Travel – Page 18 – A Traveling Fool

June 24, 2018

Shakespeare & Scenery

In 2007, a group of us from our church went out to Ashland, Oregon to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Greta, the wife of our head pastor at the time, was an actress and in two of the plays out there that year. She has since been in numerous productions in the Minneapolis/St Paul area mainly at the Penumbra and Guthrie Theatres. I just recently saw her in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” at the Guthrie.

There were about eight of us who flew from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City and then to Medford, Oregon. One of our group had flown out a day earlier, rented a car, and came to pick up about half the group. Another group member picked up a rental car at the airport and drove the remainder of the group into Ashland.

The hotel had been built in 1914 and was quite quaint with bathrooms down the hall and old furniture in the rooms. It had character. My roommate, Nancy, and I had a larger room with a lounge area, a dining table and chairs, and a small kitchen with a tiny fridge. I was at the tail end of six months of pumping chemicals into my body after having been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and having had some surgery to combat it. The intravenous liquid needed to be refrigerated. I had carried it onboard both planes in a cooler compartment at one end of my carry-on.

After having a very nice dinner at a nearby restaurant, the rest of the group went to a concert in the park. But my energy was very low, so I stayed back at the hotel, read a little bit and went to bed. I was definitely too ill to have gone. But I was there and determined to try not to be a party pooper for the whole trip.

We started the next day with a backstage tour of the three theatres. Two are indoor theatres and the third is an Elizabethan-style outdoor theatre. Normally a quick walker despite my short height, this time I was struggling somewhat unsuccessfully to keep up. After the tour, we met up with Greta near one of the theatres and all went out to Crater Lake together.

Wow! Crater Lake! Absolutely gorgeous! After lunch at the lodge, we drove the Rim Road slowly around the lake, stopping several times along the way for photos. The lake was formed by the caldera of a volcano roughly 7,000 or so years ago and is the deepest lake in the U.S. The water is very clear and very blue. It is also up in the mountains and can have snow for most of the year. The mountains around it usually do. We were there in July and needed warm jackets up by the lake.

We timed our trip so we would get Greta back in town with plenty of time for her to have dinner and relax before her performance that evening. She was in “Gem of the Ocean” by August Wilson. Greta was playing Aunt Ester who claimed to be 285 years old and was a soul cleanser. By the end of the play, I wasn’t really doubting any of that.

The next day was Greta’s day off. So we all went down into California to Crescent City and then up the coast to Brookings, Oregon, which was having their annual kite festival that weekend. We had lunch in a restaurant that overlooked the ocean and then headed back down the coast into California to see the Redwoods. We stopped at a place that had cable car rides up through the trees. So far, that is the only trip I have ever taken where I was able to get up close and personal with those enormous redwoods.

On Sunday, Greta took us to the church she was attending while out in Oregon. They had a lovely outdoor service in a beautiful setting. For our afternoon excursion, we chose to visit the town of Jacksonville, Oregon. The entire historic district is on the National Historic Register as an authentic western town. We took a trolley tour around the town, which included some interesting, and often funny, commentary.

We got back to town in time to have a nice, leisurely dinner at a seafood restaurant before seeing Greta in “The Tempest” at the outdoor Elizabethan Theatre. We were fortunate to have wonderful weather all day and evening. Since the only female character Shakespeare wrote for the play is Miranda, Greta played a role usually played by men. Since she had the very complicated lead role in “Gem of the Ocean”, she was cast in a less demanding role in “The Tempest”. The woman has talent and did a beautiful job in both roles (and indeed in every role I have ever seen her).

The next day we traveled back towards Minneapolis. I say “towards” because we didn’t quite make it. Our flight from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis was delayed, and then canceled. Then we were supposed to go on another plane, which was eventually canceled (after a lot of fooling around – we’ll be going in an hour – we’re delayed for another two hours – etcetera). Finally, after 11 pm, we were told that we wouldn’t be going anywhere that night, got booked on other flights for the following day, and given taxi, hotel and dinner vouchers.

Dinner vouchers only work when there is someplace open to use them. We didn’t reach our hotel until past midnight and it was in the middle of nowhere, so no dinner for us. The taxi was getting us the next morning at 5am, so not much time to sleep either. I was relieved that the hotel room had a fridge for my meds. Too bad the airline hadn’t conceded defeat early enough for us to have a nice meal and get some rest before returning to the airport where our breakfast came out of vending machines. I seem to remember jumping into bed shortly after arriving home. My dog joined me.

Crater Lake. The island is called the “Pirate Ship”.

Along the coast of far northern California

June 17, 2018

The Nostalgia Tour – Part Two

During our 2005 family trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota, the morning after our trip to Hot Springs we started our day at Ken’s Minerals, which Mom and I always visited on every trip we made. It is near the town of Custer. Mom had a pretty sizeable collection of rings that she purchased there over the years. On this visit, I bought a Nativity set made from rose quartz, a powder horn (for an old musket), and an arrowhead. When I mentioned that I collect old weapons, Ken showed me his antique flint lock rifle.

The Gordon Stockade (which was being restored in 2005) was created shortly after General Custer’s men discovered gold in French Creek and the Black Hills were flooded with prospectors. The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota. The US Government wanted to know what was there, so they sent General Armstrong Custer and several soldiers into the Hills to find out. They camped out near what is the present day town of Custer. In fact, from the photos, the camp looks like it could have been approximately where Ken’s Minerals is now.

While there, they discovered gold. The US wanted to buy the Hills from the Lakota, but the Lakota said, “No way”. So the government just took it anyway. The Pine Ridge Reservation was eventually set up near the Black Hills on the edge of the Badlands. The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 took place by the Wounded Knee Creek in an area of the Badlands.

Close to the stockade is Lower French Creek Road. Taking that road, we came upon a monument to the first white woman to enter the Blacks Hills (in 1874). We took a fork in the road there which went by a log schoolhouse, which was the first public school in the Dakota Territory. This was the road to the cabin that a childhood friend of Mom and her sister owned and where Mom and I stayed on several prior trips. This road eventually leads to the cabin that Grandpa and his sister, Teena, owned along French Creek.

When we arrived at the cabin, the new owners were there and in the middle of remodeling the place. They were kind enough to invite us inside and show us around. I was so happy to be able to see inside of it before it was entirely different than it had been when Mom was a child. The owners at that time were also from Hot Springs. Once again, Scott and I videoed Mom outside of the cabin as she told her stories about it.

