Raina and Mama's Road Trip

Raina and I went to Salado, TX for a mini vacation.  We stayed in a hotel for 2 nights and went to a Scottish Gathering.  We had a GREAT weekend!

This is the ruins of Salado College, which was built in the 1850s, but burned down twice and was too unstable to rebuild.  It is now used as a stage.  This was where the opening ceremony was.

Raina, waiting for the ceremony.

Hello, blurry. Each clan walked in with a torch as part of the ceremony.

After the ceremony, we had dinner in bed and watched cartoons!

On Saturday, we went to the festival itself.  Raina was obsessed with the highland dancers.  We watched them 4 times.  I bought her a little kilt and she tried the dancing for herself.

Each of the clans had a tent to you could study your ancestry a bit.  The Russells belong to the Comyn/Cumming clan, and they were at the ceremonies but they didn't have a tent.

Raina's favorite dancers.

Looking at suncatchers.  There were a lot of little booths to shop at.

 Listening to music and having a snack.

 Raina ponders the absurdity of a dog in a kilt.

Riana points out the tartan for the Comyn clan.

She insisted I take her picture on the step of the "Wee Scots Shop".

Salado is the cutest little town ever.  Here is a fence made from bicycles.

The parade:

 When it ended it was very quiet, and Raina shouted, "Where'd the bagpipes go?!"

We went to a little creek in town.

It was fed by underground springs.  Here is the water just coming up from the ground.

In the evening we went to the Tattoo (like a perfornace of military bands) and they had some other musicians/singers too.  There was a high school pipes and drums band that was great, and some of the kids were smaller than their bagpipes!

Raina is very into bagpipes.

Another slacker dinner in bed!  This time we watched storage wars.  She doesn't watch regular tv at all, so she was entertained by the commercials.

Crash!  She slept so well, she fell out of bed at one point and didn't even wake up.  I woke up to a loud THUNK and then she was snoring on the floor!

We had a great little weekend!  I think we will go back next year and stat at a little inn in Salado (instead of the city of Belton, 8 mi. away) because the town is SO CUTE.  Little shops everywhere with lanterns hanging outside and Christmas lights :-)