Scotland, Day 8

Dad’s sick. He has some sort of cough-guck in his throat and chest. However, he’s a trooper (always has been), so he sets aside his personal discomfort for the good of the family, which involved taking them on a six-mile hike into the middle of nowhere to be eaten by ghosts. I’ll elaborate.
Last night, over coffee, tea, and pomegranate juice (coffee and tea disagree with me), Sarah (our hostess’ friend) had mentioned that there was a lovely trek through the mountains that ended at a haunted house where she had seen some woman that was supposed to have been dead and where some other guy had seen a bunch of ghost-soldiers slowly march into the loch (lake).
Throwing caution to the wind, we went to this spot and embarked on the journey. Now, the ladies hadn’t told us how far out we had to drive to get to the spot to start walking, or even how long the walk was, so we just shot from the hip on this one. We drove on single-lane roads past construction sites and dodging speedy drivers until we found a dead-end that had a little road for pedestrians, but was “unsuitable for motors.” We got out of our car, prayed a bit that my laptop wouldn’t get stolen, and started walking. Just like Ben Nevis, the trail was covered in poo, only this time, it wasn’t limited to just sheep poo, but deer and cow poo as well!
I’ve seen cow poo back in the states, but since Scottish cows are different then our cows, Scottish poo is much grander. To put it bluntly, it’s roughly the size of a two-year-old child and smells pretty much the same. No one had the guts to take a picture of the poo, so you’ll have to take my word for it: it was epic.
We saw a lot of sheep on either side of the trail and took several pictures. I had never seen a sheep up close before, so I did not realize that they were racially insensitive. I mean, you have these white sheep…with black faces. How much more racist can you get than being a white guy with a black face? I’m surprised that the NAACP hasn’t executed Robert Downing, Jr. for wearing a black face in the movie “Tropic Thunder.”
Anyway, we passed the Aryan sheep and saw some spectacular hillsides from the bottom looking up (more pictures that I will post later). We finally got to the haunted house area, but some inconsiderate twat had put a fence with a gate and made a half-hearted effort to lock the gate. They claim the reason was “dangerous buildings: keep out,” but I think it’s because the Scots are afraid of ghosts.
We…bypassed…the gate and crept around quietly until we realized that we were alone (although, Dad and I did find about 50 used shotgun shells that had been recently discharged). We looked around the building – which must have been 300 years old – and saw that it was less haunted than haunting. It had a depressing loneliness about it. More pictures, will post later.
The day ended with a rather disappointing chicken fajita for dinner. We also caught the tail end of “Along Came a Spider,” which I think is the only movie that Morgan Freeman actually “starred” in. He, as always, stole the screen and made everyone else look like a “B” actor.