Fort William

Remember the scene in Harry Potter when the gang is on the way to Hogwarts and the Death Eaters stop the train and do their creepy stalking around? This bridge is what got us to Fort William:

The bad news? The train was sold out. The good news? Who cares! Diane drove so we got to see even better views! Take that, sold out reservations!

The Highland Games were going on and we feared traffic, so we skirted those roads to get to pretty, pretty Fort William faster.

So, here's the thing: Fort William is the kind of beautiful that should exist in real life. Not vacation life. Not get-away-for-a-weekend life. Real life. Let's look at some of what Fort William has to offer (you know those montages in movies where there is fun music and a few dozen wardrobe changes? This is the travel version of that):

Ummmm...yeah. That's pretty.

And check out where we stayed! I know!

 

 


 



 

This is the bed Viv claimed. She was crabby because I said we needed to share a bed, but she wanted it to herself. Then we chatted about things like "spoiled" and "entitled" and "privileged" and "you've got to be kidding me" until we fell asleep.

 



Since there was a washing machine, I did laundry and successfully turned all the whites blue. I never learn.

Diane's family took vacation pictures pointing at things in the distance; Viv and I took to this tradition with zest.

This is the front of the house which TOTALLY DOES NOT LOOK like it offers a stunning vista from the other side.

For the love of Shakespeare, this meal was magnificent.
Since Viv was cranky, we needed to get food in her sooner than later so we went from door to door all along the main street only to hear, "it'll be an hour" "at least 30 minutes" until we (almost) got discouraged, but it's us so it's hard to keep us sad for very long. Finally, we decided to go to a chain restaurant and I figured I could get fish and chips and know I'd get a good plate of it without old oil and subsequent boo-boo belly.

This art was hung above our table in the restaurant so I sent a picture to our friends Jen and Dan because they like to ride bike (as they say in Lehighton) and I knew they'd like how biking is really popular in Scotland.

Whatever, Scotland. Big deal. Yeah, that's nice.

 Oh. Okay. I get it. When I sass Scotland, it ups the ante.

 

Doesn't this look like a monster face? It felt like the people who designed The Neverending Story must have gotten some of their ideas in the Scottish Highlands.

Let's do the pointing!

Let's do more pointing!

Even cars look nicer with these mountains in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, I feel like one of those people who used to take slides of their vacations and then have people over for dinner just so they could show the slides during dessert.

 

This could be a few different stories.
1. The lonely van at the end of the path finds friendship with a delivery driver.
2. A small dog escapes his owners, is lured into a van and sold to Cruella DeVille.
3. Kids on holiday with parents spend the entire trip on electronic devices and napping in the back of the van.

Oh, let's stop for lunch somewhere. Great! How about AT THIS CASTLE? These are things I got used to saying.

 

The water is completely clear.

Of course, we were reminded of Kiwi and Lulu.

These signs are my favorite.