For lunch we went to the Sylvan Lake Resort. After lunch we walked around by the lake a bit. We came across a woman who had a Scottie, which is the same type of dog that Mom and her family had when Mom was a child and they lived in the Black Hills. From Sylvan Lake we took the Needles Highway back to the State Game Lodge. Along the Needles Highway, several of the rock formations resemble needles. There is one that is called the Eye of the Needle and that is what it resembles.

Back at the State Game Lodge, Scott had signed us up for the Buffalo Jeep Safari. This is a ride in a large jeep off road. It goes to some scenic places not served by roads and also drives amongst the bison herd.

The ranger who was taking us out said that the bison respect what is bigger than they are. So a large jeep doesn’t get bothered. A person (or even two) on a motorcycle or a person walking around do not fit in the category of “bigger than they are”. Every year there are a certain amount of deaths caused by somebody getting out of their cars and getting too close or someone on a motorcycle who thinks that the bison should be intimidated.

On a later trip to the Black Hills, some of us went up the hill behind the State Game Lodge to take a hike. We heard this loud crashing sound below and ahead of us while on the trail. We froze and waited to see what it was. It was a couple of male bison who crossed the trail about twenty five feet or so in front of us. They didn’t pay any attention to us at all. Likely didn’t notice us. We didn’t move an inch until they had gone their merry way and we were certain no more were following them. Then we turned around and went back down to the Game Lodge. Enough excitement for that walk.

On the Buffalo Jeep Safari, we were joined by a couple other jeeps from the State Game Lodge. We saw more pronghorn antelope, some white tail deer, some mule deer, and some elk in addition to a couple different bison herds. We then joined the other jeeps and some wagons from Bluebell Lodge, taking families with children on hayrides, at a remote location in Parker Canyon for a chuck wagon dinner. Western music and a comedian emcee accompanied our western dinner.

When we got back to the Game Lodge, six large, male bison where hanging out by the parking lot. They didn’t seem to be too concerned about us getting out of the jeeps and into our cars. They were far enough away that they obviously didn’t consider us to be a threat. There were a couple more hanging out near our cabins again.

The next morning, it was like a bison convention on the lawn between the cabins and the lodge. We piled into the van to go to breakfast at the lodge and then headed for Crazy Horse after breakfast. The difference in size between Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore is best illustrated by the fact that all four faces on Mount Rushmore would fit on Crazy Horse’s cheek. The project, which is very controversial to the Lakota, including some of Crazy Horse’s descendants, is funded by a private fund and the money brought in by tourism to the site. Once completed it will be the largest sculpture in the world.

Our next adventure was to drive up to Deadwood. Mom and I had been there many years before to visit the nearby Homestake Mine. This was the largest and deepest gold mine in North America. George Hearst (father of William Randolph Hearst) had been one of the owners. On that earlier trip, we had then gone into Deadwood to take a look at the town and the graves of Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. The town was quite sleepy and rundown in those days. But that was before the film “Dances with Wolves”, Kevin Costner, and the TV series “Deadwood”. What a difference! This time there was loads of noise, tons of casinos, places to eat and lots and lots of people. In fact, we had some difficulty finding a place to park.

My initial reaction was that the wild west authenticity was gone. But the town had been created by people who had come west to seek their fortune in gold. If you have ever seen the “Deadwood” TV show, that was pretty accurate and many of the people portrayed on the show (at least in the first season) were based on real people. The original Deadwood was extremely wild and dangerous, so this newer version was actually quite tame in comparison.

The earlier “ghost town” version of Deadwood that Mom and I had visited did have signs indicating where the original No. 10 Saloon had been located (where Wild Bill Hickock had been killed) and where Jack McCall (Hickock’s killer) had been caught. They also had a newer version of No. 10 where, for a fee, you could go downstairs and see a tableau of Hickock’s murder with mannequins. The new Deadwood still had those things (except for the mannequins), but they also had refurbished several of the old buildings, including a couple hotels, and had actors portraying the famous characters from the days of the Gold Rush who reenacted Hickock’s murder and McCall’s capture and trial on a regular basis.

We had lunch in a place just across the street from the No. 10 Saloon. Afterwards I tried one of the slot machines and won $2.50 for my quarter. I decided to quit while I was ahead. I’m not much of a gambler.

We went to the Mount Moriah Cemetary to view the graves of Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, and Seth Bullock. When Mom and I had been there before, Hickock and Calamity Jane still had the old-fashioned painted wooden grave markers much as would have been on their graves back when they were first buried. This time Hickock had a large bust on his grave and Calamity had a large urn on hers. Seth Bullock and his wife had a decent sized stone marker on their joint grave.

A little ways outside of the town is a wooden recreation of what the town looked like back in its heyday in the late 1800s. They have costumed interpreters and reenactors do their thing for the tourists. Sometime when I have the time I’ll stop by there to check it out. But I really am much more interested in the real thing.

When we got back to the cabins, it seemed that every male bison in the park was hanging out there. We said goodbye to our sizeable pals, packed our bags and left the following morning after breakfast to get back to the airport at Rapid City.

The former family cabin as seen from French Creek (off to the far right you can make out the outhouse)

The Eye of the Needle on the Needles Highway

A mom and baby during the Buffalo Jeep Safari

The original location of the No. 10 Saloon in Deadwood

The graves of Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane

June 12, 2018June 17, 2018

The Nostalgia Tour – Part One

Although my mom and I had been to the Black Hills of South Dakota several times together, neither one of my brothers had ever been there. So in May of 2005, we all took the Nostalgia Tour in order for Mom to be able to show her sons where she had grown up. We all believe that we are very fortunate that she grew up someplace so very interesting with beautiful scenery, wildlife and a fascinating history.

We flew from Minneapolis and picked up a rental for the five of us (Scott’s wife was with us) at the airport. Driving into Rapid City, we stopped off at the Alex Johnson Hotel. Mom’s dad’s sister, Teena, had a dress shop in the hotel from shortly after it was built in 1929 to the late 1930s. Where Aunt Teena’s dress shop used to be, the gift shop is now. The lobby is much as it was when the hotel was built so it didn’t take much to envision Mom standing in the lobby with her father back in 1936 watching President Franklin D Roosevelt arrive for the unveiling of the face of Thomas Jefferson (the second face to be completed) on Mount Rushmore. She was nine at the time.

