What an awesome day!  The beginning of today turned out to be what is so far, and might turn out to be in general, my favorite segment of riding.  We finally hit the Scottish highlands and they are exactly what you would think from the movies - rolling verdant hills and stone walls.   The green is so amazingly *green*.  The pictures you’ll see below - what I call my Windows Desktop Series, if you catch that reference - look almost fake, like the Photoshop saturation tool was used.  But they’re right out of the phone.  The ride through the mountains felt so peaceful, and I had one of my Moments.  If you’ve followed this blog before, I occasionally have these little moments, things that I feel I will remember forever, a single snapshot of a time and place and feeling.  In this case, it was coming around and down a long straight downhill in the highlands with a big mountain straight ahead, as green as you could imagine, and short enough that we could see the top, where wisps of clouds were coming off the top as if it was a volcano releasing steam.  Up ahead my friend Andrew was riding around a curve wearing a bright red cycling jersey.  The primary feeling was one of release - maybe releasing my brother’s cancer, or the things holding me back, or the last ten years, I’m not sure, but just a release and an energy, an energization (even though I think that’s not a word).  A calm certainty about myself and what I need to do.

Tonight we’re staying in this very touristy town of Fort Augustus.  It’s nice.  I got to watch a working lock do its business moving local tourist boats into Loch Ness.  And we swam in Loch Ness - although I only went in halfway because it was coooooooold.  Sadly, no monster today!

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