I've seen many types of bodies of water, but Loch Lomond was my first time experiencing a loch. We parked at the Duck Bay Marina and Hotel, where Dan had stayed on his previous trip to Loch Lomond.

The marina is located just behind the hotel and we walked around the water as the sun was starting to set. We visited on a rainy day and the normally glass-smooth water had millions of little ripples.

I loved the small pier with its mini boats and fishing stick-men statues.

There was no one else at the pier and it was completely serene. We silently walked around snapping pictures, listening to birds and feeling the rain hit our skin. It was beautiful.

We ate in the Duck Bay Hotel's Restaurant for dinner. It's an enormous restaurant and for the first half of our meal, we were the only patrons. We were given a prime spot next to a large glass window that overlook the loch.

The entire restaurant is washed in gold. The gold was toned down during a remodel, because Dan has a big impression of the ceiling also being gold, which was still the case in one of the halls that we walked through. I can't even imagine so much gold. Less is often more!

We both ordered fish based dishes for dinner. Dan had a Salmon Caesar Salad and I ordered the Fisherman's Pie, a house specialty.

I ate every single bite of my Fisherman's Pie. It was creamy and decadent. I really enjoyed the accompanying mixed vegetables. One thing that I noticed during our trip was the lack of vegetables as a side-dish at many of the restaurants. It seems that fries or chips are considered a suitable vegetable substitute. My body was craving vegetables during the entire trip!

The next morning, we stopped to take a few last pictures of Loch Lomond. We parked near a bike trail and walked down a path to the edge of the water.

Loch Lomond is a magical place.

We left our hotel in England's Lake District early in the morning. The atmosphere was thick with fog as we started to make our way towards Scotland.

Our drive took us right through the town of Lockerbie, Scotland. I knew that Lockerbie was famous for a plane crash, but it happened when I was ten years old and I didn't remember the specifics.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 crashed in the town of Lockerbie when a terrorist planted bomb exploded on the plane. Two hundred and seventy people died, included eleven on the ground in the town. In addition to the fatalities, Lockerbie sustained a lot of damage, including a huge crater in the town. It still remains both the UK's deadliest air disaster and terrorism incident.

We had not planned on stopping in Lockerbie, but when we realized that we were driving through it, we decided to pull off to see if we could find a memorial. As soon as we exited the freeway, we saw signs leading us to the memorial that was located inside of Dryfesdale Cemetery.

We visited on a quiet Monday morning, where we were among only a few visitors. The cemetery is beautiful and old, with many of the markers indicating war service.

The Lockerbie Air Disaster Memorial is located in the center of the cemetery, surrounded by colorful flowers. The flowers in the memorial were the only splash of color in an otherwise, very grey cemetery. We walked around and took a moment to reflect at each grave or memorial marker. A sobering realization was that many of the people who were killed were younger than us. There was a group of thirty-five college students from Syracuse University returning home to New York.

After a somber morning in the cemetery, we continued on the road towards our evening stop in Loch Lomond. In the countryside we saw something unusual, ginger sheep! We saw a lot of sheep on our UK trip, but this was the only time that we saw ginger ones.

And clearly, the saw us too!

UK August-October 2013- Loch Lomond and Duck Bay

UK August-October 2013- Lockerbie Memorial