Life on the High Plains

On our last day in Scotland we did some last minute sight seeing, shopping and eating. We said goodbye to our wonderful flat that had this private garden. I love the reflection.  We met some people who live in the building and they said there's a pair of otters that lives out here, but we weren't lucky enough to see them. I loved this building and wondered about all that it has seen over the centuries. When you live in the high desert of Colorado you really appreciate the greenery of Scotland. The rock building is so historical, but the inside is modern and clean. I'm pretty sure everything inside came from Ikea (we did see an Ikea in the outskirts of Edinburgh). Shiloh got his own space which always makes a teenager happy. I love Scotland! And I love this young man! We loaded the luggage in the car and then took off on foot for one last visit to the City Center.   There was a little geocaching do...

We decided to take a guided tour down to the Scottish/English border to visit Hadrian's Wall.  The tour we chose included a stop at Rosslyn Chapel. This would not have been a chapel that I would have considered visiting, but it turned out to be one of my favorite chapels in Scotland. Pictures don't do it justice because of all the intricate hand carving of the stone. It was built by the Sinclair family as a personal place of Catholic worship. Following the Scottish reformation in 1560 the chapel was closed to public worship.  Queen Victoria visited the chapel in 1842 and decided it needed to be restored.    In 1861 it reopened for public worship as an Scottish Episcopalian church. In recent years the chapel was thought to have a connection to the Knights Templar, Holy Grail and Freemasonry.  You may recognize it from the last scenes of the DaVinci Code movie from several years ago. According to our tour guide, tha...

It was finally time for the Tattoo...the reason that we were in the United Kingdom in August. Everything in Edinburgh is built on a hill.  From our flat to the Royal Mile was an uphill journey that always involved the Granny Steps (my nemesis). Every year for the Tattoo they put up these temporary bleachers that can hold thousands of visitors.  Temporary bleachers hanging out over the side of dormant volcano.  My goodness, we humans put a lot of trust into each other. Tickets had been purchased months before, the trip was planned around this one night, but as you can see there are some things you can't control....the weather. It was cold and wet and as you can see by the flags above...it was windy.  Nothing could stop us though--we bundled up as much as we could, wore our rain ponchos and even purchased a wool blanket to keep us warm. This has to be the most beautiful backdrop for any performance..the Edinburgh Castle.  ...