Day 3 Falkirk and Glencoe

I woke up before Ryan did Sunday morning, much to my annoyance. I couldn't sleep even though I was still pretty tired. So I got on my phone and searched for interesting things to do near where we would be going to church. I found The Pineapple House, followed by a so-called easy walk to a ruined manor house. Once Ryan woke up, I showed him what I found. He thought they looked cool and church didn't start until 10 am. We did have to walk to the bus station, take a 40 minute ride back out to the park and ride that held our rental car, and then a drive out to Falkirk. But we totally had time! Ryan put on his church clothes and I did not. I didn't want to tramp around in a skirt and the slip on shoes I could be wearing to church. It was a good choice.

The Pineapple House was a bit off the beaten path, but easy enough to find with Google maps and some instructions and reviews I had found online.

The ruins were a not-quite-quick walk on a very muddy path. But we didn't get lost, so that's a plus.
 

We saw we were getting close, and then it was tromping through a field and through a fence.

Private property doesn't mean quite the same thing in Ireland and Scotland as it does in the states. Apparently it's totally cool to traipse through anyone's land, as long as you close the gates behind you.

This was obviously a very large and beautiful house at some point in the past. When you are done paying taxes on improved land, you take the roof off the structure and it is no longer taxed as a building. It's sad to see.

We took a different path back to our car. We thought anything would be better than the muddy trail we had taken in. We were wrong. We hiked through a slippery mud pit on the way back. Ryan's shoes looked pretty rough.

We found the church in Falkirk, and made it in time for me to change into my skirt in the car. Because I am classy like that. The church building reminded me of the one we attended in Limerick, Ireland a couple of years ago. There are not pews, just cushioned plastic chairs that can attach to its neighbors to form an even row. It was high council Sunday for the branch. The high councilman brought his wife who was sitting in front of us. She is into family history and asked if we had Scottish ancestors. Being the white, white, super white European descendants that we are, yes Ancestry DNA says we are somewhat Scottish. Not that I can really pinpoint it on my family tree. But we still got a lesson in baby naming conventions in Scotland with a diagram, and how to find your Scottish ancestors.

After sacrament meeting, we drove to see the Kelpies. We'd had a glimpse of them from the highway on our way to church. They are more enormous than I had pictured.

I needed to use a restroom and there were a couple of public restrooms here. I wanted to make quick work of it and be on our way. Alas. It was not to be. After washing my hands, I attempted to use the hand dryer. It was utterly wimpy and pathetic. So my hands were more than slightly damp when I tried to unlock the door. The lock turned, but it didn't unlock. Uh oh. I noticed the door lock was kinda sketchy when I had locked myself in to begin with. Maybe I had turned it the wrong way? So back and forth I went, twisting one way and then another. Huh. Now what? Pull the door in and twist the lock? Push the door out and twist the lock? Rattle the door? How long will it take for Ryan to notice I wasn't coming back? After trying numerous ways to extricate myself, I gave up and went for shaking the stupid door. Ryan finally came around and offered me this sage advice: "You need to unlock the door." In my completely calm and reasonable state I replied, "Oh thanks a lot, Genius." A quick prayer was sent heavenward ("Please, please, please let me get out!" I am nothing if not eloquent in distress). The idea popped into my head to pull my still wet hand inside my sleeve and try to turn the lock that way. It added enough grip to finally get that lock disengaged and I was free! My whole family thinks this story is hilarious. I did get stuck in a bathroom in Ireland the first time Ryan and I went. It required a restaurant worker to free me, and it took Ryan a lot longer to come looking for me. I am getting a reputation.

On to Glencoe!

It is unreal how beautiful this place is.

We found the starting point for the Coire Gabhail/Lost Valley Hike. Ryan changed out of his white shirt and tie, but kept his slacks on. 

We were off!

The temperature was in the mid 60s but so humid! I have never sweat so much at a mid-60s temp. 

We climbed up, up, up!

We brought hiking poles from home, and it was absolutely the right choice. This was a three mile, out and back hike. 902 ft of elevation gain. Steep, rocky, and slippery in places. But so beautiful! I was too busy climbing to take pictures of all of the hard spots.

Whew, we made it to the top!

Ryan took a picture of my sweaty back. I opted not to share that one.

Once we ate the granola bars I brought, Ryan wanted to go down into the Lost Valley. So we did.

People had stacked rocks here, probably while waiting for spouses to be done exploring.

Then it was time to reverse the process, going down, down, down to our car. We each only had about a half water bottle at the beginning of the hike. There hadn't been any place to fill up our water bottles since we left the hotel in the morning. Actually, I did try at the church building, but it was not terribly effective. It was a drinking fountain, and my bottle was mostly sideways as I tried to fill it. We were so thirsty.

