Blog By James

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After finding a delightful bed and breakfast in Glencoe and getting a good night’s rest, we were ready to explore. The below picture was taken right outside of the b&b looking back towards the mountains:

The crisp, clean air that morning was so refreshing and the way the clouds hung around the mountains was just beautiful. Here’s another shot from the one lane road we took from the b&b:

As we got back on the main road, it seemed that everywhere we looked was a picture-perfect photo opportunity:

And just when I thought these pictures couldn’t get any prettier, I took one with Alli:

After our morning in Glencoe came to an end, it was time to move on towards Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness. Along the way we stopped for lunch in Fort Augustus and witnessed the locks in action which was really quite impressive:

As we continued on we drove through some heavily wooded areas of pine trees. They are definitely my favorite and I couldn’t help but be reminded of home in California:

Next up is Urquhart Castle… Pt.6

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After stopping at Loch Lomond and as we made our way towards Glencoe, we stopped occasionally in some little villages here and there and snapped a few pics. Below is one example of some of the really old churches we saw on our trip. This particular church was in Luss:

While waiting at a construction stoplight, we took the below photo. I love old bridges like this:

I mentioned a construction stoplight and there’s probably a better term for it. But they were amazing! It was an actual standard size, three bulb traffic light mounted on a tripod. There was one placed on either side of the work area where the road was closed down to one lane. The lights were programmed to get the traffic safely through the construction area 24 hours a day. This was one of the many times on our trip that I said to myself “Why don’t we do that in America?”.

As we drove on to Glencoe, we began to lose light. We did get a few pictures before stopping for the night. As we got closer to the glen, we began to feel like we were entering another world. The mountains began to loom over us in a way that is hard to describe. The only other time I’ve felt this way was in Yosemite back home in California. It was just incredible!

I am out of time for now but when I post again I’ll have more pictures of Glenco from the next day… Pt.5

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Once we pulled into lovely Gretna Green, our excitement regarding the wedding really started to sink in. And as I had mentioned in Pt.1, the garment bag that had Allison’s wedding dress in it was still with the airline somewhere so we were still a little tense at this point too. The Smiths hotel was super posh and was all-around fantastic. Below is a shot from our balcony in the “Rose Suite”.

The wedding was a blast and Allison was unquestionably the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. We had a piper, a very nice couple from Wales as our witnesses and a 1936 Rolls Royce to take us for a country drive and back to the hotel afterwards. It all seems like a fantastic dream looking back and it will remain in my mind and heart as one of the best times of my life.

The next day we began our journey up to Inverness. But on the way we went back into Glasgow and had tea at one of the Willow Tea Rooms which was just delightful. I’d like to say that Allison is responsible for researching all of the really cool stuff to do and making it happen. Here’s a shot of Glasgow on our way out that afternoon…

Next was a stop at Loch Lomond that was simply breathtaking…

Our next stop would be Glencoe for the night. I’ll be back with more on that later… Pt.4