Wee tim'rous beastie... Scotland Part II

The requested phone call came right at 8:30 am giving us just enough time to make it downstairs before breakfast ended at 9. The stiffness and soreness that had set in my body from head to toe (from the previous day's adventure) made going down the flight of stairs quite the task. I could tell from the moment I set my feet on the ground this day was going to be rough when it came to manuevering. We filled our bellies with a good Scottish breakfast and Brandon even went as far as trying some Haggis! Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish normally made with the following ingredients: sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately an hour. It somewhat resembles stuffed pig intestines and sausages. Yeah, disgusting!

After our breakfast, we headed to the Urquhart Castle. As you will see in the pictures there were plenty of stairs to tackle on the castle grounds. My feeble legs and knee weren't up for the challenge and so my strong, handsome husband carried me piggyback style from point A to B whenever stairs were involved. :) My stuborness sometimes caused me want to resist the help, but ultimately the relief from the pain of trying to do it myself made me cave into Brandon's assistance. I just didn't want to be the wimpy wife who could hardly even walk... (even though I secretly was.) We might have looked a little odd, but that's okay, we made it around fine. There was only one exception, the 5 flights of spiral stairs, that I had to pass on.

Finally, we concluded our time in Scotland with a boat cruise on the famous Loch Ness, a large deep freshwater lake near the city of Inverness in northern Scotland. We were out on the hunt in attempt to find the legendary Loch Ness monster called Nessie by the locals. Something that struck me as quite funny is how the Scottish sprinkle the word "wee" all throughout their daily conversation. Everything is wee this and wee that. Here's a couple quotes from some Scottish folk, "The wee wifey who was in her fifties was on holiday..." and "Wee Nessie is a figment of someone's whisky fuelled imagination." I found it pretty humorous and a little bizarre.

Most scientists and other experts find current evidence supporting Nessie unpersuasive, and regard the occasional reports of sightings as hoaxes or misidentification of mundane creatures or natural phenomena. However, belief in the animal persists among many people around the world. A strong wave of interest in legitimizing Nessie's 1930s-based history began in the 1960s and research continues today. See the pictures below to find out if the monster was or was not discovered on Sept. 17th by the Riggs.

We had a long 6-7 hour drive ahead of us and were on the road by the early afternoon. Ahhh... another successful journey completed.