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Once a year, we make the drive home to see Alasdair’s parents in the Outer Hebrides. As you would imagine of any place with “Outer” in its name, the islands are more than a little out of the way, so it’s a long trip. Over the years, we’ve established many traditions of what we see, where we stop, and what we listen to along the way, so much that the entire trip has almost become a ritual.

This year, to make it a little more interesting, I thought I would document those traditions — and a couple of curve balls that the journey threw us this time around — to take you along on the journey.

Naturally, we start by loading up the car with your usual suspects — suitcases, fishing gear, coats, trip munchies, blankets, etc — and some not so usual suspects:

Yes, my friends, we take trees with us to the Outer Hebrides. There appears to be a trait associated with the Macleod Y chromosome that creates a strange obsession with trees. It’s probably because, due to the intense winds on the island, it’s pretty difficult to grow them there. So every fall, Alasdair picks up all the acorns and seeds he can find, nurtures them through the winter, and brings the saplings home the following summer. (This year’s crop took a real beating from the caterpillars and slugs in our back garden.)

Once we’re packed up, we hit the road and cue up the first of many Runrig anthems that are the soundtrack to our journey, “Road Trip” (click on the play button to listen):

Alasdair drives most of the way, fueled by the nectar of Scotland, Irn Bru:

There aren’t many sights of significance during the five or six hours that it takes us to get clear of England. It’s all motorway driving and we don’t feel any sort of emotional ties to the places we drive through. Also, we most often do this bit in the dark — our ideal timing is to set off at about 10 in the evening and hit Scotland just as the first bits of dawn start to brighten the landscape.

One sight we stopped at this year, though, was this Roadchef where we also memorably stopped in 2006 to clean up a vomiting incident involving our niece, Tori:

And a second involuntary stop was also made this year in Cumbria when the engine warning light lit up on the dashboard. This is Alasdair calling the AA (Automobile Association rather than Alcoholics Anonymous), where our membership had expired just two weeks previously:

Fortunately, seeing’s how we’d been members for six years, they let us renew our membership on the phone and sent us a Very Nice Man to fix our car for us:

Within a few minutes of being back on the road, we were safely in Scotland, and upon passing this sign:

We fired up the next Runrig anthem, “Alba” (the Gaelic word for Scotland) (click on the play button to listen):

Despite the delay in Cumbria, we made it to Glasgow just in time to see Alasdair’s cousin, Alison, at her open studio weekend before it closed for the day:

Alison is a jewelry designer (visit her website here) who makes some really gorgeous stuff. My handsome husband, after only a small amount of hinting, bought me these lovelies:

Back on track, we returned to tradition and spent the evening in Glasgow with Alasdair’s brother, Torquil and left early the next morning to get into the highlands before there was too much traffic on the roads (notice the bleary eyes in this picture):

You’re not too far past Glasgow when you reach the gateway to the highlands, Loch Lomond, and tradition dictates that we play Runrig’s “Loch Lomond” as we drive up its banks (it’s a big loch, so it gets repeated a few times) (click on the play button to listen):

If we’re driving all night, we usually reach Loch Lomond at about three or four in the morning, and in the summer, the dawn is just starting to break at that time. With no one else around, it creates a truly magical feeling. We hit it a bit later this year, and the eastern sky was already too bright to get any good pictures from the west bank, but we tried anyway:

From this point forward, it’s Runrig all the way — there just is no other music that can soundtrack the highland landscape.

Another hour or so brings us to Tyndrum, the home of one of our favorite fill-up stations, The Green Welly Stop:

Tyndrum is also home to the public loos that once saved our life when we passed through one early morning before the Green Welly Stop was open:

At this point, we start getting into the really spectacular highland scenery, and none is more spectacular than Glen Coe, with its Three Sisters towering what seems like inches from the road:

And if you fancy that sight every morning, have a look at the location of this traditional highland house, one I always point out as we drive by as one of my dream houses:

Unfortunately, not all of the sights as we drive through the highlands are as pretty:

As almost all of the roads we travel on are only two-lane roads, you get large queues of traffic built up behind slow drivers (in the summer it’s almost always a caravan (what Americans would call a motorhome or camp trailer). This is one of the main reasons we tend to travel through the night or very early in the morning — to get as far as we can before too many cars are on the road and we lose time stuck behind inconsiderate drivers (the above view is a mild example — we have been stuck in queues of 30 or more cars, what Alasdair calls a “rolling road block”).

The roads are pretty windy, which is what prevents passing and also what causes carsickness in those prone to it — namely the members of my family. One of our favorite pastimes as we drive is pointing out the various places my brother, Micah, threw up on one memorable trip in 2006, and also trying to locate his “best friend” — the tree he leaned on for support during one especially violent episode. (Vomiting apparently features high on our memorable event list, and also on the list of things that happened on trips in 2006…)

We eventually come to Fort William, our traditional breakfast stop (i.e. the one time a year we eat at McDonald’s):

The next landmark is the Commando Memorial near Spean Bridge:

This commemorates the commando soldiers who trained in the highlands during World War II. It was a favorite stop of Alasdair when he was a kid doing these drives with his family, so we usually get out to pay our respects and stretch our legs. Then it’s back in the car and on to Eilean Donan:

You might recognise this castle from any number of movies, including one of the recent James Bond films, in which it played the part of MI6 headquarters in Scotland. We were pretty impressed with the pictures we were able to get this time — the water was like glass.

And finally, we reach the edge of the mainland and cross over the bridge to Skye:

And, of course, at this point we cue up “Skye” (click on the play button to listen):

Here’s a typical view of our drive through Skye:

It is always raining on Skye.

It takes about an hour to drive across the island, to Uig, where we catch the ferry:

We roll on to the ferry under the up-raised bow:

The crossing of “the Minch” takes a couple of hours. Alasdair spends most of his time on the top deck, taking in the view:

I tend to catch some Z’s below:

And soon, the village of Lochmaddy is in sight:

We roll off the ferry, cue up “The Stamping Ground” (click on the play button to listen):

and head for home, where, on homecoming day, the Idaho flag is always flying:

and John and Lorna have been watching for the ferry and waiting by the front door:

and a lovely cut of venison is ready for roasting in the kitchen:

and there is a peat fire glowing in the sitting room:

and we are home.