Edinburgh, Day 1 (4/13/26)

As usual, when Jay and I travel, we hit the ground running. There's always so much to see and not enough time to see everything. We started the day with wandering the grounds at Edinburgh Castle, and ended at the Department of Magic. 

Edinburgh Castle is a must-do when visiting Edinburgh. We purchased our tickets well in advance to make sure we could get in when they opened the gates, figuring the later in the day we went, the more people would be there.

Even going early, there was a bit of a line. Nothing crazy, though.

Our hotel was right on the Royal Mile, but closer to Holyrood Palace than the Castle, so we got a good warm up on our walk to the castle. We also opted out of the guided tours and wandered through it ourselves, which was another good choice. We started at the back of the castle and worked our way back toward the gates to avoid the crowds, and that worked out pretty well.

I'm always fascinated by castle dungeons
and prisons

Barracks for the POWs

Jay demonstrating how small the door is
in the military stockade.

It's perfectly GunDiva-sized

From my time as a volunteer with my local sheriff's department,
I can tell you this is a nicer cell than our modern ones.

The Great Hall was one of my favorite places in the castle. The Crown Jewels were off-site, so they weren't there to look at, but the armor and the 500 year-old woodwork on the ceiling was astounding.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a staple
in my 20s, so this suit of armor made me giggle.
I immediately thought of the Knights Who Say Ni,
but when I went back to verify, this wasn't their armor.
Still, I giggled.

The best views of Edinburgh Castle, like most things, are from a distance, so once we left and headed down to Grassmarket, we got a much better picture.

We found a cute little place to eat down in Grassmarket and then continued our exploration of the areas near the Royal Mile. We found an old bookshop to explore. 

This just screamed come in and browse.

It smelled exactly as you'd expect an old bookstore to.

We spent a good bit of time perusing the bookstore. It was small, but packed to the gills. There were books that I was tempted to pick up, but books are heavy to pack in luggage, so I opted not to buy anything.

I have been following a lot of Edinburgh travel pages and watching a lot of reels, and I knew that we were arriving just before the big cherry tree bloom in the Meadows, so we walked down that way to check them out. The Meadows is a park within the city and reminded me of Washington Park in Denver.

The trees were just starting to blossom.

As we headed out of the Meadows, I saw the coolest little shed and had to stop for a couple of pictures. This is an allotment shed made entirely out of old pianos.

Inside the shed is a full-sized piano, and they hold mini-concerts here. I thought it was just a cool shed until I looked it up. Now, I'm even more in love with it.

Our meandering took us up to Candlemaker's Row, where we found the statue of Greyfriars Bobby. Bobby is said to have spent 14 years guarding his former owner's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard. You can't see it in this picture but his nose is shiny from all of the tourists who can't keep their damn hands to themselves. The Scots hate it when tourists touch his nose, and we heard several loudly complaining about people ruining the statue. Jay and I knew from our trip prep that he was not to be touched, but not everyone knows (or cares).

Mom thinks he looks like a gargoyle here,
she's not wrong, it was a lousy angle.

From Candlemaker's Row, we found Victoria Street, said to be the street that inspired Diagon Alley, and the Elephant Room, where Harry Potter was written.

Victoria Street is certainly colorful.

Love or hate Harry Potter, Edinburgh has leaned into it. I can only imagine the boost to the tourist economy throughout the country that has been ongoing for decades.

We went back to the hotel, which was very modern on the inside, and took a brief rest before heading back out again to find dinner and go to the Department of Magic. We had the absolute worst dining experience that night. I found a pub that was near the bar we were supposed to go to, and thought it would be a good place to eat. We walked in, looked around, and realized we could just seat ourselves. Great!

No one greeted us, the bartender noticed us, but never said a word. There was a QR code on the table with which we were to order and pay. We did, and only then were we acknowledged by the staff. It was the worst customer service we experienced the entire trip. We did not exist in their world until we placed our order and paid. And on top of that, the food was mediocre at best. We finished as quickly as we could, just to get out of the uncomfortable place and chose to walk around the block until time for our reservation at the bar.

 

We'd done plenty of exploring, but not in this area, so we headed down the block, intending to just take a couple of right turns and come back around. We got to the bottom of the hill, turned right, and then turned right at the next close (a close is basically an alley). The close started off just fine and then went straight the hell up. Everything in Scotland is up, but this was up-up. Once we started, we sure weren't going to turn around and try to find another way, because, well, everything is up. Might as well just grit our teeth and plod on up.

When we got to the top, and back out on the road, I took a look
to see what the close's name was. I didn't ever want to
do that again.

This looks nice and flat. It is not. If you follow
the walkway, you'll see it looks like it just
disappears. Because it does. At that point, it
drops abruptly downhill.

I was getting tired, but I was looking forward to our last planned experience of the day: making potions at the Department of Magic. Like I mentioned earlier, Scotland, Edinburg especially, has really leaned into Harry Potter and there are so many fun things to do centered around the Harry Potter universe.

We chose to just make potions, not do any escape rooms.

This was incredibly popular, and it was recommended to get reservations in advance, so I made our reservations a month or so before our trip. I'm glad I did, because we watched a family of five get turned away, and I felt bad.

There are both cocktail and mocktail versions of the drinks, and you choose which you want when you make your reservation. We chose one of each: Jay chose to do the mocktail potion and I chose the cocktail potion. The bar decor is very heavily Harry Potter-based, though there are some generic magic-type decorations as well. We each chose which potion we wanted to make and the instructions, along with all of the ingredients were delivered to the table.

Yes, I did follow the instruction to dance
around our table.

Jay and I took turns reading each other the instructions, and building our potions step-by-step. It was silly, and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I don't have any stills of Jay's potion, because I took videos of each step.

We had fun making our potions, but I had even more fun listening to the big family seated behind me. The kids were over the moon with the experience; their sheer exuberance made my heart happy, and gave me enough energy to plod back to the hotel.

Throughout the day, we walked a total of 17,365 steps. Between all of the walking and the time change/jet lag, we slept very well that night.

The Murphy bed at our ApartHotel (apartment/hotel) was
exactly what we needed.

Scotland Adventure Begins (4/11-4/12/26)

Two weeks in Scotland is a lot to get caught up on, so I'm not really sure how I'm going to structure these posts. I guess we'll find out together, lol.

Jay scheduled us for an overnight flight from Denver to London, which is our preferred way of traveling across the pond. Usually, we can grab a bit of sleep (with the help of some alprazolam) on overnight flights. Additionally, taking a later flight meant that we weren't in a huge rush as we finished packing and getting the house and critters ready for our absence.

We gave ourselves plenty of time to get through security, and it was a good thing we did, because something in my bag triggered additional scrutiny. As the TSA lady was trying to pinpoint what it was on the x-ray, she gave me the best accidental compliment ever. I had a travel towel rolled up and stuffed into one of my exterior mesh pockets, and she asked about it, and asked why I had it. Asked if it was my workout towel. I laughed, and told her that it was for when we get into the Fairy Pools. She kept looking at the monitor and digging through my bag, trying to figure out what that dense object was. She didn't tear apart my bag, she only unzipped things to get access to the area that the screen was alerting to, taking care to not destroy my packing, which I appreciated, because I wasn't sure I'd be able to repack and get my backpack closed again.

As she was digging, she asked if I'd packed some protein powder or something. I had not, but I grinned big, because between asking about the workout towel and the protein powder, it dawned on me that she thought I looked like someone who worked out. I mean, I play circus twice a week, but I'm just now starting to see my shoulder/arm muscles developing, so it was nice for a stranger to look at me, size me up, and decide I was someone who worked out. It took the sting out of having my bag dug through.

She finally figured out what it was she was seeing on the screen, and zipped everything back up. She never said what it was that triggered the scrutiny, so when we got to the gate, I unzipped my bag and looked at what she'd been looking for. It was my shampoo bar from Swell Labs. I bought it, because their advertising said it was great for travel. Since it's not a soap-shaped shampoo bar, and had caps on both ends, I thought it'd be easy to transport, and I wouldn't have to worry about it getting soggy or gross. That damn shampoo bar became the bane of my existence. It might be great to travel with in your checked luggage, but in a carry-on it became a time-consuming pain in the ass at each and every security checkpoint we went through. Jay suggested I just toss the whole thing in the bin, but I paid $35 for that, I couldn't just toss it. Won't buy another one to travel with, though.

Luckily, we'd given ourselves enough time that it wasn't an issue being held up at security. Eventually we boarded our flight and headed off to our adventure!

Bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to GO!

The flight was okay. Despite pharmaceutical intervention, neither of us slept particularly well on the plane and were both a little groggy when we deplaned at London Heathrow. Our train to Edinburgh departed from King's Cross Station, so we had to navigate the train system from Heathrow to Paddington Station, then Paddington to King's Cross. It wasn't the easiest navigation, due to lack of clear instructions on our reservations and being tired from the flight. Luckily, we had scheduled our train to Edinburgh with more than enough time to make the trek.

Once we got to King's Cross, since we had a couple of hours to kill, I made Jay stand in line with me at Platform 9 3/4 to get our pictures taken.

Even though the photo crew there is a well-oiled machine, we still stood in line for almost an hour. I can't imagine the craziness that occurs during actual tourist season.

Finally, we managed to board the trail to Edinburgh. We dozed a bit here and there, and the four-ish hour trip passed pretty quickly. 

Starting to look a little worse for wear after our long
travel day.

We watched the scenery go by, in between catnaps.

The very first time I went to Scotland was over twenty years ago, with my ex-boyfriend's soccer team. My ex was a huge Newcastle fan, so when we realized that the train we were taking to Alnwick stopped in Newcastle, we decided to get off so he could visit St. James' Park and see where his favorite team played. 

I do not remember this view of Newcastle at all from my
previous trip.

However, I remember these signs very well.

Our plan had been to hop off, go see St. James' Park, buy some new soccer jerseys, then hop the next train to Alwick. We thought we'd be only an hour or so behind our friends. What my ex and I didn't realize was that the train only stopped in Newcastle twice a day: once in the morning, and once in the afternoon for commuters. Our late departure from Newcastle turned into quite an adventure, and the memory still brings a smile to my face. Jay, of course, has heard the story before, but he got to hear it again as we chugged through Newcastle.

We arrived in Edinburgh about 8:30 p.m. on April 12th, after leaving at 6:40 p.m. from Denver on April 11th. It sounds like a really, really long travel day, and it felt like it, but Edinburgh is 7 hours ahead of Denver, so in reality it was only about 18ish hours instead of 26ish.

I had watched a few reels from Keep Edinburgh Thriving, and in one of the videos Nashy talks about how so many tourists are unprepared for the stairs in Fleshmarket Close, right outside of Waverly Station. For some reason, I let that get into my head, but instead of being intimidated by the mere 122 stairs, I took it as a challenge.

Fleshmarket Close

It wasn't much of a challenge. After sitting for so long during travel, it felt good to climb those stairs. And, besides, it's not 122 in a row, there's a slope midway up. The slope was by far the worst part of the journey up to the Royal Mile.

When we approached Fleshmarket Close, we looked at each other and said that the stairs reminded us of the stairs in Lake Como, Italy that lead up to the Bellagio Hotel. Both sets of stairs had businesses along them on both sides.

Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy

Finishing a Few Final Projects (4/8/26)

The day started with an absolutely stunning sunrise. I was slow getting out of bed, which meant I was going to be running late to work, but I looked outside and saw the sky. I hustled through getting ready for work and spent a few precious minutes wandering the backyard, taking pictures.

If I'm supposed to be on time to work, maybe God shouldn't reward my tardiness with such stunning artwork early in the morning.

I just love this view. Sunrise is one of my favorite times of day.

I arrived at work in great spirits (and technically, only one minute late), only to be felled by a stomach bug within twenty minutes of my arrival. After a couple of hours of running to the restroom every twenty minutes, I tagged out and went home. There are few things more aggravating than having a long to-do list for after work, cutting the work day short because of illness, and not being able to tackle the to-do list. If I have to cut a work day short, then I want to be able to either play or get my to-do list knocked out. Not sit around, miserable, waiting for the next trip to the bathroom. Finally, after a short nap, and with the demon purged, about 3:30 in the afternoon I was feeling well enough to get started on my list.

