Old Faithful Inn

We had heard that reservations required advanced planning so when I logged into their reservation system, I was surprised that there were two rooms available.  Actually, they were the only two rooms available in July.  I quickly grabbed them and started our summer roadtrip plans based on the date.  I suspect someone had just cancelled their reservation and by luck I was the first to see them.

The original part of the inn is a log/timber constructed building from 1904 with a 6 story open atrium and huge rock fireplace.  Its built about a 100 yards from the Old Faithful geyser.  The original log style rooms have sinks but use a shared bath.  We stayed in the guest wings which were added a few years after the original construction and the rooms here had their own bathrooms.  Our room had a view of the geyser, fortunately I didn't pay extra for that view as the rooms were uncomfortable to hang out in as it was hot with no breeze and limited seating.   We spent our time on the deck built ontop of the porte cochere which had a great view of the geyser, and relaxing on the mission style chairs and sofas inside the inn.

The inn also offered dining services.  As a guest I was able to make the dinner reservations a month ago.  However if we had wanted to eat after 8pm it would have been pretty easy to get a table at least for groups of 4 or less.  Our table was next to the large fireplace in the rustic dining room.  Ambiance and service was nice, food quality was definitely not worth it. You are paying for the dining experience, plus your food options at the park are pretty limited unless you packed it yourself.

Yellowstone

This was our second time in Yellowstone.  When we drove through 9 years ago, we did just drive through, but stopping for the obligatory photo at Old Faithful.  We only spent a day in a half this time but we did cover lots of ground.

We entered via West Yellowstone with the kids commenting how commercialized that little town outside of the West entrance was, like who needs to watch an IMAX movie here?  It was definitely a long line to pay the fees and enter the park, in fact the wait reminded us of crossing the US/Canadian border with the right express lane for the pass holders and the other three lanes for the newbies. Once inside, we drove the northern loop while stopping at all the major viewpoints.  Most of the cool sites were the thermals and the surrounding ground where the acidity had changed the ground surface into cool colors.

We also stopped at the various water falls. We also stopped for random wild animal sightings. We usually knew an animal was sighted when the traffic would slow way down as the inconsiderate drivers would slow down and take a photo from the car. We spotted lots of elk, bison and one bear cub, not sure where the mama bear was hiding.

After a long day of exploring the park we stopped at our destination for the evening, the Old Faithful Inn.

Road trip across America

Unlike our other road trips, we did not leave at the crack of dawn.  The boss likes for us to be on the road by 5:30am on our first day.  I don't think we started packing till 7a.  Also on our previous family trips all we took were carry ons for 4 weeks away, but since we were taking the biggest car of our fleet packing light was not a priority.

Day one was just to get us near our first destination. We covered parts of the US that we have already been through so it was just a day of driving across interstate 90 across Washington and Idaho and Montana and stayed our first night in Bozeman which was 680 miles from home. 

I usually don't drive on family road trips as I get sleepy when driving slow for long periods of time. I thought I could do it this time but less than two hours on the road it was time for a driver change. Al least between naps I was able get take some pictures. 

Edinburgh Festival

It’s been really crowded during our visit in Edinburgh.  Our stay happened to be in the middle of their yearly three week long festival called the Fringe.  It’s supposed to be one of the largest festivals in Europe.  This is why it so hard to find a decent apartment or hotel that was reasonably priced in town.

The actual tourists sites were reasonable but there were thousands of people on the sidewalks going to and from the various festival locations downtown.  The most notable site we visited was the Edinburgh Castle.  It’s perched at the top of the hill next to downtown.  We spent half the day at the castle and got soaked by the rain showers on our way home.  We had great weather for the past week so we forgot to pack our rain gear.

Today we went back downtown to tour the National Museum of Scotland.  We then walked to the Museum on the Mound which is in the original Bank of Scotland building and is a museum about their money.  That was a small but enjoyable museum but it didn’t explain why there are different versions of the same paper currency issued either by the Bank of England or three different banks in Scotland.  The crazy part is that some shops in England won’t accept currency issued in Scotland even though it’s worth the same.

