Our last full day in Scotland – a sad time, but a good chance to relax, see the river Dawn, and learn to cook all fancy-like

Tuesday, 03-Jan-2017

Turns out, a full day of hiking in the Scottish mountains tires a Ben out. I slept in late today… felt kind of bad about it, to be honest… but everyone was pleasant and happy, so I didn’t feel too bad for too long.

The goal for today: See the North Sea again, at the mouth of the river Dawn. It’s an excellent place for bird watching, from what Bill said, but also an excellent little beach to stroll along, and see some of the interesting ruins along the water. I even found some gloriously well polished sea glass, some of which got taken back with us to Oregon as captured prizes from the old world.

Lessons were learned as well, when Henry decided to make his fancy salmon dish and needed some assistance in julienning the veggies. I honestly didn’t even know what that meant at first… now I know it means “spend a ton of time, and get bored trying to cut things really super small”.

I have to admit though, the results were excellent. We all sat down in the main dining room, and partook of an excellent array of food, drink, and conversation. I really enjoyed this aspect of the whole trip… I’d never met Henry or Leah before, and had only really spent one or two days at a time with Bill and Greta. Being able to regularly share dinners was a treat, and something that I very much look forward to doing again in the future.

We ate, we drank, we talked all about what everyone was up to in the new year, and tried our best to ignore the fact that we were all (with the exception of our hosts, of course) flying out the next day.