Sorry there are not pictures yet. I will add them later. My camera is still very dead! I have been taking them on my phone but the process is too cumbersome to do now.

We got up at 7:15 and had breakfast at 7:45 . Today we had porridge. Larry had told John how we had had whiskey with our porridge last year and when he served the porridge he brought in a bottle of whiskey. We had a full breakfast with potato scones etc. We did not want to leave and sat and talked for quite a while. We finally set off at 9:15.

We headed south to Oban on the coast just as it began to sprinkle. We had periods of rain all the way there. We crossed the Connel Bridge which was one lane with traffic lights at either end. We parked down by the pier and walked to the Oban Distillery. We signed up for the 10:40 tour which was only 20 minutes away. We looked at the exhibits. Oban is a small distillery which does all of the brewing etc. on site. That makes it a single malt whiskey. So we got to see and smell the process from malting, milling, mashing, fermenting and distilling. We learned that they don't use new barrels but barrels that have been used to make bourbon in Kentucky. It is a great relationship because when you make bourbon you have to use new barrels . When they are finished with the barrels they pass them along to distillers who make blended whiskey. Those distillers pass the barrels on to companies that smoke fish so the barrels are recycled many times. They also recycle the mash selling it to farmers to feed their cows. Near the end of our tour we got to taste some whiskey aged 11 years and which was 63% alcohol. It literally burned my tongue and throat. Oban ages their whiskey for 14 years and then bottles it. At the end of the tour we got some of that and it was much smoother and had a lot more color to it. You can taste smoke, sea salt, orange peel and honey in the whiskey if you are a whiskey. I could taste the orange and the honey but not the others. They gave us a souvenir glass to take with us.

When we got out of the Distillery the sun was out! Were we ever surprised! According to what we had read it was supposed to rain all day. So we walked around town for a bit. This was the biggest place we had been in since we left Inverness . We stopped at the Tourist Information to find out how to drive up to McCaig's Tower. We drove up to see it. McCaig started building this tower as a memorial to his family. He died before it was completed. It was modeled on the Coliseum in Rome and towers over the city. The Locals call it McCaig's Folly.

Then we headed north through Connel where my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Eric and their five children lived when Uncle Eric was the engineer for a big power project on Loch Awe. We went through a short period of heavy rain before reaching the Cruachan Power Station on Loch Awe. This is the project that Uncle Eric worked on. Ben Cruachan is a very high mountain with Cruachan Loch and Dam up on its side. The mountain was hollowed out a kilomenter through black granite to create a hollow where the water comes down from Cruachan Loch, through turbines, and then goes out into Loch Awe. Then the turbines are reversed in the off hours and water is pumped back up the 1200 feet to the Dam . The project lasted for 6 years and was completed in 1965. We had some lunch in the cafe, Erin had a toasted sandwich and Larry and I had sausage rolls which ended up being a sausage sandwich. We weren't done eating when they called our tour. We hurried and ate but almost missed the tour. We got on a bus which took us 1 km into the mountain and then we got to see the tunnels and the turbine room with the tops of the turbines showing. The tour only lasted about half an hour. When we got back we looked at the exhibit and I bought some turtles for my Wild Wyoming Women friends.

Our next stop was the Loch Awe Hotel. In 1971 my whole family went to England for my grandmother's 80th birthday. The first night we stayed at the Loch Awe Hotel. In the morning when we got up, I went outside to find my brothers coming up from the loch saying they saw a dead body in the loch. I went down and sure enough there was a man's body next to the pier. We went and told the hotel staff and they called the police . We were delayed in leaving that morning as we had to talk to the police before we left. No dead bodies in the loch this time. The hotel now caters to tour buses and only takes other people if they have room. You can't make reservations more than 2 weeks in advance or we may have stayed there for a night. It was very much as we remembered but there was a new porch on the front. The bridge over the train track down to the edge of the loch was still the same. The pier out into the loch was gone. We went inside and I told the receptionist about our experience in 1971 and she told us we could go ahead and look around. It was very much the same inside, maybe a little tired looking.

When we left the hotel we turned down a road to see if we could go to Kilchurn Castle the home of the Campbelss, a ruin just across from the Hotel but the path to it was too long. So we continued south to Inverary to see Inverary Castle and take a picture or two. This is the Castle they used as Donegal Castle in Downton Abbey, the place where they went hunting in Scotland . To get there we went over a beautiful mountain pass. We got a picture of it from the back and one of the front from the road. We went very slowly over the bridge right in front of the castle.

We continued our journey toward Loch Lomond with period of sun and rain, When we reached the village of Luss, we stopped to have a walk around. It is a quaint little village with a lot of little houses all landscaped beautifully. Larry and I found a bridge over the river which emptied into Loch Lomond and on the other side was a huge Celtic Cross in the middle of a meadow with no explanation, just a walking path around the meadow.

When we got back in the car to continue our journey to Ballach at the south end of Loch Lomond, Fiona (our navigation system) informed us there were traffic difficulties ahead and indeed there were. There was a slow down and we could only go 5 miles an hour. It tooks us half an hour to go about 8 miles. Fiona took us straight to the Balloch House Hotel . We brought all of our stuff in as we will be taking our car back to the airport tomorrow. We won't need it in Edinburgh. We checked in and took our stuff up to the rooms. Then we went downstairs for a drink and to try to get our free Wifi. It is a crazy system where you have to sign up and have a code sent to your phone by text, the catch being that you have to have a European phone! So we have to get a special code and they couldn't get it right away. They managed to give me two hours on my iPad which we used to figure out where to eat.

After checking Trip Advisor we chose The Stables, not too far away and serving British and   Scottish food. We drove there as we were hungry. We got drinks, Magner's Cider and Caledonian Best Beers. We all got starters. Erin and I got Cullin Skink and Larry had Haggis, Neeps and Tatties. For entrees Larry got sea bass, Erin got steak and ale pie with mash and veggies and I got fish cakes. It was all good.

After supper we came back to the hotel. Larry and Erin went down to get the Wifi sorted out while I repacked. Then Larry came up with my computer and I started the blog while Larry packed. We hope we can sleep tonight as our rooms are on the front of the hotel with lots of traffic.