Last night, we stayed at Ratagan Youth Hostel, very close to the Isle of Skye and Eilean Donan Castle.

Exploring castles along the way has been a favourite reason to stop. Each one brings our imagination to life. Mind you, every time Connor leaps down whatever embankment, cliff or wall he can find, it takes years off of our lives. His inability to think beyond the second contrasts sharply to the hundreds of years of history he is surrounded by.

We've seen several castles in Scotland so far, including Urquhart castle ruins on Lake Ness. However, the only one that we paid to tour was famous Eilean Donan Castle - probably the most photographed castle in Scotland. We enjoyed the castle immensely - Margaret especially so, seeing as King Duncan, Macbeth, Fleance, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce are all written up on the history timelines of the castle's walls. Barry enjoyed it because it is the home of the Clan Macrae - his relations on his paternal grandmother's side of the family. The castle was restored from 1912 to 1930 and the current matriarch, Mrs. Macrae, still lives there during certain parts of the year. As well, Macrae Clan Gatherings are held there annually.

Afterwards, we made the long drive to Stirling with several stops along the way, including lunch, directions, Rob Roy's grave site, a wedding, more directions, hitting the curb with our tire….have I told you about the roads…oops, I'm not supposed to complain about them…let's see, there is plenty of room for a car because the roads are 15/16ths the size of a car so we hang out of our allotted lane over the line or on the curb…all the time! Anyway, Connor yelled, "Safari!!!" because he saw a Safari sign. Barry turned to look and we hit the curb doing about 70 km, shearing metal off of the hub cap and actually rubbing the tire down to the mesh. We couldn't figure out what to get Connor for his birthday so we've decided to get him a tire.