Ach, it's a Bonnie Wee Valley

This morning we flew from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Prestwick Airport, south of Glasgow, Scotland. We drove past Glasgow, along Loch Lomond, and checked into a B&B in a small coastal town called Arrochar.

My room at the B&B.

We still had a couple of hours of daylight so we checked the map for local places to visit and asked our B&B hostess for ideas. We decided to drive to a spot called “Rest and Be Thankful” – the name was intriguing and our hostess assured us that the gorgeous view would make our jaws drop – and then on to Inveraray to see if the castle was still open and pick up something for supper.

We drove through a deep pass in the hills and up the end of the valley to reach the look-out spot known as “Rest and Be Thankful”. As we neared the top of the hill I asked with disbelief, “Is this it?”

We rounded a corner and saw a tiny sign with the name of the spot and an arrow to the parking area. We all fell silent as I parked the car in a spot overlooking the valley.

“Are they serious?”

It was certainly beautiful, but far from the breathtakingly awesome view we were expecting. We spent a few minutes discussing our shock and realized that we should stick with historic sites and rolling green hills as they make our jaws drop, but we've been terribly spoiled by gorgeous mountain scenery back home in the Rockies and it's hard to beat it. Some day I want to go far north into the Scottish Highlands; judging by photos and stories, I think they could make my jaw drop, but “Rest and Be Thankful” didn't do it.

"Rest and be Thankful"

We continued our drive to Inveraray and got side-tracked with another graveyard and old church.

A hook on the graveyard gate.

A memorial bench in an area of the graveyard covered in bluebells.

A memorial amid bluebells.

Most churches here are open from dawn until dusk - part of the bell tower was also open so we climbed up and explored the building.

A view from a bell tower window.

We finished our explorations and arrived in the small town of Inveraray.

A view of Inveraray Castle from the main road just outside of town.

Inveraray.

We've discovered that waiting until late in the evening to try to find supper somewhere doesn't work so well. We really need to start checking into our accommodation earlier.