Hello Scotland!!

We've embarked on a new travel adventure to Scotland, but without our usual partners in crime -- Mom and Pop.  Instead, we're traveling with a group of friends from the Wesley Foundation at William and Mary.  W&M and Wesley are where Mona and I first met and where we developed deep friendships that have lasted a lifetime.  Instead of our normal travel party of four, there are 13 of us that will be caravanning around Scotland for the next 10 days.

Our group spans in age from 10 to 65.  Cindy, Aaron and their two boys currently live in Inverness and nine of us traveled from various parts of Virginia to meet up with them.  Teri just retired on Thursday and left for this trip on Friday; her husband David was our campus minister and married us 22 years ago.  Wendy's traveling solo with us and was in Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity with us during college.  Mary, Ken and their girls round out our group, battling travel delays and bad weather to meet up with the rest of us.

We've arrived in Edinburgh and are staying in an apartment large enough for the nine of us -- Cindy's family joins up with us tomorrow.  The Queen was nice enough to be here and greet us with a parade -- I heard she might also be here for the opening of Scottish Parliament, but it was nice to feel the love.  We'll be here for three nights before beginning our journey west and north to the Highlands.

No big adventures today -- trying to acclimate to the time and rest up as we'll hit the ground running.