It is a long, long way to Inverary...

It rained a good part of the night and there was no sign that the clouds were going away. I had hopped we'd get at least a short hike in that morning, but the woman we'd met the night before said that she had to take off her hiking boots they sank so far into the muck yesterday. Now, the ground had several more inches of water. We'd be really dirty and have to spend a lot of time cleaning up before we could get into the Lacey's minivan so we had to give up. I definitely want to come back and do some hiking and/or climbing here sometime. It is a wonderful spot.

We repacked the car and set out to retrace our steps back much of the same roads that we'd been on. Not surprising since there aren't that many roads on the island. The only problem was that the GPS batteries were dead. I had left on the GPS the night before. Ugh, boy did I feel pretty stupid. I gave it a quick charge in the bathroom while I washed up, but I knew that wouldn't last long so I only turned it on for brief periods when we needed to know where we were, and then used the iPAQ to get the next direction.

We got off Skye without too much incident. The only other stop we made was at a shop we saw on the way in to get some whiskey glasses for my friend Jeff back home. After we got off the island, I turned the GPS back on. For some reason, it was confused and kept wanting us to go back to Skye! Since it hadn't lead us wrong yet I thought it might know something I didn't. Since we were under some time pressure, I didn't want to drive out of the way. First I drove down the road a bit but it kept asking me to make a U turn. I finally gave in and did a U turn at a gas station. Soon as I did, it told me to do another U turn. As we thought, we needed to go away from Skye, not toward it!

It is about a three and a half hour drive from Skye to Inverary. I tried to keep the GPS off as much as possible since I knew there were a couple of roads that might be confusing. Unfortunately, I couldn't conserve enough and soon we were without the aid of technology. After a couple of hours we got hungry and looked for a place to eat. It took a while, because once again, bars and taverns--much less restaurants were a rare commodity. Frantically we found a place which was okay but not speedy. A side observation--not only do you not get coke refills here, but tea is a one serving beverage as well. I really don't get that, but it is just about the only complaint I have so far so I guess that's okay.

After lunch we continued the drive to Inverary Castle which we tried to visit once before, but got there too late. Laurie was doing her best to help navigate with the various free maps we had picked up along the way but she can't read for very long while passengering because it makes her sick. She was very good at remembering the names of some of the places we'd been to the first time we tried to go to Inverary Castle and used that to guide us most of the way there. Unfortunately, we got lost though and ended up about 40 minutes on the wrong side of things! What to do? Time was running short. We could give up and go home or we could press on and give it a try. I got the impression that Laurie wanted to see the inside of the castle and I did too. We weren't sure if the castle closed at 17:00 or 17:30. We also didn't know if they stopped letting people in 45 minutes prior to closing as many castles do. Without the GPS, it took me a few minutes to get oriented and determine how to get where we wanted to go. That wasn't easy as I'd lost track of where we actually were at this point. First thing you need to know is where you are before you can worry about where you want to be. That critical bit is one thing the GPS is really good for, but because of my mistake we didn't have it handy. We sorted things out though and on we went.

With a few quick stops along the way to verify that we were going the right way, we made it to the castle! Yeah!

Ineverary, finally

Another GPS sidebar
It turns out it is a lot easier to read the GPS while driving than a map. The GPS has large letters, speaks to you, and has giant arrows to point you in the right direction. It also eliminates useless information. Paper maps just don't do all of that, but they don't run out of batteries, either. Pros and cons I guess.
Ironically, there is a persistent license in the Destinator software that makes you agree not to use the GPS while driving, but I've never seen a map with such a requirement. Needless to say the fact you have to click on that extra button when you start the Destinator software makes it more hazardous than if they didn't bother to warn you. Go figure!

Unfortunately, the castle was closed by the time we got there. By this point I was really tired of driving. Though it was rainy by the mountains on Skye, it was humid near Inverary. We hadn't showered and we'd been driving franticly to reach the castle. To my surprise, Laurie was up for camping nearby and trying the castle tomorrow. I'm usually more anxious to camp than she is, but we were already wearing dirty clothes because we hadn't bought enough, we hadn't showered, I was tired, and a little hungry. We decided to see if we could find a reasonable B&B for the night and we got lucky. Right across from the main road there was a nice place with a bit of a view of the Loch. We dropped off our stuff and walked around for a while and then grabbed dinner at a very cute little place. I had another steak pie if I recall, and Apple pie for dessert!

Inverary is a cute little town, but one of the mour touristy places we visited. This is probably a virtue of it being closer to Glasgow and Edinburgh, having a decent castle, and a beautiful Loch. There are many shops that happily cater to the many tourists that come to Castle. As an aside, one of the things I've noticed is that unlike many other places I visit, you don't see the same items for sale at every tourist spot in Scotland. There really are regional differences, and the shops generally cater specifically to the area or attraction, not generic "Scotland" junk. The only exception was a few books on Scotland and Scottish history which appeared at several locations.

I think we got lucky on the lodging because a lot of tourists come up for the day on a bus and go back in the evening. While it is only 90 minutes from Glasgow, I was glad we had a more leisurely time of it--even though we had planned to be "home" in Glasgow that night. I took a rally nice, long, hot shower and settled in for the night after I read 30-40 pages more of Clinton's My Life.