Back when Gutzon Borglum first began carving Mount Rushmore, the money came from the local business people, who included my grandfather and his sister, Teena. So they were guests at the unveiling. Grandpa and Mom were at the hotel because Aunt Teena lived there in addition to having her dress shop there.

After lunch at the hotel, we went to Mount Rushmore. Mom pointed out the area where they stood during the unveiling, which was near the pile of rubble down at the base of the monument. The President gave a speech and then the flag draped across Jefferson’s face was removed. The last time Mom and I had been there, the great trails that are there now weren’t yet in existence. We enjoyed exploring the trails and getting photos from different perspectives. Scott and I both had video cameras with us and filmed Mom reminiscing.

At the gift shop they had picture books of what different parts of the Hills looked like back in the ‘30s. It was Mom’s birthday, so we bought her some of those books. She teared up. Before we left, we all had ice cream.

From Mount Rushmore we took the Iron Mountain Road with its pigtail bridges, switchbacks, spirals and single lane tunnels. During a prior visit the rental car that Mom and I had did not have a working horn. When approaching a tunnel, it is necessary to honk the horn in order to let anybody coming from the other direction know that you are there. Because the horn wasn’t working, I rolled down the window and yelled, “Honk!” as loud as I could. The people on the other side were still laughing as we went by.

We had tried the horn on this vehicle prior to leaving the airport, so we knew that nobody would need to yell this time. Along the route, we saw some prong horn antelope and several wild turkeys before we got to Custer State Park. We rented two cabins at the State Game Lodge (which had been President Coolidge’s Summer White House) – a single room for Scott & Anita next door to a two room with kitchen for me, Mom and Dean. While we were unloading the van in the back, a large, male bison was roaming in the front.

On the way to Hot Springs the next day, Scott had taken a short detour to a scenic overlook that was quite nice. Then he veered off to Mount Coolidge Lookout. This was a single track dirt road up a mountain. No railings and no place to pull over should you meet someone on the way. At the very top was a single-car-width dirt road with sheer drops on both sides to get to the actual lookout. I was riding shotgun and was absolutely terrified. I told Scott that I had my eyes closed across the last bit. He joked that he did too. We decided that anything that said “overlook” was fine, but anything that said “lookout” meant “LOOKOUT!” We did have some great views from up there, though, including a frontal view of Crazy Horse.

The rest of the way to Hot Springs was on pretty flat terrain. We encountered several bison, pronghorn antelope, deer, prairie dogs, and a coyote. Our last stop before the town was Wind Cave. It was created as a national park by Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 and is known for its boxwork formations (kind of like a honeycomb). 95% of the known boxwork formations in the world are found in Wind Cave. Despite the fact that Dean isn’t a fan of tight spaces (especially underground) he still joined me and Scott on a tour. Both brothers are well over 6’ in height, so they had some very tight spaces to deal with maneuvering around in there.

The Lakota Native Americans consider Wind Cave to be a sacred place. It was considered to be the location from which their people emerged from the underworld. The cave breathes. Wind goes in and out of several holes at the surface, which is how it got its name.

When we got to Hot Springs (which was where Mom lived as a child) our first stop was the Evans Plunge. Mom had many happy memories of swimming there. The water to feed the pools and slides comes from the hot springs that gives the town its name.

Next we went by Grandpa’s garage (he had a Chevy dealership and garage from about 1927 to 1938). Through the years his business had continued to exist under various other owners. On a previous visit, Mom and I had talked with the owner then who was very interested in the history of the place and was quite pleased to be able to find out quite a bit from Mom. This time, however, the garage and dealership were boarded up and about to be torn down. The roof had fallen in during some big storm. It had one of those old, tin ceilings.

Up the road was Mom’s childhood home. It was in a great state of repair and appeared to be very well taken care of. The library where she used to check out books about faraway places was still there too. Her school is now a museum and was open. So we all went in and explored. It kind of reminded me of those antique stores where everything is kind of piled in with different areas having different themes. Mom pointed out which classrooms had been hers. She also pointed out the principal’s office and other important parts of the building, including the fire escape.

They have a chute that was entered by a door on each floor above ground floor. Everyone slid down the chute and out at the bottom. Mom got in trouble for not wanting to go down the chute for a fire drill when she was in about the 5^th grade. She confided in her mother that it was because the boys would go first and then wait for the girls to come down so they could see their underpants.

Because the school had been turned into a museum several years ago, it had never been modernized at all, so the structure had not changed from when she had been there. Some of the playground equipment that had been there in her day was still there as well.

What had not been there when Mom lived there was the Mammoth Site Exhibit. The bones had been there for thousands of years, but weren’t discovered until the 1970s. We visited that too before heading to Bluebell Lodge for dinner.

On the way back to Custer State Park, we saw several more bison, deer, antelope and prairie dogs. We broke into a chorus of “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam; where the deer and the antelope play…” Anita groaned.

The building containing the dining room at Bluebell Lodge is a very large log cabin, both inside and out. The food is decidedly western. After dinner, we stopped off at the general store there. The store is walking distance from the cabin that Grandpa and his sister, Teena, jointly owned and was where Grandma, Mom and Mom’s sister, Barbara, used to go to get any groceries they needed while staying at the cabin.

We back-tracked to the Wildlife Loop and took it back to the State Game Lodge so we could see more bison, antelope, and deer, plus some wild turkeys and burros. A little later, one of my brothers decided to walk over to the lodge for a nightcap. We got a call asking us to come and rescue him with the van. About three bison were hanging out between the lodge and the cabins. One was on the cabin side of the footbridge across the creek separating the lodge from the cabins. Another was sauntering along the sidewalk next to the road leading from the lodge to the cabins. The third was just biding his time out on the lawn in between the other two. Bison are about two tons with horns, so you don’t want to take chances.

We had a couple more days in the Black Hills in which we visited Mom’s family’s cabin, went on a Buffalo Jeep Safari, and took a road trip to Deadwood. More on these adventures next time.

