Welcome to Iceland! We flew from SeaTac to Kefllavik on Iceland Air. We stopped over for 3 days since we had never been to Iceland. There is a LOT of lava rock in Iceland. This means a LOT of building material. We caught the best Spring weather in living memory. Keflavik is where the International Airport is located. It was originally a US Air Force base during the early Cold War era. You can still see the barracks. Our first day, we walked around Keflavik. 
We went on the Golden Circle Tour (a tourist standard). An unexpected delight was the hydroponic tomato farm. It is heated by geothermal and most of the electricity in Iceland comes from geothermal and hydro. Two thirds of the tomatoes eaten in Iceland are grown here. None are exported.
We had some of their tomato soup and bread at the greenhouse. It was delicious!
The second stop was the Geysir area. You now know where the word "geyser" came from. This one goes off about every 12 minutes. It is actually quite dangerous.
Here you can see why it is dangerous. The water is boiling hot (literally!). The signs warn that the closest medical help is about 60 kilometers away (35 miles).
This is the Gullfoss Waterfall. The people you see in the picture will give you an idea of how large it is. The name mean "golden" and refers to either the legend of the guy who threw all his gold into the falls or the colors of the rainbows.
Here you can see part of Þingvellir National Park (the weird letter is the way they spell it!). This park is situated exactly on the fault line between the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates. The black cliff with the waterfall is the fault line.
We walked along this trail which goes down between the plates. 
This is looking out from the fault line towards the park landscape.
This is Lake Kerið in the National Park.
For our last day, we took a walking tour of Rejkavik. They have a labor shortage if you are looking for a place to move! This is the port. Cruise boats do stop here. Tourism is a major industry!
After Iceland, we flew to Glasgow, Scotland to begin our six-day bus tour of Scotland. Our first day in Scotland, we were taken on a tour of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian).
The next morning, we started seeing the countryside in the Lakes Region of Scotland.
There were sheep everywhere. They had black-face and white-face sheep and they had all just had lambs.
Since the climate is cool, they use polyethylene tubes to cover a lot of their crops. If they didn't, the growing season would start too late and be too short.
The most famous lake is Loch Lomond (of course). Everyone hears the song about it.
We didn't go out on Loch Lomond, but we DID go out on Loch Ness and caught the monster next to the boat! Play the video and you can see Nessie!
This is Inverness Castle up in the Highlands. We stayed near here at the village of Nairn at the Newton Hotel.
They gave us the Charlie Chaplin suite. He apparently vacationed here every summer and took the entire second floor for his family at this hotel.
If you tour Scotland, they WILL take you to a mandatory distillery tour. This is a large one and had eight people making whiskey. Everyone else was involved in tourism, tours and sales. No pictures were allowed during the tour. The storage buildings and trees were blackened by the alcohol fumes that come out of the barrels. They lose about 7% of the whiskey through evaporation every year. Single malt whiskey is the fancy stuff, but most of it is blended. If you drink mixed whiskey drinks, don't buy the expensive single-malt whiskey! 
The tour continued to Saint Andrews. This is the beach where part of "Chariots of Fire" was filmed. 
This is a foursome on the first hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews. Both of the men hooked to the left and both of the ladies went straight down the fairway. It was pretty windy. If you want to play this course, you have to show up and put your name in the lottery to see if you will get a tee time. No one is allowed to play in less than a foursome.
This is the remnants of the cathedral at the other end of town.
The last stop on the tour was Edinburgh. The major sight in Edinburgh is Edinburgh castle. It hangs over the entire city.
This is looking down over the city from the castle wall.
Here we are in front of the entrance.
This is the upper part of the Royal Mile which stretches between the castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. This is where the Queen stays when she is in Edinburgh.
We visited the Royal Yacht Britannia. The ship has been taken out of service since Royalty travels by plane and the ship was incredibly expensive. The ship's name appears no where on the hull!
This is the sitting room on the ship.
One of the highlights of the tour was an evening of dinner and entertainment. Bruce Davies, a Scottish singer/songwriter/musician MC'ed the show. 
The show included traditional Highland dancing.
Since this is Scotland, they had bagpipes, too.
We travelled by train north past Inverness to visit the Johnsons, our friends from teaching overseas. We went for a hike and caught some gorgeous weather.
We stopped by Carbisdale Castle which was part of a divorce settlement from the Duke of Sutherland early in the 1900's. Left to right: Alonda, Lauryn, Scott, Nicola and Iona the dog.
This is Iona hiding in the heather.
Across the road from the Johnsons is the Balblair Distillery. The copper thing in the picture used to be used to distill the whisky. 
Just down the road from the Johnsons, in Edderton, is a piece of Scottish history. This is a standing stone from many hundreds of years ago.
Our trip took us through a lot of Scotland. The fields of yellow in the spring are the Canola oil plant flowers. The scenery was gorgeous, the weather was perfect, the people very friendly and we would highly recommend visiting Scotland. 
Chestnut backed chickadee
Dark eyed junco
Downy woodpecker
Song sparrow
Northern flicker
Pacific slope flycatcher
Pileated woodpecker
Spotted towhee
