Reading this week:

• The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Niger Sources by Lieut.-Col. J.K. Trotter, R.A.
• Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama to India, 1497-1499

Having gotten all the castles out of the way, we awoke on Skye for a full day of driving around looking at various things. Our first destination was quite close to where we were staying, the illustrious Skye Weavers. Before going on these trips we like to get the associated guidebook for inspiration and research purposes. We knew that textiles were going to be a major goal of the trip, seeing as the real reason we were in the UK at all was to go to Shetland Wool Week. So I was surprised to discover that I think in all of the Lonely Planet guide to the UK (I can’t check because we abandoned it in Shetland for weight concerns) it doesn’t mention textiles once. Lots and lots of suggestions for whiskey distilleries but not a lick of advice for those that want to see fibers turned into orderly masses of fibers.

So we had to forge our own way and that had brought us to Skye Weavers. It is a small operation. We had been disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to get to the Outer Hebrides to see the weavers making Harris Tweed, but Skye Weavers scratched that same itch. They have the same sort of setup, but aren’t Harris Tweed because Skye is not the Outer Hebrides. But you knew that, as did I. What I didn’t know was how recent the whole paradigm is. To be Harris Tweed the weaver has to be operating out of their own home and only use human power to weave it. What I hadn’t realized is this is the result of the Harris Tweed Act of 1993. Like I thought it was going to be 1883 and people had been using these super sweet pedal-powered looms forever. Not so much! The pedal power came into being once people needed a way (besides using electricity) to up production and also have wider production (like wider bolts of cloth).

All this was explained to us by the very nice man at Skye Weavers who spends his entire day being interrupted from his weaving to explain this to tourists. My super amazing wife had a go at the pedals and frankly I want one of these looms. They are super neat. They don’t use a shuttle but instead have this mechanism that cuts the thread and pulls it across which lets you use the thread directly off the spool instead of winding it onto a bobbin. ALSO! The machines use punch cards, which the weavers (at Skye Weavers anyway) program themselves; they buy the punch card stock and then uh punch the cards. So that is super cool. After this whole explanation we went up to their little shop and my super amazing wife and I both bought scarves for our respective moms and sisters and a blanket for ourselves.

And from there we proceeded on a day of driving around Skye which is a great way to spend a day, you should do it too. We stopped into Portree to have lunch at Lower Deck (great), admire the boats in the harbor, and check out a few shops. Fortified, we head out to do a counter-clockwise loop of Skye’s upper peninsula, just drinking in all the gorgeous views. Among those views were our first highland cows! They are a lot less common along the main roads in Scotland than I thought they would be, lemme tell ya. I had been bothering my super amazing wife for months saying “heelin’ coos” all the time but now she is the one with multiple highland cows (fake ones) around the house. We stopped to take photos, along with everyone else that passed by. We also of course visited the Shilasdair yarn shop that focused on natural dyes using materials from Skye, where my biggest surprise is that heather makes like a golden yarn instead of purple? Chemistry man, beautiful.

Anyway from there we went to Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls where we were getting sprayed even in the parking lot. It was real windy! I think most of the water went back up on the cliff instead of down into the ocean. We tried to take a few pictures but were mostly getting splashed, but it was very fun. In slightly less wet spots though, the whole skyline out there on that edge of the world is just gorgeous, the whitecaps coming into the bay bordered by a rocky shore. Magnificent.

We also had to (i.e. I made us) pop into the tiny little Staffin Dinosaur Museum, which has rusting farm equipment outside, a stegosaurus over the door, and the first dinosaur fossil discovered in Scotland inside. A nice man ambles up when you wander in to take your entry fee, and then leaves you to admire the bevy of dinosaur tracks they have on display. They also have off on one side a variety of artifacts from Skye life, including a bog shoe. Too bad they don’t allow photographs but I did get a postcard for my brother.

From there a few more stops rounded out our day on Skye. There was Uig Pottery, where we got a cute little highland cow figurine I mentioned above. Then of course there was Gilleasbuig Ferguson Books which was a super fun little stop. They specialize in Skye/Highland/Gaelic books, though they have other interesting stuff as well (I got an Alan Villiers book The Western Ocean). The fun part is that it is a little outbuilding next to the owner’s house and feels like the place where you might dig up a real gem. A couple more little shops and though we pondered joining the many, many hikers which held up traffic a little bit on the one-lane roads my super amazing wife know ourselves and our interests. So we picked up a pizza and after returning to our little place on Skye we settled in for the night, though we did remember to admire the stars.