A Post Long Overdue: Up, Up, and away!

I would like to thank whoever it was that invented the train. I cannot imagine a better way to travel through Scotland. The first few hours out of Glasgow passed by beautifully, but now, it's absolutely magnificent. I almost feel as if I should shove my notebook back into my backpack to stare at the landscape that has swallowed us up.

The sun gleams every now and then from behind the misty clouds that hover just above the horizon, almost brushing the peaks powdered with snow. The hills glide down, with tufts of brown grass peeking out. Snow begins to fall, but I'm safe behind glass and steel, under my new hat and my thick-knit sweater. Suddenly, the song "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" trumpets out of my headphones. I smile.

At one of the last stops before Fort William, when a station consists of small wooden buildings huddled together, we are told to step out to use the bathroom. The conductor assures us, her words curling under her Scottish brogue and her smile disrupted by missing teeth, that the train will not leave without us. I think of times when trains waited an extra moment for a gasping traveler to hurdle in through the doors. We stumble out of our seats, backpack straps tripping us up, and as soon as we emerge, I stick my tongue out to welcome the snow. My first snow in Scotland. My friends laugh and wish for their cameras and I stand admiring the stillness, the quiet that comes with falling snow.
The train does wait.

 Lochs stretch alongside the mountains, their surfaces rippling and opaque, while the streams that sink below the tufted hills shimmer for a few moments before sinking away again. And those mountains rising above are cracked and creased with creeks and ruts running down with bare trunks and branches  folded into them. Firs and birches and conifers flash past, a nuisance when we try to capture the view. And the forests look so soft, with trees grown so close together their tops repeat jagged, green patterns.

After four or five hours, we step off the train and into Fort William. First, we'll get groceries and then we'll head off to the Ben Nevis Inn, at least a mile out of town. But that will all come later.