One of the tunnels on the Iron Mountain Road

The State Game Lodge — the bison is real

One of our cabins at the State Game Lodge

Crazy Horse as seen from Mount Coolidge Lookout

Hot Springs School House — you can see the fire escape on the right side

June 6, 2018June 6, 2018

Northern Ireland

Our first entrance into Northern Ireland was to visit the Belleek Pottery factory. It was founded in the early 1800s as a maker of Parian Porcelain, which is a white porcelain that is supposed to resemble marble. They also own Aynsley China, which has been in existence since the 1700s. A maternal great, great grandfather of mine once owned a pottery works, so I found it fascinating to see how a pottery factory operated and created its wares.

Belleek was barely across the border into Northern Ireland and our next destination was Derry (still legally named Londonderry). The route took us back out of Northern Ireland into Ireland for much of the trip and then back into Northern Ireland to reach Derry. Fortunately things were quiet in Northern Ireland so we could go back and forth across the border without much effort or worry.

Our local guide in Derry had grown up in Galway with a Chinese mother and an Irish father. He had moved to Derry to attend the university and stayed. In addition to conducting walking tours of the city, he also taught mathematics and history. He was fun to listen too as he had a very good sense of humor in addition to a great deal of knowledge.

I came close to getting into trouble immediately after arriving in Derry when I snapped a photo of one of the guard towers on the still very much intact city walls. Our guide told us that we weren’t allowed to take photos of the guard towers and that we could lose our cameras as a consequence as well as be detained. He said this after I had taken my picture. Fortunately nobody (including him, anybody in the tower, or even my mom) noticed me taking the photo. Whew! You can see it attached to this blog.

We took a walk along the walls (which were closed during The Troubles). There were still some heavily secured areas where we could not go. Derry is one of the oldest continuously inhabited locations in Ireland, having been founded in the 6^th century by the same St Columba who was running around in Scotland a little later. There had been people living in the vicinity for thousands of years before that.

We had a tour of the city guildhall before heading for a drive along the Antrim Coast. The Scots, after whom Scotland was named, originated from the Antrim Coast of Ireland. Dunluce Castle, a ruined 13^th century castle, has been used in recent years as a location for “Game of Thrones”. Part of the castle has fallen into the sea.

The Giant’s Causeway looks like stacks of coins. It was formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago. The legend is that it was built by a pair of giants, one from Ireland and the other from Scotland and once spanned the ocean between the two countries. Fingal’s Cave on the Isle of Staffa in Scotland has the same basalt formations. We had to be driven down to the columns on a small bus. But once there, we were able to climb all over the place which, since I had very good rubber soles on my shoes (the stones were wet and quite slippery in spots), I did. The Giant’s Causeway is so unique and magical that it is one of my favorite places in the world.

My paternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather was born in Belfast in roughly 1834. Somewhere along the way, he ended up as a butler at a home in Kensington in London (according to the 1871 census). I love seeing historic and scenic places and especially love to see places where I have a family connection. I try to picture the place as it might have been when they were alive.

One of the first places we were shown was where the Titanic was built. The Harland and Wolfe Company, which built the ship, was still building ships in the same waterfront location in 2005 when we were there. A photo of one of their cranes accompanies this blog. There is now a Titanic Museum in Belfast. In 2005, just the Harland and Wolfe cranes and a memorial existed. Our city tour also included the Parliament, the University, several wall murals and City Hall.

The next day, we took a ferry direct from Belfast to Stanraer, Scotland driving up the coast back to Glasgow. On the way, we passed by Culzean Castle. Someday I’d like to visit that castle too.

“Hands Across the Divide” statue in Londonderry

Interior of the guildhall in Londonderry

The Titanic Memorial on Donegall Square on the grounds of Belfast City Hall

May 30, 2018

The Emerald Isle

Our hotel in Dublin was near the American Embassy. It also had a Bentley out front when we arrived – a classic version that would have belonged to a collector. We went for a short walk in the area before dinner to get acclimated and gave the car the once-over when we returned while trying not to get so close that the owner would get upset.

The next day we visited St Patrick’s Cathedral first thing in the morning. It was founded in 1191. Jonathan Swift, author of “Gulliver’s Travels” was its Dean in the 1700s. The guided morning tour included Phoenix Park, which has the residence of the President of Ireland, the official residence of the US Ambassador to Ireland, a zoo, and a huge cross erected to commemorate when Pope John Paul II visited. There is also a small castle and a fort. After the park, we took a tour of the Guinness Brewery. I downed Mom’s sample as well as my own.

We were dropped off by Trinity College for lunch (those of us who wanted to stay in the main part of Dublin instead of returning to our hotel). Mom and I wanted to see the Book of Kells. The most widely accepted origination story is that it was the monks on Iona in Scotland who began the book and then carted it off to Kells when Iona was being raided by the Vikings. It is a gorgeously illustrated version of the first four gospels of the New Testament of the Bible that is thought to have been created around the late 6^th century through the early 9^th century AD. We weren’t exactly the only people who wanted to see the Book of Kells. The line snaked its way for quite some time before we were able to get a quick glimpse.

On the way back to the hotel, we went through Merrion Square (which used to be residential) and found a statue of Oscar Wilde in the garden of the square. Apparently he once lived in one of the houses there. The houses were all offices by the time we visited in 2005.

The following day we started off at the Irish National Stud. Despite all of the interesting things that could come to mind, it is where thoroughbred race horses are bred and trained in County Kildare. It had once been the private property of a wealthy Scot who gave it to the Nation of Ireland when he left for the US.

The Rock of Cashel is in County Tipperary and is considered to be the site where St Patrick explained Christianity to King Cormac of Munster in the 5^th century and performed a couple of miracles while he was at it. He used the shamrock to explain the Trinity. This was also the location from which it is said that Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. The Druids, which were the main religious group in Ireland at the time, wore arm bracelets in the form of snakes. So when the Druids were driven from Ireland, it was said that the snakes were driven from Ireland. The buildings on top of the Rock of Cashel were built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. The legend is that the rock was a part of a mountain about 20 miles away from which St Patrick cast out Satan. This piece flew off and landed where it stands now.

Blarney Castle is a partial ruin of a medieval castle. Tourists like to hang upside down and backwards over a very steep and lethal drop (trusting whoever has them by their waist or ankles not to accidently let go) and kiss the “Blarney Stone” which is supposed to give them eloquence. Not this sister. The combination of being both quite short (which means that I would be held by my ankles) and afraid of heights meant that there was no way I was going to give it a go. Mom wasn’t interested either. So we bided our time by wandering around the castle grounds, the gift shop and a place where we could sit and have some ice cream until everyone on our tour who wanted to kiss what I’m certain is a very germy stone got the opportunity to do so after paying £7. There was an interesting little garden that contained such plants as ricin, opium, wolfsbane and mandrake – poisons all.

