Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

“woke” is the new caravan.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

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On The Road – way2blue – Outer Hebrides

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The sand and sky in the first photo are amazing, and the sky in the next two photos, just outstanding.  So calming and beautiful.  Plus we get sheep!  ~WaterGirl

way2blue

I visited the Outer Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland last July. Seems a lifetime ago. My family name originates from that part of the world and I was curious to see the landscapes of my ancestors. Of course the islands are quite different now. In part because the Vikings cut down most of the forests a thousand years ago and they never recovered.

Once I adjusted to the stark vistas of peat, lochs, and rock (so different from my home of oak woodlands & redwood groves), it became quite appealing to see the sweep of the land and sky. But the most evocative sight was the abandoned villages. There’d be a village marked on the map, but when you drove through found maybe a cluster of empty stone buildings. The isles and crofts never recovered from the clearances of the mid 1700s. (I can trace my father’s lineage back to Philadelphia, 1750.)

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES 7
ISLE OF SOUTH UIST

Beach and big sky on west coast of the Isle of South Uist.

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES 6
ISLE OF BENBECULA

I enjoy being in the northern latitudes in June or July for the amazing sunsets that morph a few hours later into sunrises. This is a view from our cottage near Griminish at 11 PM, with a glimpse of the never ending twilight. The owner of the cottage has the same family name (slightly different spelling), and encouraged me to visit the historical museum on South Uist and a cemetery or two. The museum had a chart showing my ancient lineage from ~1000, starting with the Norse-Gaelic Somerled to ~1350 when the last clann patriarch was assassinated (a bug in the clann system).

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES 5
ISLE OF LEWIS

View toward the loch from our farm stay in the village of Tolsta Chaolais at 1130 PM, again showing the amazing twilight. The roads in the Outer Hebrides are mainly single track with pull outs every kilometer or so. You develop a rhythm with oncoming traffic after a while as to who yields and who drives on; learning quickly the message of flashing headlights…

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES 4
ISLE OF LEWIS

Lobster traps at the Port of Ness, a historical fishing port and the location of ‘The Great Drowning’ (Am Bathadh Mor) in December 1862 when 5 fishing boats sank in a gale, drowning 30 crew, leaving 24 widows and their children [“A national appeal raised £1,500 for the fishermen’s families, however, shortly after the donations were distributed the money was taken away as rent for the crofts they lived on”; www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-20766930].

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES 3
ISLE OF LEWIS

Torn machair (a fragile soil which forms when sand is blown onto peat moorland) near the restored Gearrannan Blackstone Village.

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES 2
ISLE OF LEWIS

Sheep being shorn with clippers, adjacent to the blackhouse village. (Also near Carloway Mill where warp threads are woven on looms from the late 1800s, then given local crofters who weave the weft threads to produce Harris Tweed.) You can watch Harris Tweed being woven on a traditional loom in the village.

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES 1
ISLE OF LEWIS

Sheep being shorn with clippers, adjacent to the blackhouse village with a couple sheep dogs standing by in case a sheep gets a crazy idea… (We took a walk with the farm’s sheep dog one day, and he would get in these stare-downs with grazing sheep, which would spook them. When we mentioned this to the farmer he said, ‘yep, that way his dog has plausible deniability about harassing the sheep.’)

On The Road - way2blue - OUTER HEBRIDES
ISLE OF LEWIS

Shorn sheep after being tagged.

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  5. 5.

    tom

    I’ve been to the islands of Iona, Mull, and Staffa, and can’t wait to return to Scotland and the Hebrides. A gorgeous part of the world.

  6. 6.

    gkoutnik

    Wow again.  Thanks.  I love that kind of desolate grandeur, and you photograph it very well.  Took the family on an ‘ancestor tour’ through England (including The Tower) and we all talk about it to this day.  So glad you had the chance to do that.  Thanks again!

  9. 9.

    Albatrossity

    Thanks for these; that is a wonderful and evocative landscape.

    Coincidentally I am currently working on a series of pics from a trip to the same part of the world in 2008, and even more coincidentally I also was interested in seeing the land of my ancestors. My great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland about a century after your relative, and we were able to locate the abandoned house and barn on the farm that he grew up on. That series should start on Mondays in a couple of weeks!

