Ben Lomond - Spring Break 2017

Yes, I am just now getting around to writing about something that happened almost three months ago.   Better late than never? The trouble is that I feel this need to document everything, but I want it documented chronologically, and then I struggle with making the time to sit down and write, so I have this backlog of events that I want to memorialize on here. This is the last Spring Break event I'll write about because this is really the last big thing we did during our time in Scotland and because I also need to write about the rest of April plus all of May and June. 

Before we left for Scotland we did some research and talked about what we'd like to do while we were there. Jared and I both thought that climbing Ben Lomond would be a great way to spend one of our days. It wasn't too far from our hotel and the distance of eleven kilometers looked doable even for us. We were told to expect to take about three hours to reach the summit and another two to hike back down. Everything I read before we got there suggested that Ben Lomond is one of the easiest highland hikes. Easy is relative though, as we soon learned. 

Natalie found a walking stick in a wooded section and it ended up being really helpful on
some of the steeper sections of the hike

The weather that day wasn't perfect, a bit cold and even a little misty and cloudy especially as we made our way higher up the mountainside. Jared was the only one who was really prepared for bad weather on our trip; the rest of us aren't Boy Scouts and did our best to layer up for the hike. We started off full of enthusiasm though. It was fairly sunny and warm and our legs were still fresh. The enthusiasm didn't last long - at least not for all of us. We all started off together but it didn't take long for Abigail and Emily to leave us in the dust. For a while we could still see them in the distance but in the end they were so far ahead that we just assumed that they were on the right path and we'd see them at the summit.

The views were amazing and were definitely my favorite part of the experience but they weren't stunning enough to distract me from the fact that I was ready to quit. I so wanted to quit that it was almost all I could talk about. "This is so hard. Why did we think this would be fun? Do your legs hurt? My legs really hurt. I just want to turn around. Don't you think we've hiked far enough? I want to quit. Wouldn't it be more fun to go back to the resort and sit in the hot tub?" And on, and on, and on. Poor Jared always says I'm tough; it's something he likes about me. Yet there I was whining and complaining the entire way up the mountain. He had to have been questioning if he even knew me at all.

Eventually, we were so high up that we were inside the clouds. It was soggy, misty, and very windy as we trudged our way to the top.  In my mind, we were going to stop at the summit and eat the picnic lunch we'd been carrying up the mountain. Emily and Abigail made it there about half an hour before the rest of us and huddled together for warmth as long as they could before coming back down to meet us on the path. It was so wonderful to see them waiting for us as we came around a bend in the path. Samantha and I both needed something to lift our spirits and motivate us to keep going and seeing the two of them did the trick. The last little bit of the ascent was tough and we were grateful that they were there to lead us. Once we finally reached the summit it was obvious that eating lunch up there would be a miserable, cold, wet affair. We took a quick picture and then retraced our steps down the mountain.

We stopped about halfway down for that picnic lunch I'd planned. At this point, we were out of the clouds. It was still windy but much less cold and wet. I tried to control my whining on the way down but downhill is difficult in an entirely different way. At least it was faster, thanks to gravity. 

Feeling accomplished and tired at the end of our long hike

These sweet little lambs are not at all related to hiking Ben Lomond, but definitely related to our Spring Break adventures. I think it's a very American thing to quote lines from movies. Or maybe a very Moran thing? Either way, during our week in Scotland we had two movies on the brain - Brave and Storks. Specifically the line from Brave where Merida says, "Aww, wee lamb." That was said every single time we saw a lamb (and we saw a lot because, hello, springtime!) by every member of the family. Natalie's accent was the best, hands down. Storks is a current favorite and this crazy scene with Pigeon Toady was also quoted almost non-stop. Just imagine that anytime anyone did anything remotely cool or interesting that person would then sing "huh muh nuh ma-nuh" and everyone would join in.

And that's the end of the Spring Break 2017 adventures! It's finally all documented for posterity, or whoever reads this blog. How you like me now?  

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