(Author's note: there's probably going to be a lot of puns on the fact that the name of the town I eventually visited during this drive was "Killin". Be forewarned.) This whole trip was pretty much a spur of the moment idea. I'd heard the area around Loch Tay was pretty beautiful, so I figured I'd check it out. It was about a two or three hour drive out there, so I figured I'd head out to Loch Tay and, if I couldn't find anyplace else, make it back to Fundee in time to get a beer at the casino (which is a bit of a -joke - there's ALWAYS time to get a beer at the casino, since they're open 24 hours).

I hopped into the trusty Fritzmobile and made my way out to the open road. The first dilemma you face when leaving Dundee, other than asking why you were in Dundee in the first place, is whether to take the Perth road or not to get to the A9,which is the main highway that runs through the Highlands and up to Inverness. The Dunkeld way is nicer, but the roads aren't as good as going through Perth.

This time, I decided to pursue the Dunkeld option because I wanted to stop and have a beer at the "Best Beer Garden in Scotland" (as determined by yours truly). I'm not going to elaborate on the garden since that will be given a post all of its own.

After the Dunkeld stop, the drive was just a few short miles down the A9 to the Aberfeldy turn off. At this point, the A9 is really wide and has two lanes on each side (a "dual carriageway" as they say over there) and was a pleasure to drive. I took the Aberfeldy exit and continued along a winding road next to the silv'ry Tay.

I stopped when I saw the falls in the picture. Little did I know HOW MANY falls I was going to be seeing over the course of the next twenty four hours.

The falls look beautiful, don't they? Makes you want to grab a cold one and sit right in the middle of a refreshing stream of water straight down from the Highlands, doesn't it? Go right ahead and jump in! And then you'll be dead from pneumonia in about 5 minutes. That water is COOOOOLD. That's the problem with Scotland - so many beautiful lochs, streams and waterfalls, but YOU CAN'T GO IN because you'll freeze your nuts off. Alas. I stopped for a quick bite to eat in Aberfeldy, home of the famous Birks of Aberfeldy, as immortalized by Scotland's second greatest poet, Robert Burns (Here's the greatest, in case you couldn't figure it out).

As you can see, I took a picture of another waterfall. I was still excited by seeing gentle mountain streams. How naive I was.

Now, here I have to make a confession, because I didn't actually get to the famous spot where Robert Burns sat and wrote "The Birks of Aberfeldy." Come on - it was like a mile hike away! Not that I minded walking a mile, but I didn't want to lose any more daylight by killin' time going to see a bunch of trees!

The other ongoing feature of this trip, other than the waterfalls, was castles. Immediately after I left Aberfeldy, I saw a sign for a castle and pulled over for a photo op.

There was a wedding about to take place at the castle, so it was closed. But, just to make sure, I went up and knocked on the comically large doorknobs.

But that's another thing about Scotland, you'll just be driving around and run into a 500 year old castle.

But the biggest surprise was waiting for me just around the bend.

For you see, I was about to discover something that many had heard about but few had experienced, yes, my friends, I stumbled upon a town so lifeless, so boring, and just downright unexciting that it was given the name, "Dull."

The opportunity was too good to pass up, so I steered off the road and went to experience everything that Dull had to offer.

Which, in fact, wasn't that much. I don't know if I ever even drove through Dull, since there wasn't a sign for the village proper.

So, if I drove through Dull, it was a pretty forgettable collection of farmhouses.

In other words, pretty dull.

(The Guardian ran a story about Dull just a few weeks after I was here. I think I might have to sue.)

The trip to Killin will continue with the next post!

First of all, I don't have any of my own pictures for this particular tale, so you'll have to bear with my "re-enactment" photos. On the spur of the moment, I decided to visit Stirling Castle in Central Scotland. I was on my way to Edinburgh and, the way the rail system works there, you can more or less hop off the trains and get back on as long as you're going in the same direction. Stirling is more or less on the way from Fundee to Edinburgh, so I decided to take a couple of hours to see the castle.

