So after Dad’s rousing accordion performance last night, we found that today unfolded with yet again two of his favorite things: whisky and trains. He’s not named Thompson for nothing. I’d tried to buy tickets months ago via email for the steam train ride that started outside our little stone hotel in Boat of Garten. I was all worried we wouldn’t be able to get tickets, and Mom was out there dutifully at 9 a.m. to purchase them. Well, there was a rush on tickets 7 minutes before the  train left and we and one other Scottish family queued up to purchase tickets for the all-volunteer-run train. The train was adorable, looking just like one of my father’s toy trains at home. We chugged down the tracks for 15 minutes, watched the engine steam to the back of the train, and then it chugged us back to Boat of Garten for 15 minutes. Then we did a similar jaunt to the north and back. Will had a chance to sit in the engine and talk to the train buff running it. “Do you know how this works?” he asked Will. “No, but my grandpa knows a lot about trains.”

We then checked out of our hotel, where the receptionist — with a suspiciously familiar accent — told us she was a native Oregonian, grew up in NW Portland and was an art history major at U of O. And we thought we were far in the wilds of Scotland! She came to Edinburgh to study art and is spending her summer working at the hotel, in a landscape she said reminds her of home. It is lovely — lush green fields filling the strath or wide valley of the River Spey, dotted with lamb, sheep and goats and the occasional stone fence.

We then, in an occasionally driving rain, drove up a lovely narrow winding road to the tiny town of Craigelaiche, where we ate at a tiny hotel that proclaimed it had an outlet in Tokyo. No explanation was forthcoming, despite my entreaties. We then visited the Holy Grail — the Glenfiddich Distillery — which is No. 1, my father’s favorite whisky, and is No.2, apparently a devotion he acquired when I was 18 years old and we were up heli-skiing in Canada. I won’t estimate either how many years ago that was, nor how many bottles have been consumed since then. But it was a fascinating tour, even for Will. Perhaps the best part was when Dad discovered the malt is held in vats made of Douglas Fir — alas, from Canada, but still, Doug Fir. Dad wondered if they might buy some fir from him so he could have his own vat made…

Then on to Inverness, near Loch Ness. Our hotel, part of which dates back to 1621, looks out on the Moray Firth, and Will is convinced he saw a mysterious monster in the water on our drive in. More to come tomorrow. We take a boat trip on Loch Ness tomorrow, as well as visit the Cawdor Castle of Shakepeare’s Macbeth fame. Can’t wait.

Finally, a note on the people we’ve met. Everyone is so gracious and friendly. I chatted with the fiddler last night, a farmer struggling to make it. The family today on the train — who’d been coming to ride the train every summer for  years — were our personal tour guides. Last night on our way to our room, we struck up a long conversation with cattle farmers from Aberdeen. Everywhere, people are so welcoming and relaxed. It really is a special place.

One final quip for the day: I dragged Will out of bed just before 9 a.m. and as I dressed the groggy wee fellow, I said, “Look nice clean pants.” “No,” he quipped. “They’re not Queen pants, they’re King pants.”