Scotland is just over 30,000 square miles. Virginia is just under 43,000 square miles. Day three to take all this in just six days. Our plan is to leave Edinburgh Friday morning for Inverness by train. We then settle in the AirBnB at Inverness for one night. Saturday morning, I will pick up a rental car drive back to the AirBnB gather everyone and with all the confidence of a teenager with their Learner’s Permit, drive on the road beside Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle and back to Inverness. Then on Sunday morning we will travel to the Isle of Skye, hike for the day and backtrack to Portree where we will stay one night. On Monday morning we drive back to Inverness, drop off the rental car, catch the train to Glasgow, stay the night and Tuesday morning catch our flight to London and then back to Dulles. I am just now realizing how much has been packed into this trip. Even now it seems daunting.
The trip from Edinburgh to Inverness is just over three hours. It is raining as luck would have it. We stayed dry the whole day yesterday with sunshine and blue skies. In the night, the rain returned and the UBER dropped us at the train station and we walked through puddles galore. Feeling just slightly more experienced than two days ago, I am guessing our way to the correct platform and the correct train. Our train is on the platform the next level down. I gather everyone and we make our way down the escalators to the level below.
We find our seats and with a steady rain out the windows the train tracks take us along the other side of the Edinburgh Castle. The formidable wall of rock enough to thwart any attack. I remember old movies of fiery oil being poured from great heights down on the attackers below. Once out of Edinburgh, I am anticipate catching sight of Glasgow. But my infant Scottish geography is way off. Glasgow is almost fifty miles away and I won’t catch any glimpses until Monday. As the train leaves Edinburgh further behind the landscape proves more barren than any I have experienced. These hills were carved out in the last Ice Age thousands of years in the past. It is as if we are traveling into a world above the trees and the horizon.
