Scotland

Jared was able to go on his Scotland trip.  Since Alex was already there, Jared had to fly over on his own.  Jared has been on several flights with us, but this was his first time on his own.  I didn't even take him to the airport.  I dropped him off where he took a bus to LAX.  It was a little weird sending him off.  He flew to London, where he had a 7-hour layover, and then on to Inverness.  We tried to prep him for what to do in London and what to do with his phone when he got there.  We told him to put it on airplane mode so he wouldn't get charged for calls or messages from anyone.  But then we wanted him to connect to the Wi-Fi at the airport so we could check in with him on WhatsApp.  Well we didn't hear from him at all - he did what we said but then couldn't connect to the internet.  He made it to meet Alex in Inverness though.  (We joked about his possible adventures in London during those 7 hours... guess we'll never know... he actually just sat there bored.)  

Jared went to help Alex with his field work, so it wasn't much of a vacation.  They did have a little fun for a couple of days, hiking to the top of Ben Nevis and visiting a filming site from Andor (Cruachan Dam).  The trip wasn't without a little drama.  The clutch on their car burned out one night about 25 miles from their destination, so they had to wait for it to get towed (and eat peanut butter sandwiches again since all the restaurants were closed by the time they got in).  The trip was a nice break for both of them, despite working hard most of the time.  It's a beautiful place to work!