The road to Skye

I got up because we wanted to take advantage of the included breakfast and get a good start on the day. There was just a bath in the room, no shower. I really needed something to wake up a bit so I took a quick bath while Laurie caught a few more Z's. It looked like she really needed them. When I got out, we got dressed and I took the bags down to the minivan. We were both still really groggy and morning isn't my best time in any event so the comedy of errors that came next wasn't funny until lunch time. While I went down to the car through the main stairway, Laurie followed shortly after down the back stairs where we had come up the night before. I went to the lobby after dropping the bag and didn't see her so I went back to the room only to find her gone. Someone stole my wife! I checked the lobby and restaurant and didn't see her at first. This was a true farce...She slowly walked up from the side of the hotel where she had walked around the outside of the building...the only place I hadn't looked. Ah well...

We decided we should grab breakfast so we didn't have to stop later. Now I thought breakfast ended at 9 so the fact that it was deserted and the food was "bottom of the barrel didn't surprise me. There were some eggs, really nasty looking meats, cold cereal, some juice, and something I couldn't identify. There was some staff around, but they paid us no mind. They were too busy cleaning up after breakfast to see to us. Laurie seemed to need tea, so I chased the waitress down and asked her for some, which she brought fairly promptly. I had to find cups, some silverware, and napkins from various other tables— as there were no clean, completely set tables. I tried something that was apparently an oat cake which was sort of like layered uncooked oatmeal. It was as bland and dry as it sounds. I ended up eating enough, but it wasn't a memorable meal. The one exception was the waitress who continued to clear tables as we ate. She generally seemed to act as if no customers were in the room. She seemed to be exceptionally board or tired and cleared things in a strange order as if to kill time until the end of her shift. She also tossed one of the two tablecloths on each table on the ground in the middle of the room which sort of put me off.

Just as we were ready to leave, the waitress asked another table if they'd like toast. Apparently it was supposed to come with breakfast, but she'd never bothered to ask us if we wanted any. It also turned out that breakfast wasn't officially over until about 9:30, so there wasn't a good excuse for her inattention. Although the room was adequate, we were glad to be leaving.

Now we had a fully charged iPAQ and GPS so navigation wasn't going to be a problem. We headed out for Skye. The drive takes about 90 minutes or so. The weather was much nicer today and we stopped several times along the way to take pictures.

Along much of the way the road shadows an active rail track. It is possible to take a train almost all the way to Skye. The trip would have been really fantastic, I'm sure, but we would have had to rent a car when we got to Skye to get around anywhere.

I'd heard that the Highlands are amazing, and they are. There is open space that seems to go on forever, with a hundred shades of green, and mountains and streams that are stunning. The drive alone would have made the trip worthwhile. Now many of the residents of this paradise are fairly small manufacturing companies that are called sheep here. Much of the wool for tweed clothing and cashmere comes from the Highlands.

Every once in a while we decided to stop to stretch our legs. We came across a sign for a stained glass studio. That sounded pretty interesting so we turned off to take a look. As we drove, we saw a sign for "stained glass and bees-wax paintings". Now I was really interested because I'd never heard of that. As we pulled up, I figured the small building would house a small, but respectable sized gallery. There was a small leanto in front which seemed to be the entrance. As it turns out, that leanto was the studio. We had a look and while we weren't excited by the stained glass work, the bees-wax paintings were sort of interesting so we picked up a couple. The artist was a very chatty bloke who told us about his neighbors musical endeavors, and a bit about his life. Like many people we've met, he doesn't travel far from home. He told us that on Sundays he often just leaves an "Honestly" box and goes drinking. Even though there's been upwards of a £130 in the box, he's never had anyone steal from him. It was refreshing to hear about such honestly. It reminded me of the stands we ran into on the Hawaiian islands where people sell flowers, fruit, and nuts through the same honestly policy. I'm not sure if the natural beauty is the cause of such honesty but paradise in these places is far deeper than just the natural beauty.

Back on the road, we saw some lovely horses and captured some more pastoral scenes. Soon enough we were at the controversial Skye bridge. What could possibly be so controversial about a bridge? Well from what we gather from the discussions, there are several issues. The bridge is privately run and the toll for an auto is £5.80 each way, £2.90 for a bicycle, and trucks are a great deal more. The majority of ferry service were discontinued after the bridge was completed, making it the only way for residents to get on and off the island. You can walk across for free, but it isn't illuminated at night so locals complain it can be dangerous if they bike or walk across. There were also some environmental concerns about the bridge and the extra traffic the bridge brings to Skye.

Soon after we got over the bridge, we saw some sheep on the shore of the Loch. Not often you see unshorn sheep at the sea shore! We had to check it out. Soon, the Cullin mountains and the Old Man of Storr came into view. With mountains and water come waterfalls. Skye had many of them. It also has a lot of wildflowers.

We continued on around the north of Skye toward where we thought our B&B was. (Do you sense a story coming on? Good.) I had fun collecting wool that the sheep had shed around when we stopped for pictures. I figure if I find enough, Susan will make me a sweater when we get home. Man, I can't wait! We also got to see some really funny sights like a cow with a great sense of self-esteem.

Did I mention the sheep? There are a lot of sheep on the Isle of Skye. They are fearless. Unfaised by speeding cars or steep cliffs where they enjoy their meals. Just over the cliff from these guys, we saw a really nice cove where there were unusual rock formations that extended from the beach out into the water. " Now the sheep are really cute, but the local paper included the following warning:

Let's be clear on this one--they are not to be regarded as cuddly, friendly, woolly jumpers with a magnetic attraction for car bumpers. Treat them as devious, plotting, assassins hired by some crooked breakdown merchant to force cars off the road. In short, they are a menace.

We had no problems, but I kept my eye on those little guys! We stopped at a place named, the Aros Experience which is kind of a combination of local entertainment and community center (including movie theatre), shopping for tourists and locals, and restaurant. Now this is not a giant mall, it was a fairly small place, well laid out, packed full of interesting things. Lunch was a real surprise. I had a delicious lamb stew, the likes of which I have never had. It may have looked like a "cafeteria" but the food was superb.

Now back to that story I alluded to earlier.

I had entered the information Laurie gave me for the Kilmur house,where we'd booked a room, into our GPS. Now if you check these links carefully, you may notice that they do not refer to the same house. Oops. yes, we went to the wrong Kilmur house! We followed the GPS' directions drove up around the northern tip of the island which is quite stunning. When we reached the Kilmur house we knocked on the door and and told them we thought we had booked a room. Pretty quickly they realized we'd probably got the wrong one and called over for us to confirm. We weren't the first ones to have made this mistake. They were very nice people. Actually, since we wanted to see the north end of the island, nothing was really lost. But it did mean we didn't get to our Kilmur house until about 18:30. While it wasn't quite as fancy, the people were very nice here as well. They suggested we try a restaurant called, The Old School Restaurant just down the street. it was a very cozy place that still felt very much like it's namesake. We headed back to our place and spent an hour or so with our host family talking about everything from Shakespeare to Big Brother. The father of the family is a retired Finance guy who used to work in London near the Globe theater (more on that when we go to London.) When he got laid off a few years ago, he packed up the family and moved them to Skye. What a life! They were really great people and I enjoyed the conversation very much, but it was time to get some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow!