18 July: Ferry hungry

Today began with furious packing as yesterday I worked until 3pm, played golf for 2 hours, then worked until 9 pm, then researched routes on Google maps, writing down directions b/c I don't trust my phone.

All packed by 9 a.m.,  I took Paddy for his Stormont run with the neighbours, then drove to Larne, met my high school friend Cathy Arthur, and we hopped on the ferry. Where we wore masks, mine courtesy of my neighbour Marian.

Two hour crossing to Cairnryan then a 4.5 hour drive north past the village of Glen Coe to North Ballachulish and Altshellach House. The drive was gorgeous but, as the driver, no photos except when we stopped. We were along the sea coast south of Glasgow and along Loch Lomond north of Glasgow. On the second half of the trip, we stopped four times looking for food. Either everything was shut or there was a 45 minute wait. Scotland, we quickly found, is much more restrictive than N.I. on Covid, so it's still pretty shut down.

We stopped in the village of Luss, quaint but deserted (above). We stopped at the hotel below, needed a reservation.

We ended up at a pub around 8:15 p.m. It was pretty dodgy looking but our standards had dropped. As we read the menu, Cathy got a call from HF Holidays saying they were holding our dinner for us. We figured by the time we got served, we could be at Alltshellach. So we rolled in at 9pm and were treated like prodigal daughters. I had vegetarian meatloaf (that looks weird) and vegetarian haggis and mash. I was in heaven. Then straight to bed.

July 18