Muppets Take Loch Ness

Jules and I with Muppet Nessie

First things first, we (Jules, BFF and I) went to the Rocky Mountain Scottish Highland Games with one thing on our minds: to see men in kilts. I’m not ashamed to admit it. We were well rewarded in our quest and some views were better than others. The games featured many traditional Scottishisms like swords, kilts, bagpipes, dancing, caber tossing, haggis haggling, whisky tasting and, new this year, mandals wearing. Mandals: the universal sign that a man doesn’t want to have sex. Ever.





















Exhibit A: mandals (man sandals)

Our first stop was the caber tossing competition. Did you know that there is a caber circuit? Caber tossers (which really sounds dirty if you ask me) travel the country competing in caber competitions to win..? Not sure. Maybe a year’s supply of Stick-Em? When we got tired of watching burly men toss their cabers, we wandered around the festival, taking in the sights and sounds of crass commercialism mixed with pipe bands warming up in the distance.





















BFF and Jules with yet another Nessie sighting.






















If it’s swords you want, it’s swords you’ll get. If you’re 18 years of age and can prove it. The little sign says so.





















BFFs new boyfriend. He would not. stop. talking.






















A visit to the Auld Caledonian Food Emporium brought on a few surprises. Bridies, check. Fish and chips, check. Bangers and mash, alright. Hamburger, hmm? mmmkay. But the Highlander Breakfast Burrito? It’s been a while since I stepped foot in the Highlands, but I’m fairly sure there was no mention of the breakfast burrito in Burns’ Address to a Haggis.

I went with the fish and chips, much to my disappointment. These were, by far, the worst fish and chips I’ve ever had the misfortune to put in my body. Why I was thinking they’d be good, I don’t know.

There were some bright spots to the day besides a beautiful opportunity for us to make fun of other people. If snarkiness was an Olympic sport, our team would take the bronze. My bosses daughters' both dance and they each took home ribbons for 1st place in their age group. There was some bad ass flyball action from the canine corner of the games. And the pipe offs got pretty heated. However, someone let the Irish dancers in. There was also a real Irish (as opposed to fake Irish?) comedian telling jokes. Well I think he was trying to tell jokes. Can someone tell the Irish that they have their own damn festival and to piss off?

I'll leave you with this:
















Those kids sure could play. As I have no musical talent save the Triangle, and even that gets tricky, I'm always in awe of people who can play an instrument and walk at the same time.