AnyTMI, I eventually began knocking things off the list. One of the things that needed to be completed was to finish the insect netting for my broccolini bed and get the drip line installed. Of course, that took much longer than anticipated (don't all "quick" projects take longer than anticipated?), but with the help of my cat scanner, Pongo, I was able to get it completed.

Also, have I mentioned how much I love this chicken tractor frame? Seriously, even though it's not being used as a chicken tractor any longer, the frame has more than paid for itself over the past year or so.

Pongo thoroughly checking my work.

Is it ugly? Yes. Does it work? Also, yes.

Now, with the exception of picking up another couple of round bales for the horses, my pre-trip, around-the-house, to-do list is complete. All that's left is my last day at work, some light cleaning, and packing.

Big Trip Coming Up

When Jay and I went to Italy in 2022, we had hoped to be able to take a "big" trip across the pond on even years and a smaller, closer trip on odd years. That hasn't quite worked out, with job changes and such, but we're both in good, stable jobs again and ready to get back on track.

Our "rules" for travel are:

• we only visit places that we've either never been to, or that only one of us has been. 
• For example, we've both visited Rome (before we were married), so Rome's off the table. 
• He'd visited Fussen, Germany a couple of times before we were married, but I hadn't, so Fussen was a go. Now that we've both been, Fussen is no longer an option.
• we can re-visit a country that we've both been to, but we can't stay in a place that we've already been.
• We loved Costa Rica and want to return, but the Guanacaste Provenance is off the table. Same with Italy (the exception with Italy is that if we're ever able to buy property there, it would be in Radicofani).
• we alternate choosing destinations.
• We both agreed on our Italy trip, because it combined places we both wanted to see. Jay chose to spend a couple of days in Germany (see Fussen, above), and I wanted to go back to the Tuscan region of Italy. Our desires aligned and we were able to do both.
• This year's trip is to Scotland, my choice. The next trip is to the Swiss alps, Jay's choice.

The reason we put those rules in place is because there's a lot of the world to see, and it's easy to keep going back to familiar places. Our travel time and budget is limited, so we have to be strategic in how we do it. 

In just a few days, we'll be boarding the plane for Scotland, and we're both incredibly excited. Scotland was never really on Jay's list, but as we started planning and researching, he got more and more excited. I found a free countdown app that I've been using for the past few years. As soon as our tickets are bought, I put the leave date/time in the app and let it do the counting down for me. It's fun to watch it go from year(s) to months, to weeks, then days, etc.

This countdown app has some
fun "random" options.

With just four days to go, we're in the "what have we missed, what else needs to be done?" stage. After a year of planning and waiting, the trip is right around the corner. One of the best things about sharing property with L.E. is that we each have built-in house/horse/cat/garden sitters. L.E. will let the cats in and out, make sure the horses are safe, and water my garden while we're gone. When she goes on trips, I do the same for her. It works out perfectly. This year, we've made it even easier. Jay and I will put out two round bales in slow feed nets, so she won't even have to worry about putting hay out for the horses.

Our trip is going to be a combination of city and countryside. We'll start in Edinburgh for a few days, then head out of the city to Glencoe for a few days, then Portree on the Isle of Sky. Even though I'm not much of a city girl, I am looking forward to our time in Edinburgh. We've got reservations for potion making at the Department of Magic, bag making at the Islander, and the thing Jay is most excited about, and was the first thing he booked, afternoon tea at the Signet Library.

Typically, Jay books us Airbnbs whenever we travel, and we've gotten to stay at some absolutely incredible places. I know a lot of people are anti-Airbnb, but we've never had a bad experience. However, this time, he chose to book us at actual B&Bs, which made Mom happy as an owner of a B&B herself. The reasoning is that we want to go hiking, and the hosts will have a lot of ideas and pointers for best hikes, something we've learned over the 28 years that Mom has run the lodge.

