Highland Games

So we decided that of all the things we must do while we were in Scotland, one of them must be the highland games. The games were in Braemar, which is about 2 hours away from our place. We carpooled with our close friends the Eilers and the Merricks, and had an all around good time.

What is great about the highland games, other than the throwing of large logs, is that while the games are pretty big (20,000 in attendance) it is still really laid back. It kind of has the feel of a really large and well run family reunion.

So the first pic here is of the large pipe band that came in at the end of the games. There were 11 pipe bands at the games, and they would periodically march in. There was also highland dancers non-stop...all highland dancing, all the time.

Here is the caber toss. What can you say about this event other than that it is completely awesome?


There was also some pretty serious tug of war. These guys had it down to a science...pretty impressive actually.
Ah yes, and here is the queen. That's right, the queen showed up the highland games in her sweet Bentley (interesting that she went German instead of say...oh, I don't know, Land Rover or something). When she came in some guy sang the national anthem "God Save the Queen" which has to be odd to hear if you are, in fact, the queen.
So, all in all it was a very fun day. The queen won the Caber Toss and I was voted best highland dancer...who knew?