Well blog readers- hold on to your hats, this is a current post! I have decided to skip over the 400+ backlogged pictures that I just downloaded off of my camera and jump ahead to current life. Maybe along the way I'll try to get back to some of those end of summer/early fall happenings but with the way things have been going on our little blog here, I was likely to never catch up. So here we are, with an update from this very weekend!...
Emerson has been on Autumn Break from school this week, and we had discussed plans to travel from the beginning of the school year. But, with Trey's recent research trip to Washington DC and all the other things we've been juggling lately, we felt like organizing a mini-vacation was too much. After a week of rainy cold days spent indoors, though, we felt the need to get out of the city. So, at the last minute, we rented a car and hit the road for two days . On day 1 of our little adventure, we headed through the country. The forcast called for rain and snow, but we had a clear, crisp autumn day. Our drive in the country was beautiful as we headed south toward the Scottish border. We spent Friday checking out the sites around Dumfries.
We took in Caerverlock Castle. The castle itself is mostly ruins but it has a huge mote which sets it apart. One of the castles we visited over the summer had a mote, but it no longer had water in it, this however, was the real deal.
Our second stop was the New Abbey Corn Mill. Of course we are in Scotland so they are not exactly milling corn. "Corn" just means the primary grain, so here that would be oats. The mill is only operational during the summer months so we did not get to see it in working order. We got to walk through all three levels of the mill and we were the only ones there, so we got the whole mill to ourselves. On the way out of town Emerson and I hit the National Museum of Costumes.
On Day 2 of our little expedition we went to the Almond Valley Heritage Center. It is a farm in Livingston, just 30 minutes outside of Edinburgh. Unfortunately our weather wasn't nearly as cooperative. Thankfully the farm had lots of indoor activities for the kids. We did get a short break in the rain to let them ride the little tractors. Ward has a tractor obsession so we'd like to go back this Spring when the weather is better and ride on the real tractor!
Ward's not so sure about this.