In Glencoe, we'll be staying at the Fern Villa Guest House. I guess it's technically "near" Glencoe, not in it, but the pictures are amazing. And when we're in Portree, on the Isle of Sky, we'll be staying at the Viewfield House, which is super fancy-looking. Outside of Mom's lodge, I've only stayed in one other  B&B, on my last trip to the UK. I'm looking forward to the experience of staying at others. We all know Mom's B&B gives a rustic experience with fantastic breakfast. From the pictures, I feel like the Viewfield House gives a hunting lodge vibe. 

Needless to say, posting will be nonexistent while we're away, followed by a flurry of posts once we return.

Long Holiday Weekend, Part 1

Jay and I took a long weekend over Labor Day to go visit Deejo and family in Arizona. Last time we were there, we tried to go to Mel's Diner, the setting of the TV show "Alice", but it was closed. This time, our flight was getting in early enough that we could go have breakfast at the diner we remembered from our childhood.

Okay, to be honest, I really only remember "kiss my grits!" from childhood, and the fact that as a child I thought that was the funniest thing ever.

Deejo and family met us for breakfast, which was good. The menu had some scenes from the TV show sprinkled throughout, but I really wish they'd had a quick write-up about the show, how long it aired (1976-1982), etc. I love little histories like that when they're written into the menu. Also, non-Gen Xers don't know the show, so just saying that "Alice was filmed here" means nothing to them.

We really didn't have anything planned for the rest of the day, so after stuffing ourselves on diner food, we headed back to Deejo's to hang out. Jay and I are travelers, so to go vacation with next to nothing planned, was different. It felt good to not be going, going, going. 

I'd packed a couple of swimming suits and planned to sit in the pool and read. Deejo had warned me that it would be too hot, but I figured this Colorado girl could handle it. I could not. My swimming suits never got wet. I did plop my bare feet down into the pool after sun down a couple of times, but there was definitely no sitting in hot water while the sun pounded down on me while over 100*F.

That night, we decided to go to dinner at Oregano's, which is an Arizona-based restaurant chain. We have one in Fort Collins, but the portions are huge, so Jay and I very rarely go. Deejo's daughter sweetened the deal by telling us that they had bellini flights on special. Well, sign me and Mrs. Deejo up for that!

Not bad for $14

Just a few years ago, I could have, and would have, killed this flight of bellinis. However, Jay and I drink even less frequently than we go to eat at Oregano's. I managed to try each of them, and get down the equivalent of one. They were yummy, but I just couldn't do it.

The next day, we tried to escape the heat by driving north to Jerome. I've only ever been to Jerome one other time, several years ago, when Jay and I drove our Kia Soul down for a Soul Hamsters meet-up. I had really enjoyed our brief visit then, and looked forward to going again.

Y'all, I had serious deja vu when I stepped off the stone stairs leading down from the upper parking lot onto the street. Not because of our last visit, but I had an immediate sensation of being transported back to Blevio on Lake Como, Italy. I stepped onto the street and looked left, the retaining wall spanning the area, with the smallest amount of shoulder on the road, looked and felt just like the retaining wall that lead to our favorite market in Blevio. Even walking down the stairs, looking out over the street was familiar. I mentioned it to Jay, and he agreed. We even told Deejo and Mrs. Deejo that if we just followed the retaining wall a few yards, we'd end up at "our" market. I was so taken aback, that it didn't dawn on me to take a picture. It was a surreal moment.

Looking down over a very Tuscan-style hotel/resort (?).

When Jay and I had visited with the Soul Hamsters, we were there for a totally different reason, and thus only stayed in Jerome long enough to grab something to eat at the Haunted Hamburger before resuming our drive. With Deejo and Mrs. Deejo, we had time to just wander. I had enjoyed my brief visit to Jerome with the Soul Hamsters, but I fell in love with it this time around. It's quirky, witchy, haunted, and just plain fun!

The pictures of how they got this
truck into the "mall" were pretty incredible.

This bunny might be scarier than the
Rabbit of Caerbannog

Throw a coin to your sh*tter

I found my next craft for Maggie.

It's a good thing we only traveled with backpacks, because there were so many cute things that wanted to come home with us. I think we only covered about half of Jerome on this trip, so we'll be coming back (and with more luggage space to take things home!).