Ancient Days and Fun Times on the Isle of Lewis - Aug 21, 2019

Our guides keep telling us there so glad were getting to experience the real Scotland. Sometimes on these trips the weather is sunny and calm and the feel sorry for the people who experience that because they have entirely wrong perception of Scotland. I can attest to the fact that with the exception of only several days we have indeed experienced the real Scotland on this trip. Bundled Up Bob.

Our ship as a slightly different shape than what is typical. The two large black wing like structures are the intake and exhaust rather than having the typical stacks.

As far as land transport the buses have always been oversized so we have plenty of room to sit wherever we want.

No, they're not long necked long leg in Iraq sheep, but you already knew that. The turns out that llamas are well-suited to this climate and are apparently thriving.

Scotland and peat go together especially since so much of the land is peat. Pete is harvested by simply cutting down through it and then piling up the small slabs to dry. A photo from the bus window in the rain doesn't exactly do it justice. The area back behind that is marked off by lines is actually sections where the peat has been harvested in the past.

Linda touching her inner archaeologist at the 5000 year old Callanish Stones, a stone circle that you can enter and get up close and personal with the stones

The inner circle at the site.

Wet Windy nasty and a lot of fun.

Rain and wind, it's everywhere up here.

The partial ruins of a Broch, which are Iron Age structures found in Scotland. This stop really meant something as the last Time Team episode that we watched before leaving on this trip was about the excavation of the base of a Broch. Real history coming alive for us.

Harris tweed is very special and is only produced in these islands.

Beautiful young model holding up a piece of dried peat.

There was a very famous chess set that was discovered on this island. Let's just say that Linda has bought a few souvenirs to take home. One of the pieces looked exactly like this so I got the, "Bob take a picture of me standing beside the chess piece" command. Yes Dear Bob.

Back at the ship I walked outside to look in through the window where Linda was sitting, yes it's rainy and windy, it's Scotland.

Some things have to be experienced to be appreciated. This was truly one of them.

There was a special get together for members of the Sir Edmund Hillary club and is part of it we were asked if anyone had some special memories that they would like to share. Linda suggested, only as she can, that I stand up and talk about how we collect can tab tops for the Ronald McDonald House, and when we on OAT trips she seems to recruit other people in the group to pick up the tops. Then throughout the year we receive boxes and envelopes full of tab tops with heartwarming messages about how wonderful it is to make this small effort that helping other people and cleaning up the planet.

The nightly weather report. It's always the same cloudy, windy, rain.

The after dinner event was a whiskey tasting, only one group got every whisky wrong. Our group was simply too sophisticated to be able to determine what these whiskys actually were.

Our group guide, Tony, was and in fact still is a professional singer and songwriter. He is good, very very good. Travel is far more than going from one place to another and looking at something. That's what tourists do, we are so glad we are travelers.