We have the wandering bug. When we are on vacation, and especially when we are traveling by ourselves, we tend to explore places that are not always in the mainstream, and we will sometimes do so during seasons and under conditions that might not even be considered favorable for visiting. We just do it! Experiencing the unexpected brings with it an additional element of surprise, and an excitement and a joy, that at the end of the day elevates the vacation experience to a different level. Witness our recent trip to Carson City in Nevada.
We have been quite fortunate to travel far and wide in recent years. For the purposes of this blog I will focus on some lesser-known places that the wanderlust took us to during our trip to Scotland in 2016. We visited at the tail end of the winter season, but the cold weather and the occasional rain did not stop us from enjoying our adventures.
Here we are on the bed of the River Garry at Killiecrankie. The bed of the river is, for good reasons, not an advertised tourist destination. 
These pictures were taken at a remote location on the Isle of Skye where we stayed overnight. It was getting towards sunset when we walked through open fields and the countryside to a stand of trees next to a mountain ridge.
It was raining steadily when we got to Rodel at the southern tip of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
There was a storm underway by the time we got to Hushinish at the southwest corner of the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. The kids had to climb the far hill in the wind and rain, with only the sheep keeping them company, to try to get a glimpse of the Atlantic.
This is Dun Carloway Broch. It is thought to have been a fortification during roman times.
I wandered the streets of Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides early one morning before the town came to life. There is a different perspective of a place that you get when you do something like this.
We hit the northernmost tip of the Outer Herbrides where we wandered through the fields along the cliffs beside the ocean towards the Butt of Lewis lighthouse.
Back on the mainland we hiked the hill behind the town of Ullapool, the place where we were staying at for the night.
Towards the end of the trip we drove along the remote northern coastline of mainland Scotland from Durness to John O’Groats. There were many places where we were the only ones present!
You can expect the unexpected when the wanderlust hits!
This cow was observing us from atop another of the hills in the park.
A climb up yet another of the hills
found us atop a peak with a cairn.
The following picture is of us atop
Some of us feel the urge to explore any and all random hilltops that appear within our field of view. So it was that, while we were at 
And this was the view of the North Sea from atop a cliff near the 
We climbed a hill behind the town of 
We got a view of 
This is a picture of 
The picture below includes 
Finally, here is a picture of us atop a cliff at 
There is almost always a thrill when one looks out over the distance from 
while these folks are peering over the edge of a cliff overlooking the Kinkon Waterfalls in Guinea, West Africa.
This is the edge of Dam 5 on the Potomac river.
The following pictures are interpretations of the theme that may be considered a stretch, but I am presenting them anyway. In the following picture you see the clean edges of the Washington Monument and the tents on the DC mall on a July 4th evening.
This next picture, taken at 
The last picture is of a cliff at the 
Splattered Brains 