Morvada Guest House ( ) Ballater

Today we encountered a Heiland Coo Bull and his wife and baby. We approached cautiously to take photo's and immediately the bull moved towards us letting us know he was protecting his investments. Here are a couple photo's of this family.

We went to the top of the Caringorm Mountains (the 6th highest mountain in Britain). We took a funicular to the top and it was quite something, about 50 degrees at the top and quite windy.

Grantown-on-Spey, Scotland, United Kingdom zumwalt

... river crested the banks causing problems for these little towns who were fast and furiously sand bagging.

I am attaching a photo of the Elgin Abby and the story goes the prince burnt down the Abby because he was mad at the minister. The prince "showed remorse" and nothing happened to him!

We went to a whiskey distillery and now understand how the ...

... a local and asked directions. He responded and I could not understand a word of what he said. Our driver later said "did you understand what he said?". No I said not a word, but thankfully Gordon understood. Amazing we speak the same language yet it was not understandable!

We passed by Balmoral Castle today and the Queen is in residence for her ...

Looking forward to the over 14,000 mile trip and the 19 hours flying.

Left the nice sunny day in Aberdeen. Nice view back down on the city/north sea as well as the office / quarry / home.

Also got some pictures of St Andrews again. But then it clouded up.

Rothes is the little Scottish village where the Glen Grant Whiskey Distillery is located. It is part of the Speyside Whisky Trail, where the largest concentration of Scotch whisky distilleries is located in Scotland. This large valley is popular among distillers because this is where most of the barley is grown for the distillation process.

The distillery has a nice garden and a gift shop.

Well, I thought I would miss it, but had to walk through a little rain to/from the taxi and from the gate to the plane. Don't you just love airports with outside stairs?

Plus it is always fun to watch the flight attendants clean up all that rain that gets into the cabin in their seat/work area.

... shoulder. I bought two bottles at the gift shop. The other night I had done a pretty basic search about getting it delivered to the us at some point. If you go to the monkey shoulder website, they say they can't ship it. But then I found a place called The Whisky Shop and I put in my country and all that jazz and it went through. So the moral of the story is, do you research kids! The distillery can't ship to the US ...

Super windy, but at least the sun was shining. The Wigwam was so much better than the cold tent! Were awake pretty early again so had yummy crumpets and headed further north again following the coast. Drove along the costal trail and through the outskirts of Edinburgh as we've been there before. The sea was super choppy, it was still blowing a gale!

Drove over Forth Road Bridge ...

I don't like those phone calls that come in on my blackberry. I shouldn't have told one of my friends that I would be in Aberdeen for 2-1/2 weeks. Shortly after I said that, the call came and I was packing my bags. A couple more aerial photos of the city, including one of the office and my flat.

... By the end, we had had 5 shots each, pausing just long enough between knocking them back to wharf down some dinner. By 7:30, we were pretty sloshed and beat a hasty retreat to our room before we ended up doing something we'd regret. I collapsed on my bed in a stupor just managing to remove my boots and change into my pajama bottoms. My stinky hiking top, however, stayed on - do you still respect me?