  11. 11.

    arrieve

    What a wonderful way to wake up this morning. Scotland is one of the most magical places I’ve ever been, and I’ve been to Skye but not the Outer Hebrides. Top of the list for when travel is possible again…..

    Thanks for sharing your wonderful pictures.

  12. 12.

    Zinsky

    Wow seems to be the right expletive here….  The sky really does go on forever in that magical place.  I love the expansive desolation of places like this – it really makes you think about how very small we are in this great universe.  Thanks so much for sharing!

  13. 13.

    cope

    Thank you for the pictures.  The landscape resonates with my own Scots/Irish roots and the fact that I spent four summers in the far north of Scotland.  Alas, I never made it to the islands further north.

    As for the sheep, the last summer I was there, 1978, I worked with a shearing team who also used the hand clippers, not the electric ones.  Being inexperienced, my job was to catch individual sheep (Scottish blackface sheep as in your pics, I believe) in the fank (pen) and drag them out to the guys with the skill to do the shearing.  They let my try my hand at shearing one but the results were slow and blood specked and I gladly returned to my role of sheep catcher.

    Fun fact: because of the lanolin in the wool, after a day of catching and hauling sheep by the fleece, my hands were remarkably soft and smooth.

    Another side gig that summer (it was a languid summer of itinerant part-time jobs including barkeep and petrol pumper) was netting salmon out of sea lochs, a highly illegal endeavor (the English landlords would have chucked us in stir).  My partner in crime and I would row out as it got what passes for dark in July and August up there and string a couple of nets.  The next day at dawn, we would row back out and haul the nets and fish in.  The fish we sold to local hotels and B&Bs for beer money.  Our daytime wages shearing sheep went for food and petrol.

    Thanks again so much for stirring all these memories of mine.  That was the last wild and free summer of my life as two summers later, I would find myself married and with a child and an actual stable career.

  14. 14.

    bluefoot

    These photos are beautiful. I was supposed to be in Scotland for vacation this August, but the pandemic got in the way of that. I am hoping that some time next year other countries will allow Americans in…

  18. 18.

    Miss Bianca

    I visited the Outer Hebrides in 1988 – in September, so missed the long long summer evenings – have never forgotten it. Thanks for the photos!

  19. 19.

    J R in WV

    Wife’s fave Irish band is Black 47, who are working class socialists.

    Highly recommended, used to play in NYC bar scene, very popular with Irish union members! Songs about putting Company managers in their proper place, which I will leave to your imagination.

    Great photo set, such empty space since the Lairds put the people off their land. Somehow this comment loaded before I was thru typing… go figure.

  21. 21.

    Origuy

    @tom: I think I took the same tour. Ferry to Mull from Oban, bus across Mull to Finnaphort, small boat to Staffa, a few hours there, then a boat takes you to Iona, the ferry back to Oban. A really nice day. I got a great picture of Fingal’s Cave on Staffa.

    Great pictures. I have a friend who grew up on Lewis. That’s on my bucket list.

  23. 23.

    cckids

    How lovely, thank you! Scotland and Ireland are at the top of my fingers-crossed *someday* list.

    I’m heading out today for a (somewhat) backcountry camping trip to the Olympic National Forest. Please FSM no fires, for much bigger reasons than my little vacation.

  24. 24.

    TEL

    Lovely pictures! I visited Scotland years ago, but didn’t go further north than Inverness. Even so, these pictures are bringing back memories of that trip!

  25. 25.

    way2blue

    @Albatrossity: I look forward to seeing your photo essay—as usual.  N.B., I have photos from Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands I hope to send to WaterGirl someday soon…

  26. 26.

    way2blue

    @arrieve: For those thinking of visiting the Outer Hebrides, and who also like detective stories, I recommend reading the Lewis Trilogy by Peter May ahead of time [The Blackhouse, 2011; The Lewis Man, 2011; The Chessmen, 2012].  Lots of history woven into his stories and wonderful descriptions of the landscape.

  28. 28.

    way2blue

    @kh: Perfect.  Thanks.

    I was fortunate to hear a fiddle & bass duo at a house concert before the pandemic shut things down.  The fiddle player is from the Fraser clan near Inverness, and shared a hilarious story about busloads of Outlander fans driving through the neighborhood.

    Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas  [alasdairandnatalie.com/listen]

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