We ended the day walking through the one of the Fringe festival sites and watched a few performances bought some souvenirs and did a quick walk through their Scottish National Gallery.

Rental car stress

We made it to Edinburgh which is the final stop of our trip.  We are staying in an apartment that is about 8 blocks from the city center so its pretty busy with limited parking.  We found a spot about two blocks away, unloaded the car and left again to return the car at the rental car agency located at the train station in the city center.

Fortunately I had remembered a TripAdvisor tip about rental car returns being a block away from the train station even though my rental agreement said to return it at the station.  I’m also glad the tip included the location of the garage otherwise we would have been circling around the busiest part of town.

Returning the car was also a new experience.  In the USA, the agent gets the mileage and fuel level and prints your receipt.  This time my rental agent brought out a strong flashlight and began to check over each tire, and looked for scratches on the car.  With some of the narrow highways we travelled I had to dive into the brambles and kissed bushes a few times so that the other bus/truck/car could pass.  Also when I first started driving on the opposite side I had trouble gauging the left side of the car and kissed a few curbs (but didn’t scratch the wheel)

The agent noted a few deep scratches of the lower part of the left door and that the left front tire had a cut in the sidewall.  Fortunately, I had been nice and chatty with the agent when I first arrived and so when I explained how the rental agreement already noted a left front wheel scratch (which was probably not related to the sidewall cut) and shared my story about the original agent not concerned about scratches less than 1cm as he was super busy I didn’t sound defensive or that I making excuses so he let us go without charging us extra.

Next time I rent in Europe I will probably just get the full coverage to minimize the stress of the rental car return damage inspection.  I will also get the diesel option (a free upgrade this time  for being nice to the original agent) as the trip computer showed that we almost averaged 50 mpg for the 2000 miles driven.  I’m also a fan of the 5 door hatchback. We were able to get all of our luggage and a few days groceries for our family of 5 and it was easy to load and a little shorter than the wagons I usually try to get.

Scotland Beauty

Central Scotland and the Highlands has some great terrain.   Rolling hills and mountains make for some challenging roads.  The roads have lots of blind curves,  narrow with single lanes throughout.  It makes for white knuckle experience on the roads especially when the tour buses and trucks blast by going by the other way.  it takes twice as long to travel the same distance when compared to the roads at home.

We were on the road almost three hours to get to our next destination, the Glenfinnan Viaduct.  This is an old curved train bridge that is featured in the Harry Potter movies when the train is going to Hogwarts.  There is also a steam train that runs on this route twice a day each direction so we had to time it so we were there when the steam train went by.

Since our anticipated arrival time would mean about 90 minutes of waiting for the train to go by at the viaduct,  we stopped by the Dalwhinnie Distillery on the way and took a 45 minute tour which included a tasting at the end.  We arrived at the viaduct with enough time to park and make the 15 minutes hike to get close.  After photos of the viaduct and of the train going by, we drove straight back.  We had a few close calls on the road back.  I did have to make a sudden stop before a turn as a tour bus suddenly appeared.  I had to back up to the nearest pull out so that he could go by.

Another castle

I’ve lost track of the number of castles we have visited on this trip.  Whenever we walked through them we always speculate what it must be like to live in one.

For our second night in Scotland we found a castle on Airbnb.  We were having trouble finding a place to stay.  Scotland is obviously a popular destination as most of the reasonable prices hotels and airbnb were booked.  We expanded our search and found this place but it was kinda remote.  It wasn’t that far from where we were visiting but it generally takes twice the time here to cover the same distance at home.

After driving on some single lane highways (no center marking as they are only 1.5 cars wide) we turned off onto a gravel road and crossed the creek on a stone covered bridge and to our castle.

We actually don’t get the entire castle just the servants quarters that were recently remodeled.  It’s ok as we are still in the castle!