of swerving, stopping and starting suddenly and being a little on the warm side, I thought I just might toss my cookies. We made sure all the seats in our van were foward facing! It's a pretty plain van and the boys keep saying "it's not what you expect a Mercedes to be." It is a fine van and holds all seven of us an our luggage comfortably. At first we declined to pay the extra 60 pounds to waive the 500 pound deductible, but when a lady next to us said they were just in an accident where they were sitting in a car park and someone backed into them, we decided to take that as a sign and pay it. We also got a GPS and at first named her Gertie, but since we are in Scotland we decided that just wouldn't do and so now she is affectionately known as Nessie. So Nessie has been exceptionally helpful, except off the start where she didn't know about the road closure due to construction. As a result our fine planning to get directly onto the motorway and out of Edinburgh did not go quite as planned. Dave was forced to drive through 2 traffic circles in his first 5 minutes of driving a right hand vehicle on the left side of the road. From a passenger in the front seat, he did admirably. From the passengers in the back seat, it was quite a ride as the circles were taken at some speed. We made it to the motorway and Nessie guided us very well. Most of the drive to Inverness is a 4 lane divided highway with many small layby's and Dave soon was feeling quite comfortable. The landscape changed as we headed north, first rolling hills and then evergreen forests and then more mountainous. It reminded us all of British Columbia, especially the Okanagan Valley. We decided to just keep going through Inverness and head to Knowle's Bed and Breakfast in Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness. The boys didn't spot the other Nessie in the Loch - Aidan decided she must be "in her hidey hole waiting for her prey". Cael thought perhaps she had captured a boat and was wearing it as a hat and was therefore disguised as a boat. No comment from Keeghan yet. The B&B is very nice. It is in a small village where the Loch Ness Center is. They are on a hill and so our rooms have views of the Loch, the surrounding moutain forests, the sheep and cows down the road and the hens in the back yard. Mirjam (pronounced Miriam) and Bert are our hosts and are very nice people. They immigrated here from the Netherlands in 1997 and it has been her dream to live here and do this since the late 1970's after a holiday in the area. We have 3 rooms (each with it's own bathroom) and a sitting room so there is lots of space and privacy. Looks like breakfast is going to be a treat - smoked salmon scrambled eggs for me! Once we got our stuff in we went out for supper and yet another ice cream with flakes and then came back to plan tomorrow and get to bed. Another beautiful sunny day was had in the UK. The forecast is for that to change tomorrow.
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