cool castle, spooky rock formation

we spent a couple more hours in Pitlochery this morning, cause it reminds us a bit of Talkeetna. tons of neat little stores, but of course, all we actually bought was a double scoop ice cream. right outside town there's a hydroelectric dam and a fish ladder for atlantic salmon. we saw a few salmon jumping in the area downstream of the dam, near the ladder intake.

next stop was Blair (no relation) Atholl castle just outside of town.

Crazy cool display of rifles and swords in this very old castle thats in great shape and now used as a private tourist attraction. every hour they have a young lady go out front and bust out ~4 or 5 songs on the bagpipes. really neat place, and beautifully maintained. After Blair Atholl, we had a pretty long drive up to Inverness, which is famous for a couple things: Loch Ness Monster, the Battle of Culloden, and the Clava Cairnes. We stopped at Culloden on the way in, and saw the battle ground where the English put down a major Highland rebellion in 1746.

This event was made more famous recently by the Series "Outlander" - a show that had a little more "man-rape" in the plot than I really thought necessary, and I have to believe the men that died on this battlefield would agree with me - especially those named Fraser......

After that we had a very so-so dinner at a local pub, and then headed to Clava Cairnes, which are a series of rock formations believed to be about 4000 years old.

they are huge rock rings, and there are several of them.

The general thinking is that these were burial grounds of sorts, and I'm here to tell you - they are spooky as all getout. I've not seen something quite like this before. While there, I looked across the road and noticed a young stag red deer, but we didnt get great pictures of it. He was probably 300 yards away on a hillside. Still really cool to see. We will continue our search for Nessy tomorrow. didnt spot her today. Longer drive yet planned for tomorrow on our way up to Portree, which is as far north as we'll go on this trip.