And the Journey Begins
Here's our tour leader, Ed Miller, folk musician from Edinburgh now living in Austin, Texas; and Beverly Poplin, who helped Ed with many of the pre-trip arrangements.  You can see why we quickly tagged her "wee Bevie" (which is also Scottish for "a small beverage"!)
The brown growth on the hillside is heather; unfortunately, the beautiful white or purple flowers don't bloom until August.  This is along the Innerleithen Water, a small river in the Scottish Border country.  What appears to be a ruin in the foreground is actually a modern sheep pen.	I was lucky to get an almost perfect reflection picture here at the small St. Mary's Loch on the Innerleithen Water.  The weather was like this the entire two weeks of the group tour, although I did get a little rain during my last week of solo touring in the islands.
This is a model of how Jedburgh Abbey might have looked when it was operating as such (rather than as a ruin, a museum and a tourist attraction).	And this is Jedburgh Abbey today.
Although hard to read in this photo, the sign across the shop (to the right of the road, across from the church) says, "Last Shop in Scotland".  Down that highway (yes, that's a Scottish highway) a few more miles brings you to England.  This photo was taken from Jedburgh Abbey.	Our tour leader, Ed Miller, a musician himself, had arranged for several of his musician friends to come along and entertain us at various spots on the tour.  This is Iain Fraser on the fiddle, and Ian Lowthian on the accordion (yes, they spell their names differently), with Ed on the guitar.
One doesn't normally think of "Scotland" and "volcano" at the same time; however, several geological eons ago Scotland was the site of much volcanic activity.  One extinct volcano is Arthur's Seat, in the heart of Edinburgh itself, which is named for the legendary King Arthur of Britain.  This view of Edinburgh skyline, including the Castle at the center, is taken from about halfway up Arthur's Seat.