A ferry, a beach, 70s porn and excessively small glassware...

Monday, July 22, 2013

We had another lazy morning.  I'm not complaining.  We woke up and drove to Armadal to grab the ferry to the mainland, grabbing a cache along the way.  We had a reservation for the ferry at 3:20 and planned our day around seeing the  Clan Donald Castle but once we got there we were like, eh and decided to see if we could get on the 1:30 ferry.

The guys lining up the cars heard our story and had us pull in a line.  Jess went in to see if we could change our reservation.  The man at the counter couldn't seem to make up his mind as to whether or not we could get on the earlier ferry.  He said he thought so but wasn't sure and would try to make room.  Jess came out and told me and I was like, well screw it, we're already in line, so he really doesn't have a choice.  Good thing we didn't ask him for directions.

We were both pretty puzzled as to why he couldn't figure out if he could switch our reservation or not, but he did and we were able to get on the ferry - amazingly, in an orderly and safe manner, not like a RyanAir flight.

The baby enjoyed the ride, running on some seats, calling some Swiss people's motorcycle helmets balls and eating some lunch.  We got to the other side, Mallaig, and decided to stop at the beach that was nearby - it had white sands, which at home, we call the beach.  I guess it is a novelty here.

Morar was a parking nightmare as there is a parking lot the size of a postage stamp.  Jess had a spot, was uncomfortable and then went down the road and came back to the spot, but facing the other direction so it was easier to get out.  The beach was pretty cool.   There are mountains behind the water, big rocks and other people's stuff.   The beach was on the deepest loch in Scotland, Loch Morar.  We stripped him down, got him in his suit so that he could play in the water.  He was fixated on a friggin' Disney blow up ball, and other people's sand castle making toys.   The owners of the sand castle stuff were generous and they let him use it.

He wanted to do one thing and one thing only:  go in the water.  It was also nap time and this led to a slight meltdown on the beach.  Nothing too terrible, just throwing himself on the ground, which always makes me laugh, because he's full of shit (figuratively and often literally, ) and he looks up to see if we're paying attention, with a smirk on his face, and when I ignore him he continues to cry...and so the game goes.

Got him in the car and he napped for the remainder of the ride (if I remember correctly)   We continued to drive and scenery was just absurd - mountains everywhere, with super plush greenery and it looked like different levels of stuff on each - it was beautiful.  We  got to the place and he continued to nap and I meditated, I have no idea what Jess was doing.  We got in to the apartment, round the corner and up two flights of stairs and relaxed, went to get food at Tesco but it was closed because it is Sunday and almost 6 pm!  So we ran over to Morrison's, where six o'clock seems to be a suggestion.  Came back to the joint and hung out.  

Before all that we had stopped in the St. Andrew's Church that was right there, the first Episcopalian church in Scotland.  ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.....it was pretty but we could have skipped it and still not gotten to Tesco before it closed.

Bloomberg must own this apartment - look at the size of that fucking cup.

We had dinner, chicken parm for me made with Jess' coconut oil and mozzarella, you make due with what ya got!   

The apartment was boiling hot.  There are no ACs because you normally do not need them except for a few days a year.  Luckily, we were here for those.  The windows sucked and so did the ventilation.  Baby Neil had his shirt off, and because of the decor, I couldn't tell if he was like all the other Scotsmen (they all walk around with their shirts off even if they're a hot mess) or if he was in a 70s porn.

After dinner, we headed to old Inverlochy Castle and grabbed about six geocaches to end the evening.

On the way in, I was able to grab this shot.  Nice end to a beautiful day.  One more full day to go.