Inverness

Friday, the 4th of July, was an unusual day for me. I didn't spend it the way most Americans did: eating food cooked outside on a grill, drinking some brews, watching fireworks, and so on. That's because I was far from America.

On this particular Friday, Tina had to work at both of her jobs, so I decided to catch a bus to Inverness (about 60 miles away), and be the brave and brilliant traveler for the day.

I thought it would bother me that I wasn't home for the 4th of July, but it didn't. I'm not sure why. It could have been because I'm part Scottish, so there was a heritage thing for me. Or, it simply could've been that I was having such an interesting time that I just didn't think about it. Who knows, and really, who cares?

To me, nothing says Scotland like kilts and bagpipes, and I was lucky enough to observe both.

Anyway, here's the slideshow, with descriptions following (you ought to know the routine by now)...


342-344: High Street, looking out from the Eastgate Shopping Mall.
345: A young bagpiper, busking in High Street. I gave him a pound for his performance. He was quite good, didn't appear to be more than 18 or 19 years old.
347-349: Hector Russell, Kiltmaker, a well known kiltmaker in the highlands of scotland.
350: C'mon lads!!! Join up, join up!!!! Yep, a recruitment centre in Inverness town centre. (I found the color scheme interesting... that purple would NEVER fly at a recruiting station in the US!!!)
351-352: Inverness Town Centre.
353: No, I'm not trying to be the shock-jock of the blogosphere. Read it again, it's FCUK - yes, an actual name of a clothing store chain... French Connection UK - a bright spark in the marketing department though this one up several years ago - caused a lot of commotion back then, too!!!!
354-358: The Birds of Prey Rescue people had some HUGE owls on display. This particular one was over two feet tall. Simply amazing!
359-377: Views of Inverness Castle, the River Ness (extremely pretty but dangerous, it is only thigh high but extremely fast - too fast for swimming) and Inverness Cathedral. Also, one photo of a sign pointing the way to Loch Ness (in the literary world, they call this foreshadowing).
378: YES!!!! Even here... F.W. Woolworth & Co!!!!! (There used to be lots of Woolworth's in the States when I was a kid; now, pretty much gone, as far as I know.)
379: Poundland £1 - yes, everything for a pound, and usually everything is pretty cheap and nasty, too......yeuch. (I didn't have the heart to tell her that dollar stores are really quite popular over here... But, since I didn't actually go into Poundland, maybe our dollar stores are a lot better? We shall see...)