After Blarney we were ready for the Ring of Kerry. First we spent the night in Killarney. It was a beautiful night and our hotel was near a park, so we went for a very nice walk before dinner. It seemed that this particular trip tended to alternate between sunny and rainy nearly every day. So we grabbed those sunny days when we could get them – especially since so much of our activities were outdoors.

We followed the Ring of Kerry counterclockwise (or anticlockwise). It seemed to me that the most spectacular scenery came near the end of the trip around the ring but it is all very scenic. En route to Limerick, we stopped off at Adare, which had some cute, thatched cottages.

We were spending the night in Limerick in a new hotel that rose up 25 stories and straddled a portion of the River Shannon. Our room for the night was a suite on the 14^th floor. But we didn’t spend much time in the room as we were going to a medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle that evening.

If you have never done a medieval dinner in the UK or Europe and have the chance to attend one, I highly recommend it. The food is good, but not spectacular. The main reason for going is for the comradery with the others on the tour and the fun involved with the entertainment. I have been to one that was as authentically medieval as possible, involving both the food (and the utensils used and means of serving it) and the entertainment (including jugglers, acrobats, and minstrels). This particular one was more of a medieval themed dinner with medieval themed entertainment, but was in the actual banqueting room of a real medieval castle.

Before leaving town the next morning, we visited St Mary’s Cathedral – founded in 1168, with the tower added in the 14^th century. Just a short distance from the cathedral is the 13^th century King John’s Castle. It was built by King John of England over the remains of a 10^th century Viking’s settlement which was discovered during excavations in 1900. Both are located on an island where the River Shannon and Abbey River meet. This is where the historic core of the city (founded in 812 from a settlement that stretches back as far as 150AD) is located.

The entire time we were in Limerick, it was dark and rainy. We had hoped to get out of the bad weather when we left Limerick, but it actually got worse the closer we got to the Cliffs of Moher. We had some very thick fog at the cliffs which dissipated enough during the hike from the tour coach to the actual cliffs to allow for a somewhat decent photo.

I really liked the town of Galway, in which we arrived by lunchtime. It was still raining, but people weren’t letting that stop them from exploring this very colorful town. It is located in the west of the country, near the coast, in the province of Connacht . We were told that McDonaghs had the best fish and chips in Western Ireland, so that was where we went for lunch. I do have to say that their fish and chips were quite tasty.

We stopped in at a pet shop on the way back along the street and bought a dog toy that said “Crufts Best in Show” on it. Crufts is the British equivalent of the US’ Westminster. It didn’t take long for my dog (who was about a year old at the time) to chew a pretty good chunk out of it, so it went to the top of the fridge where it remains today.

In the afternoon, we went to Knock in County Mayo. Along with Lourdes and Fatima, Knock is one of the major shrines in Europe. In the late 1800s apparitions of the Virgin Mary, Joseph and John the Evangelist appeared in front of several townspeople at the location where the shrine now exists.

Back in Connacht was a town called Sligo, which has a large number of prehistoric sites (including several burial mounds) in the vicinity. The harbor in Sligo was known by the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans who came to trade there. Much of the current town is medieval. Our hotel was close enough to the coast that we could see it from the hotel. The rain had stopped by the time we got there, so we could take a walk before dinner.

The next day on our way to Northern Ireland, we stopped off at Drumcliff to see the grave of poet W. B. Yeats.

Interior of St Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick

Excavation of 9th century Viking settlement at King John’s Castle in Limerick

May 20, 2018

The Welsh Dragon

From Edinburgh, we traveled nearly straight south across the Scottish Lowlands to the border town of Gretna Green. This was where English couples who wanted to marry, but were underage, could get hitched at the blacksmith shop. This was because England had laws regarding age and parental permission while, in Scotland, a boy could marry at 14 and a girl at 12, with or without parental permission. Since Gretna Green was the most easily accessed town directly across the border, it became a popular place for elopement from the 1700s on. It’s still a popular place for weddings because of the romantic idea of the place.

From Gretna Green, we crossed into England, skirted Carlisle, and headed for the Lake District. Our destination was Lake Windermere for lunch and a boat ride. It was a beautiful day, so we had a great time tooling around the lake (which is the largest natural lake in England) and then having some lunch at a café on its shore. Then we were off to Chester, taking the M6 down in between Liverpool and Manchester. My maternal grandmother’s father’s family came from Oldham, which is now a suburb of Manchester. But we were heading for where my maternal grandmother’s mother was from – Caernarfon, Wales.

Before we got there, we spent some time in Chester, which was founded as a Roman fort in roughly 79AD. With a wealth of medieval buildings, Chester is one of the best preserved walled cities in Britain. After the Romans left, it became a Saxon city and the walls were strengthened. A walk along the walls shows the medieval parts of town as well as some of the Roman ruins. It takes quite some time to get around the entire walled in part of the city, so we only walked along a portion of the walls. Another thing about Chester is that the main medieval shopping area of the city has galleries up one level from the street that people can use to travel from shop to shop without ever going back down to street level. A forerunner of the skyway system we have in Minneapolis called “The Rows”. We spent the night across the Welsh border in Wrexham.

The next day, our Tour Director let Mom (whose name was a very Welsh “Gwendolyn”) and I sit up front in the tour coach so we could see everything as we entered Caernarfon. The town was originally Roman and became part of the Kingdom of Gwynedd in 382 after the Romans left. In the 13^th century, King Edward I conquered Wales and built Caernarfon Castle.

Our Tour Director told us that the Welsh dragon was originally the standard of one of the Roman Legions. But when the Welsh defeated that particular legion, they took the standard and incorporated the dragon as their own. Of course when King Edward I conquered Wales, he liberally used the image of St George (patron saint of England) slaying the dragon.

Mom and I toured the castle before getting lunch at a café not too far from the castle. Although the castle is a ruin and parts of it were never completed, the walls are pretty much intact and the entire place is quite large. There are parts of the walls that can still be explored, including a couple of the towers. We explored every part of it we could.

In 1969, the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales took place at Caernarfon Castle. The large, black disc upon which this ceremony took place is still there and can be seen not too far from where Mom and I are posing for a photo together.