As I said, this was a spur of the moment trip, so I didn't do a whole lot of background research. I quickly took a look at a map to make sure that the castle was more or less close to the train station and set off on my merry way.

I stepped off the train on a bit of a blustery day (RAIN?!! In Scotland?!! No way!) and took a look around - I could see the big hill (see the picture) and I knew that the castle was on top of it, so I headed off.

The problem came in trying to figure out how to get UP the hill. I knew the castle was up there. I just couldn't SEE it. So I kept following the line of the hill around.

After about twenty minutes of walking, I figured I probably wasn't headed in the right direction. Not unless they built Stirling Castle right next to a roundabout and a Tesco shopping lot. I knew this probably wasn't the right way to the castle, yet the hill was right above me.

So I decided to do the one thing I know best - stop at a pub, have a beer and ask a local for directions.

Thanks to the miracle of Google Street View, I can provide you a picture of the exact pub!

The sky isn't quite as blustery as it was that windy day in Stirling, but I think this picture shows you what I'm talking about. That's the hill in the background. SOMEWHERE on that hill is a castle. A BIG F**KING CASTLE, so you'd think you'd be able to see it from the street, right?

My thoughts exactly. Which is why I stopped at this particular pub. If anyone knew where Stirling Castle was, people in this pub would.

I opened the door and walked in. The horse races were on and all the gentlemen in the room had their eyes glued to the set. Not being the type to just stop and ask for directions and then go about my way, I decided to stop for a pint with these good gentlemen. A couple of them gave glances my way when I walked in, but nothing to give me anything to worry about. I ordered my pint and headed into the men's room to return the beer that I had rented in the Dundee Train Station (home of the smallest railway bar in the UK).

While I was making my business in the bathroom, I heard a voice call out to me from the bathroom stall....

"Hey mate, you got a fivver?"

I zipped up, not quite understanding what I just heard.

"A fivver, c'mon mate!"

I looked over to the stall, where an older, disheveled man with a wild and craggy beard was eyeballing me. I ran through the options in my mind of what he wanted a five pound note from me in the bathroom for, but none of them were coming up any good. Just then, the bathroom door opened and ANOTHER disheveled man entered the bathroom. He greeted bathroom stall man like he was a long lost war buddy and immediately ran into the stall.

Then, the door slammed shut behind them.

THEN I heard the sounds of....snorting. Long, drawn out snorting. Then a giggle. Then, more snorting.

I quickly left the bathroom and returned to my pint at the bar. Shortly afterwards, the two men emerged from the bathroom and had a quick word with some other friends at the bar. Then, two more gentlemen left from the bar and proceeded to "head for the 'loo" as they say in those parts.

I now noticed that the original two gentlemen from the bathroom were getting very excited about the horse race. I further noticed that THE WHOLE BAR was getting excited about the horse race. Furthermore, some of the men weren't careful about cleaning up after their bathroom adventures and there were several beards about the bar that had a faint white dusting about the nostrils.

It was kind of like that scene in Scarface, but instead of Al Pacino shooting up a room full of cops, I was in a room full of disheveled Scotsmen watching a horse race at 3 in the afternoon.

I KNOW it was 3 because the castle closed at 5PM and I wanted to get there and give myself a couple of hours to explore.

And now time was running late - and this coked up bunch of Bellhaven swilling Jimmies were my best best to get to Stirling Castle before they slammed the gate.

So I turned to one of the "excited" gentlemen and asked him how to get to the castle.

"Oh, aye, the castle is right above ye! You just gotta go by the beheading stone! It's right there, aye!"

At the mention of the Beheading Stone, the rest of the bar got even MORE excited. This mention even eclipsed the action on the turf blaring from the TVs. One of my new found friends even dragged me outside to the front of the pub to show me where exactly the beheading stone was (see picture).

Grateful to be pointed in the right direction and on the road again, I resisted their good natured attempts to purchase another beverage. For, if nothing else, you can't say the Scots aren't friendly.

I quickly drained my pint and said goodbye to my new friends.

After all, I had a castle and a beheading stone to get to!