How Far Away is Home? It Depends ....

We passed through Inverness on our way here, it's at the north end of Loch Ness, you know, where the monster lives ...

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We have traveled on from Aberdeen Scotland to another place in the last couple days.  The journey included in sequence: a long walk, a bus ride, train ride, bus ride, an ocean going boat, and a car.

The weather was nice when we left Aberdeen.

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What is the destination worthy of that effort?  None other than the Isle of Lewis, off the north west coast of Scotland.  It's where Fiona comes from and much of her family still lives. 

 


You see, Fiona was born and raised on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides (pronounce Heb-rid-dees).  She left home to go to college where we met, in Aberdeen.  

One of the goals of this trip was to see the fam, you know, the rellies, the Scottish side of our family tree.  There are a bunch over here.  And to top that off, on the boat, we connected with our daughter Alison, and her clan (Husband Brandon, and boys, Jackson and Sam).   They are here visiting as well.  

The roots run deep here on this Island, much of it in and around the main town of Stornoway.  Fiona's brother Duncan and his wife Donna and family live here, along with a few other apples that didn't fall far from the tree.  

The fact is, these are a bunch of wonderful people, we love 'em, and today we had a wonderful foodfest with all of 'em.  

We expected mixed weather and this is what we got.  Today was almost like a winter day in Oregon, rainy, windy, wet, foggy, and a bit cold.  
What a change from the last few hot sunny days.

There are several places we will see in the next week.  We're just getting used to the time change and so forth, but we are ready to go!

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In the meantime, on the train yesterday, we came across a wild bunch on a "hen party" - like a bachelor party for girls.  They were having a rowdy time on the train and they had an inflatable doll - it was a male and it was, ahem, anatomically correct.   I had to be careful with the picture, I could only show the back side!