After our lunch, we still had some time, so we explored the town a little more and found a shop where we could buy a large Welsh flag (which currently hangs in my enclosed porch, along with a Scottish flag and a Union Jack). We were tickled to hear several people speaking in Welsh. Had no clue what they were saying, but loved the musicality of the language. My grandmother had said that she used to hear one phrase a lot as a girl. This was “cau eich ceg” which means “shut your mouth”. She also knew “Siarad Cymraeg?” which means “Speak Welsh?” But I wasn’t going to use either one while we were there. The one would be insulting and the other I wouldn’t be able to respond if someone answered in the affirmative. So I kept that tiny bit of Welsh language to myself.

After rejoining our tour, we traveled onto the Isle of Anglesey where we stopped off in a town called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. I cannot even begin to try to pronounce that one – far too many consonants and nowhere near enough vowels. It involves a lot of clearing of the throat and a certain amount of spitting. What it means, though, is “St Mary’s Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave”. Got that? Good. There will be a quiz later.

We traveled across the Isle of Anglesey, took a bridge to the Holy Island to Holyhead and there took a very large ferry, called the Jonathan Swift to Dublin. That is where the story continues the next time.

Medieval buildings in Chester (this grouping doesn’t have the galleries)

View from Eagle Tower at Caernarfon Castle

The town of Caernarfon just outside of the castle

May 13, 2018

Hop-On Hop-Off in Edinburgh

Coming from the north, we entered Edinburgh by crossing the Firth (estuary) of Forth. The road bridge at the time (2005) wasn’t anything special (a gorgeous new bridge opened in 2017), but the rail bridge is a bright red, cantilevered bridge opened in 1890. At the time it was built, it was the longest cantilevered bridge in the world. The bridges span from North Queensferry to South Queensferry. The queen was Margaret, wife of Malcolm Canmore (son of the Duncan that MacBeth murders in Shakespeare’s play). The two Queensferrys were originally small villages, between which the ferry ran, that have been swallowed up by Edinburgh.

This time, we stayed at the George Hotel on George Street in the New Town, across the street from the Hard Rock Cafe. The hotel was created in the 1880s from five 18^th century town homes (it has been added onto over the years, so it has an old part and a new part). Its style at this visit was Victorian (they have since updated the hotel to a more modern style). The room Mom and I had was in the old part of the hotel overlooking George Street. A full Scottish breakfast was included. One of the things that I really like about the full Scottish breakfast is that it includes porridge (oatmeal). It helps keep me plenty full until whatever time lunch comes along.

The included morning tour took us to Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace. Then we had the rest of the day free. Since Mom and I didn’t plan to join in with the Scottish Night (since we partook on another tour), we had the evening and night free as well. After having lunch in the undercroft of a church near the hotel (some churches throughout the UK have small cafes with home-cooked food at a very reasonable price), we walked over to the Waverly Bridge (right by the train station and in the shadow of the Scott Memorial) and caught a Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour. There are several of them. I like the ones with live commentary and always at least figure out which one I want, and possibly even book it, in advance.

Our first stop was Charlotte Square in New Town. There is a Georgian Townhouse at No. 7 that is furnished as it would have been back when the house was new. It was designed by Robert Adam and is open to the public. The kitchen and wine cellar (as well as the gift shop) are in the basement. On the ground floor are the dining room in front and the master bedroom at the back. The first floor has the withdrawing room and the parlor. The second and third floors haven’t been restored and aren’t open to the public, but they would have contained bedrooms.

The residence of the First Minister of Scotland (aka Butte House) is right next door at No. 6. The First Minister is the leader of the Scottish government. This house, which is much larger than the Georgian Townhouse, was also designed by Robert Adam in the late 18^th century. Much like No.10 Downing Street in London is used by the Prime Minister as both a residence and place of business this house is used in the same way. It is not open for public tours. We thought it was really interesting that we could walk right by it and visit the house next door to it as the entirety of Downing Street is cordoned off and heavily guarded.

Once we got back onto the Hop-On Hop-Off bus, we stayed on until we reached Greyfriars Bobby Pub in the Old Town. Out in front of the pub is a statue of the Skye Terrier who sat faithfully by the grave of his master in Greyfriars Kirk Yard (church yard) until his own death nearly 14 years later. People in the pub used to feed him. When he died, he was buried just inside the entrance to the kirk yard. Sticks and dog toys are frequently left at the grave, though there were none there the day Mom and I visited – just some flowers.

At the Scottish Parliament, Mom realized she had some small scissors in her bag just before we would have needed to send our bags through the x-ray. It was about that time that I remembered I had a Swiss Army knife – one with several knives, a couple screwdrivers, scissors, some small pliers, a bottle opener and a corkscrew. Since we would have had to surrender these items forever in order to enter the building and tour the inside of it, we chose to forego that idea and go over to Holyrood Palace to spend some time in the gift shop and café. After that we hopped back onto the tour bus and rode it all the way back to Waverly Bridge.

Since we had a nice cream tea at Holyrood and our hotel room had a fridge, we decided not to go out to dinner later and picked up some items at the Sainsbury’s on the way back to the hotel. We got some bread, cheese, pate, fruit, milk for me, iced tea for her, and some ice cream for dessert. Then we relaxed and watched some TV back in the room after getting everything set to depart Scotland for the Lake District of England, the town of Chester, and Northern Wales the following day.

The Forth Rail Bridge over the Firth of Forth

Butte House – Residence of the First Minister of Scotland

April 30, 2018April 30, 2018

Scotch Whiskey, Hairy Coos & St Andrews

As we approached The Glenlivet Distillery, we saw that a fold (herd) of Highland cattle (aka “Hairy Coos”) was approaching us. So we hung around to say “Hello”. This was a very domesticated group. They came right up to the fence, sniffed us and allowed petting. You don’t want to chase one down out in the country to try to pet it, or you can end up with a less than desirable experience.

I had only seen the ginger variety before, so I was intrigued by the fact that they also came in black, yellow, brindled and white. They were first introduced to Scotland in the Neolithic period and are considered one of the oldest cattle breeds on earth. They are definitely quite cute.