At the first gas station we came across once we were back in the car, we stopped and bought a giant water bottle and an ice cream bar for each of us, Sunday or no.

It poured and poured on our drive to the bed and breakfast we stayed at overnight. Buckets of water splashed down on us. Once we arrived though, this little rainbow greeted us.

Once we checked in, we found a pub for dinner. Ryan had fish and chips, and I had a Thai inspired salad that was really tasty. I needed some vegetables!

This bed and breakfast we stayed at was fancy but had the worst shampoo. Most of the places we stayed at had some eco friendly nonsense masquerading as shampoo, requiring at least two washes to feel like it did anything. This one left a terrible residue on my hair. I wore a hat the next day, so it wasn't the end of the world. We were given a menu of breakfast items for the next morning to choose from. We had to make our selection the night before, and a time when we wanted breakfast to be served. After our showers, instead of socializing in the big upstairs room like I think we were supposed to, we crashed.

Scotland day 2, Edinburgh continued

We were awake early, and figured we might as well get a head start on sight seeing for the day. Rain was coming, but we had a few hours before it would make its appearance. We grabbed breakfast from a bakery. Mine was a sausage roll. You would order your pastry from the glass case and they would warm it up before serving it to you. The sausage roll tasted fine (it sounded British/Scottish and like something I should try) but sat heavy in my stomach. 

This is just a random backside of a cow we saw on our walk. There are a couple of weird sculptures around town. 

Onto climb Calton Hill! It's an easier climb than Arthur's Seat but still offers nice views of Edinburgh.

The building on the right (above) reminds me of a poop emoji. The swirl roof is a bold choice.

First cannon of the day.

Nelson monument.

Skyline view

The National Monument was meant to be the Scottish version of the Parthenon in Greece, but it was left unfinished due to a lack of funds.

Then we took a stroll through the "new town" of Edinburgh. I would just like to point out that their version of a "new town" is buildings built during the 18th and 19th centuries. 

I liked this potted plant garden.

Georgian and neo-classical architecture, cobblestone roads, Scottish Parthenon, and modern cars. It's an interesting mash-up.

A nod to the author of Sherlock Holmes.

Fancy cathedral that was closed when we walked by.

The Sir Walter Scott monument. Founder of historical fiction.

King George IV. He visited Scotland in 1822, the first monarch to visit Scotland in about 200 years. This sculpture was kind to the personage of the king. Accounts reference a corset made in 1824 to hold his 50 inch girth.

I found this hilarious: The Shoogly Peg. What does Shoogly even mean?

In the West Princes Street Garden there is a whole flowerbed display to celebrate 200 years of Braille, with a working clock made of flowers and plants. There is a fence keeping people away from it. I found this a bit ironic- How is this to celebrate Braille for blind people? Don't get me wrong- this is super cool. I've never seen a clock made with live plants and flowers.

Onto Edinburgh Castle! We had tickets for 11 am, and as we were strolling up to the castle at 10:40, the skies opened up. I asked the ticket scanners if we could come in early and they said yes. 

Little did I know how inadequate my rain jacket would turn out to be.

More cannons on the rampart.

I had no idea how much of a military museum this castle was. There was a whole lot of military history information and displays. But the indoor displays did allow us to dry off.

This was a 14 year old boy, er lieutenant put in charge of grown men during the American Revolution. Actually in Scotland, our little difference of opinion with England is called the "American War of Independence." Potato, pah-tah-to. The reason we won became a little clearer to me if the other side was putting 14 year olds in leadership roles. It's all about who you know, you know? 

Awesome model ship.

This gentleman was doing a great impersonation of a statue for quite a while. I thought his outfit was really something special. I asked him what time period his uniform was from (1497) and got a 10 minute history lesson on Mons Meg the cannon. She is very heavy and extremely expensive to pull around and fire.

Mons Meg could shoot these giant cannon balls up to 2 miles!

St. Margaret's Chapel. I discovered later that this is the Queen Margaret our train station (and nearby hospital) was named after (from the last night of our Scotland trip).

Very fancy dining hall. This is how weapons were stored when not in use.

We stuck around for the cannon firing at 1 pm. 
 

This is the courtyard by the dining hall. The castle was becoming very full of people, and we opted not to see the Scottish crown jewels. The queue to look at those was quite long. 

It was raining a fair amount, so we meandered down to the National Gallery of Scotland and looked at art. It was fun to see that I could name a couple of the different art styles Elizabeth has told me about from her art history classes.

We walked 20,000 steps this day and we were getting pretty tired. Everyone was making use of the indoor spaces due to persistent moisture, so we couldn't find a place to sit down inside. So we sat next to the bike rack and decided we had made good use of the day and we were ready to go back to our hotel.