Friday, July 12, 2019 Fourth Full Day In Scotland Tour Of The Highlands

Ten days ago, after driving only six blocks from the Hertz rental car office in Dublin, I sideswiped a parked van and pretty well bunged up the passenger side of the rental car and the van. Ever since that incident Hertz has been sending me emails begging me to rent a car from them and offering me reduced rates to do so.

Hey Hertz, are you crazy? Why in the world would Hertz ever allow me to rent a car from them? It must be a Euro thing. The more rental cars you wreck over here, the more they want your business. In the good old U S of A I am sure that Hertz has my mugshot posted in every Hertz office in all 50 states with a “shoot on sight” order.

I did not want to repeat the Great Dublin Rental Car Debacle, so I decided to sign up for a standard Ugly American Big Bus Tour of the Scottish Highlands.

This is our route for the day tour. Twelve hours on a bus. Yikes! What was I thinking.

We boarded the bus at 7:50 AM and departed at 8:00 AM sharp. We drove for an hour to get out of Glasgow and up to Loch Lomand before we took a break for breakfast and a cup of coffee. I don’t drink coffee and I stuffed myself at the hotel’s free breakfast buffet before I started out on this adventure. So I used this stop to stretch my legs and snap a picture of Loch Lomand.

I also ate a croissant and a banana that somehow made their way from the breakfast buffet to the cargo pocket of my pants this morning. I have no idea how that happened.

Next we drove up to the heart of the West Highlands. The scenery was nothing short of spectacular.

There is a ten day hike called the West Highlands Way. Can you see the hikers in this picture.

It looks like it would be a beautiful hike in good weather, but the weather is always iffy at best in this part of Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿.

After a lunch at a truck stop, an almost inedible hamburger, we drove on to the ruins of Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness.

The castle ruins were on a bluff above the Loch so I got some nice pictures of the Loch.

And then I ran across this sign while I was touring the castle ruins.

That’s right. The Scottish are doing the same thing I caught the wiley Spaniards doing last year, raising pigeons to eat but serving them as chicken. I am never going to eat Euro chicken again. This pigeon scam is everywhere over here.

After we finished with our tour of the castle ruins, we took a boat trip down the Loch to meet up with our tour bus.

This is a picture of the castle ruins from the boat.

A picture of Loch Ness from the boat.

After we got off the boat there was a shop selling souvenirs and to my surprise, a guy giving away free shots of gin.

I know that it makes no sense to give away free shots of gin but you all know how much I like free. So I bellied up to the bar and asked for my free shot of gin. It wasn’t very good but I didn’t want to act like an ungrateful ugly American. So I told the guy behind the bar that his gin was the best gin I had ever tasted and that when I get back to the States I am going to buy a case and drink it for breakfast, lunch and dinner! He bought this line of crap and lined up two more shots on the bar and insisted that I drink them. By now everyone else was on the bus and the driver was honking his horn at me to encourage me to end my tippling and get back on the bus. So I chug-a-lugged both shots of gin and got back on the bus.

Now I never get carsick. I don’t understand the whole carsick thing. However, after ten minutes of twisty windy roads the motion of the bus, the paint thinner gin and the awful hamburger all combined to give me a new appreciation of how people feel when they say they are carsick. Although in my case I was bus sick. After an hour of this torture we made a dinner stop and I had a big ice cream cone🍦. That seemed to settle my stomach down and it was on to Glasgow.

Another street mural in Glasgow.

I hope everyone had a great Friday.

Goodnight from Glasgow.