Do You Want to Get in the Moat?

It was going to be an exciting day. Even almost all of it was going to be spent driving, we had one stop that would make it very worthwhile: Urqhart (I'm 98% sure that is NOT how you spell it) Castle, which was positioned right over Loch Ness! Sadly, as we drove alongside the Loch on our way to the castle, I did not see the Loch Ness Monster, no matter how hard I looked. I don't even think she exists.
Urqhart Castle was not the huge, impressive fortress I had imagined. Well, it was probably huge and impressive once, before the people who lived there, threatened by invaders, blew it up. Now all that is left is stone ruins that you can climb and and take pictures of. Still, it's a fabulous location, on a hill overlooking Loch Ness.
We started by watching a short movie on the history of the castle. It was a fortress and a residence for Scottish nobility before it was destroyed 350 years ago. Many different clans and nobles lived there, until the last residents set fire to gunpowder and made the castle explode.
After the movie we walked outside and down the hill to see the ruins. Honestly, the location was more interesting than the castle, because all that was left was the outer walls. What was much cooler was the fact that it was positioned on a hill overlooking Loch Ness. I would have loved to live in such a beautiful place.
We weren't there for very long before we decided to leave, but on our way out, Pa decided to take Grandma and my picture. He got a nice one of us with the castle in the background, and then he asked:
"Do you want to get in the moat?"
We stood there for a moment, not knowing what he was talking about. Then it hit us: He wanted us to stand in the bottom of the dried-up moat so that he could take our picture.
"No!" We cried simeltaneously.
"There's a sign right there that says 'Do not leave path'!" I protested.
"All right! All right!" Pa said, and proceeded to step over the sign and wander towards the moat.
I had warned him. If he fell in, I sure wouldn't be helping him.
We drove for about ten million hours after that, on the lookout for a little town called Lockerbie. We were going to be staying at an ancient hotel there, which, unfortunately, did not have an address. This confused Roz, and she wasn't able to get to the hotel. It was 21:30 (UK goes by a 24 hr clock. 21:30 means 9:30) by the time we got our luggage up to our room and set out into downtown for dinner. By then, all the restaurants were closed except for the takeouts. Pa went to one store to get fish and chips while Grandma and I wandered into another to order pizza. It was empty except for us and the two Spanish guys behind the counter, and they were taking forever to get our pizza. It was dark and scary in there, and nobody was on the street to save us if one of them emerged from the kitchen with a butcher knife. That is, until a group of college guys came bursting in on a quest for kebabs. I figured they would keep us from being murdered.
That night was our last in Scotland. The next day we would be getting up early and going to Stonehenge, and then arriving at our final destination of London in the afternoon. Of course, that was assuming we didn't wind up with the car flipped over in a ditch first!
Love,
Kiera