UK & Ireland, Day 8: Running Out of Power

Wednesday, 6/1/16

I wasn't really feeling much breakfast today, but this was Francisco's plate.

Ben Nevis Hotel & Leisure Club breakfast

We made a quick stop at Neptune's Staircase, which is essentially a staircase for boats, but there wasn't any activity there, so we quickly moved along.

Our day was mostly a collection of quick stops on the way to Glasgow, so our next stop was the ruins of Old Inverlochy Castle, an important castle in Scottish history.

We went for a short hike at Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles.

This was followed by a walk at Glencoe, probably Scotland's most famous and most scenic glen.

I collected some pine cones from here as a souvenir.

We pulled up to Inveraray Castle, the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyll on the West Coast of Scotland, and I couldn't even tell you what we were fighting about, but I think we both remember this castle for the big fight we had before going in.  These things just happen on long vacations lol.

We also stopped briefly at the Balloch Castle Country Park before finally arriving in Glasgow.

We headed on to get checked in at the Normandy Hotel in Glasgow, a perfectly efficient lodging establishment that kind of resembled a ship from the outside.

Interestingly, it had a reindeer in the lobby - Christmas in June?

We went to the nearby Braehead Shopping Centre to do some browsing. While I checked out stores like TopShop and Superdry, Francisco mostly held back and went to check out various electronic shops. I thought that was a little weird but just figured he needed a little break.

I soon found out the driving reason behind Francisco's behavior as he confessed that he had been silently panicking through much of our trip so far because he had realized that he had NOT. BROUGHT. THE. CAMERA. CHARGER. He didn't wanna tell me because he knew I'd freak out, and I kinda did.  He confessed that was why he kept discouraging me from taking so many car pictures - it wasn't just because they always come out blurry or with an errant stick in the middle of the shot.  But he was only telling me now because he had a probable solution. He had found an electronics store nearby that should have a universal charger that we could use.  I tried to calm down enough to enjoy our meal at the Handmade Burger Co. in the food court at the mall.  We shared the Goats' Cheese Veggie Stack and a Banana & Peanut Butter shake.  Good stuff!

Curry's PC World, akin to our Best Buy, didn't have the exact product Francisco was looking for, but he found something that would pretty much do the same thing. It didn't seem to be working at first, but the batteries just needed to be carefully positioned. Thank goodness that crisis was averted before we ran out of battery power!