The Glenlivet is one of the first licensed distilleries in Scotland. They, and others, had been in existence since medieval times. But, in the 1820s, a law was passed requiring that Scotch Whiskey distilleries must be licensed to be legal. The owner of The Glenlivet, immediately applied for a license, upsetting the other distilleries. They had all hoped that the whole licensing issue would blow over eventually and they could all carry on illicitly as before.

This was our second time at this same distillery. So Mom sat out the distillery tour in the café. The mother of the other mother/daughter team on our tour also decided to sit out the distillery tour and joined Mom. I happen to like single malt Scotch, so I was willing to do the tour again to have the opportunity to sample the different varieties they produced at the end. I had tried the 12-year-old and the 18-year-old the first time. So I tried the 15-year-old French Oak Reserve this time. They didn’t offer either the 21-year-old or the 25-year-old on the tour. I had preferred the 18-year-old to the 12-year-old the previous trip. So I compared the 18-year-old to the 15-year-old French Oak Reserve. Although I favored the 15-year-old French Oak Reserve at the time, I have since become fond of the Founder’s Reserve. It is light with an orange fragrance and flavored with orange, pear and toffee apple. It goes really well with salmon.

We went on to Braemar where we originally were supposed to have a small tour of Balmoral Castle. They only let you into the ballroom, but it would still have been cool. However, Prince Charles had just married Camilla Parker Bowles and had decided to stop off at Balmoral Castle on the way to his own Scottish home. So we were unable to even see the castle as it is quite hidden from all roads in the vicinity. It would have been nice to have at least gotten some photos of the exterior. Instead, we visited Craithie Kirk, which is the church where the Royal Family worships when staying at Balmoral. The pastor welcomed us and gave us a brief history of the church. Queen Victoria’s servant, John Brown, is buried in the churchyard.

We ended up having lunch at an inn at a place called the Spittal of Glenshee (which I thought was a fun name) after a brief visit to Dundee. The inn looked like something from Norway, but the food was definitely Scottish. The RRS Discovery, which was the ship used by Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their expedition to the Antarctic, is docked in the harbor in Dundee.

After lunch we continued on to St Andrews, where we had more time than the previous trip. We could actually visit the castle this time. From the previous trip, we knew exactly where it was and how to get to it, so we didn’t have to waste any time trying to find it. But first, our tour director and driver had a little surprise for us. In a very narrow street, our driver maneuvered around until he could turn the full-sized coach down another very narrow street. Suddenly we emerged from between the buildings and drove across the Old Course between the 18^th hole and the first hole. Golfers nearly dropped their clubs as they stared (and likely swore) at us as we went by. The video camera still being so new to me, I didn’t have the presence of mind to pull it out and film our journey. Something tells me that this is not an everyday occurrence – except possibly for that particular driver.

Once they let us out next to the Museum of Golf, we legged it down the road to the castle. Because of its strategic position and its tendency to be captured by the English, the Scots ultimately destroyed it themselves to keep it from falling into English hands again. Although in ruins, it contains a bottle dungeon (aka oubliette), which was carved out of the rock on which the castle stands. The castle was built on a rocky promontory overlooking a sandy beach and the North Sea in the 12^th century.

After exploring the ruins, I wanted to zip down the road for a quick look at the cathedral ruins while Mom wanted to start back to where we were to meet the tour coach so she wouldn’t have to walk quite so fast – especially since she now used a cane. No problem. I could easily catch up to her and make it back in time. What we both forgot, however, was that I had all the money. When she got to the meeting point, she wanted to use the ladies WC. It was a pay toilet. I still feel guilty that my poor mother was reduced to begging for the change to use the facilities. After that incident, I made certain that, even when I was handling the money, she at least had a small amount of whatever the money was in that country. Fortunately one of our fellow travelers took pity on her and provided her with the necessary.

While in the USA, the currency is dollars and cents, in the UK it is pounds and pence. The pence have the nickname of “p”. I’ll bet you can guess where I’m going with this – she didn’t have a “p” to….

“Hairy Coos” outside The Glenlivet Distillery

A closer look at the Highland Cattle. Is the one whispering to another?

Grave of John Brown (Queen Victoria’s Highland servant) at Craithie Kirk

Entrance to St Andrews Castle (the tower with the bottle dungeon can be seen)

April 16, 2018

“Kidnapped”, Murder & A Battlefield

When the tour group reached Loch Lomond, there was a kilted piper playing “Amazing Grace”. I pulled out my video camera and began filming. Since I was new to this, I wasn’t yet paying strong enough attention to what was happening in the periphery and didn’t notice two women converging from the left and the right until they were right in front of me – between my camera and the piper. I let out a four-letter word that has been captured on video for all posterity.

Our Tour Director, in addition to being a free spirit, was also quite a looker. Many (most actually) of the women on the tour were flirting quite openly with him. Once in a blue moon, a male tour director or a driver has been quite interested in establishing a liaison with at least one lady on the tour (I once had a driver pursuing me fairly aggressively). But this was not one of those times. It wasn’t long before he was seeking refuge with Mom and me. We were about the only women not vying for his attention. We both had boyfriends at the time and neither one of us has ever been the “one-night-stand” type. We definitely had more fun with him than any of the others as he relaxed and shared his humor and knowledge with us.

When I was a kid, I had read Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped”. The main character in that novel, David Balfour, is sold by his uncle to a ship’s captain who is supposed to take him to the American Colonies. This is because his uncle wants David’s inheritance. The ship gets shipwrecked near the Isle of Mull and David escapes, along with Alan Breck Stewart (who was a real, historical figure). They get separated for a bit and then get reunited to flee across Rannoch Moor, as suspects in a murder (for which, in real life, Stewart was a suspect). Rannoch Moor is quite bleak and haunting.

From Rannoch Moor, we went to Glen Coe. This was a glen formed by volcanoes. In 1692, some of the Campbells and some English forces massacred several of the clan MacDonald after being given hospitality for the night by the MacDonalds. It was unheard of to harm anyone who provides Highland hospitality. So most of Scotland was up-in-arms over this. It was supposedly punishment for not swearing loyalty to the new King and Queen (William and Mary) of England by the imposed deadline. Despite this horrendous massacre, it is a beautiful area, with a three peaked mountain called the Three Sisters.

From Glen Coe, we traveled up the Great Glen, which includes Loch Linnhe, Loch Lochy and Loch Ness, stopping off at Fort William. Fort William is where you can catch the “Hogwarts Express” out to Mallaig. We also stopped off at a World War II Memorial near Ben Nevis (the tallest mountain in the British Isles). It too was once a volcano.

After a quick visit to Loch Ness, we continued on to Culloden Moor. This time the battlefield was in the process of being cleared so that the clan graves could be seen. The memorial was in pretty good shape by this point and it was easy to get to it. They had a small visitor center where we were able to watch a video about the battle. They included a visit inside of a small cottage on the moor where twelve clanswomen were trapped and burned by the soldiers. This visit was the only time I saw that. They were looking for contributions towards creating a state-of-the-art visitor center and refurbishing the entire battlefield. I took one of their brochures and sent them some money – not a lot, but something to help at least a little.

That night, we stayed at a really lovely Victorian hotel outside of Grantown-on-Spey. It had once been a group of houses that ended up being connected together and turned into a hotel. Mom and I took a walk to the river and had a lovely time out in the Highland countryside.

Interior of small cottage on Culloden Moor, made rather gorey with fake blood

April 8, 2018

Back to Scotland: Stirling Castle, Linlithgow, the Trossachs & Loch Lomond

It took a couple of years before I had another vacation. But in 2005, we went on a 21-day trip to Scotland, Wales, Ireland & Northern Ireland. We chose the trip because we would be able to travel to Caernarfon, which was where my mother’s maternal grandmother’s family was from. Since we had only bypassed Stirling Castle in 2003, we arrived in Glasgow a day early to take a day tour to Linlithgow Palace, Stirling Castle and a boat ride on Loch Lomond.

This was the trip where, in order to get from the gate where our delayed flight from Minneapolis arrived to the gate from which our connecting flight to Glasgow was departing, while going through the European Union entrance process at the airport in Amsterdam (Schiphol), we ended up literally running to the gate, just as they were getting ready to close it. I ran ahead while Mom followed as best as she could. I figured that, if I made it to the gate, I could ask them to wait for her. Fortunately we made it. Unfortunately, our cases didn’t. We were able to check in at the hotel right away and we had our carryon luggage, which included my camera. So, we let the hotel know that our bags would be arriving on a later flight and headed off to get some lunch and explore for a while.

The hotel was in a different part of the city from when we were there in 2003. So we weren’t close to George Square. We were close to an interestingly named thoroughfare – Sauchiehall Street. The Kelvingrove Art Museum was still under renovation, but some of its exhibits were being housed in an art gallery on Sauchiehall. A fair amount of the street was also pedestrian only with lots of restaurants, cafes, tea houses, shops, etc. After lunch and the art gallery, we walked around for a while, exploring that part of the city. Once we figured that our luggage might be at the hotel, we headed back. It not only was there, but they had already placed it in our room! We reorganized to get ready for the next day and arranged for a taxi to take us to the bus terminal (from where our day trip was leaving) in the morning, had an early dinner and relaxed with some wonderful British television before going to bed.

The information I had gotten from the tour company that was running the day trip spelled out exactly which spot we needed to be in the terminal to get our tour bus. Easy. Our group included a couple from Iceland, who had flown the two hour flight from Reykjavik just to spend the weekend in Glasgow, hanging out and doing some shopping. We also had a threesome from some Eastern European country who didn’t speak any English. The first part of the trip was driving to Edinburgh to pick up some more folks there. We got five. So we just had a total of 12 on the trip.

When we got to Linlithgow, the palace was mostly a ruin. But it was a royal palace for a couple hundred years. It was begun in the 14^th century and greatly rebuilt and enlarged in the 15^th. Mary, Queen of Scots, was born there in 1542. In more recent years, the palace was used as Wentworth Prison in the series “Outlander”. We didn’t spend a lot of time there. Just took some photos and moved on.

We had much more time at Stirling Castle. We arrived just in time for lunch. Then we began exploring. Stirling Castle is one of the largest castles in Scotland, so there is a lot to see. Like Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle sits on top of a large crag. The difference is that the crag Stirling Castle is on was never a volcano. Although a few structures date to the 14^th century, most of the present castle was built in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Located near the center of the country, Stirling has always been strategically important and has seen its share of battles.

The first place we headed for was the Great Hall. This building had been restored to its former glory a few years before our visit. The hammerbeam ceiling had been restored and the exterior of the building had been limewashed with a golden color. Only a couple rooms of the Royal Palace were open to visitors. They had not yet been restored. We explored the buildings in the inner courtyard, which included the Royal Chapel. Then we went for a walk along the top of the walls, taking in the views. We could see the stone version of Stirling Bridge (the original on which William Wallace defeated the English in battle was wooden) and the Wallace Memorial off in the distance. We came down from the wall to visit the Great Kitchen, which had already been restored, along with mannequins and representational foods.

Naturally, the castle is reportedly haunted by a Green Lady (thought to be a servant of Mary, Queen of Scots) and a Pink Lady, thought to be Mary herself. She really gets around. Her ghost is said to haunt several places in Scotland and even a few in England. We both really liked Stirling Castle and were glad we had taken the extra day.

Near Stirling is a village named Doune. It is known mainly for two things – Doune Castle and the manufacture of pistols. It is said that it was a Doune pistol that fired the first shot of the American Revolution. Built in the 14^th century, the castle has been very important in the history of Scotland and, more recently, in the history of film and television. Much of “Monty Python & the Holy Grail” was filmed at Doune Castle, with various parts of the castle standing in for nearly all of the castles in the film. It has also been Winterfell in “Game of Thrones” and Castle Leoch in “Outlander”.

We passed through Callander on our way to Aberfoyle for an afternoon break. By this time, although I did not yet have a digital camera, I was getting a disc of my photos along with my prints when I had my film developed (so no more scanning in photos for this blog). I also had purchased a video camera that filmed directly onto a mini-disc that I could play on my DVD player at home, watching whatever I filmed on my TV. I looked for and didn’t find my little dancing owl friend. Either he was no longer there or he just wasn’t in the mood for dancing that day.

Our final stop of the day, before returning to Glasgow, was Loch Lomond for a boat ride on the loch. I love going for boat rides and I was especially pleased to be riding along on one of the most famous lakes in the world. In all my trips to Scotland so far, this is the only one where I have had the opportunity to take a ride on Loch Lomond. There were villages, the occasional lone house, some mansions and a couple castles along the shore. The weather was pretty good, so we had a very pleasant outing and chatted with our new Icelandic acquaintances.