England & Scotland Pictures

Check out some of our pictures from England & Scotland. Rather than bore you with all 200+ pictures from our trip, here are just a few highlights.

An adventure at home

Here it is, the autumnal equinox (at 6:23 p.m.) The days are getting shorter and outside our bedroom window, all the leaves have turned yellow. Yesterday seemed like a good day to go for a walk, so Garrett and I headed out in our hiking boots and long pants to ward off the pricklers in the woods. We thought we would walk along the Horseshoe Trail, which runs along the back of our property and eventually (I think) hooks up with the Appalachian Trail. But we headed the other direction, toward St. Peters Village and rocky French Creek. It was beautiful, and amazing that just a couple of hundred yards from our house you can feel completely cut off from civilization. When we got to the creek, we thought we could cross and walk back along the roads, but couldn't find a way from boulder to boulder that would get us across, so we decided to go back the way we came.

That's when the trouble started! We had left totally unprepared for such a hike, since we only intended to "go for a walk." So we had no water, no compass, no GPS, not even our cell phones. A half hour or so later with the sun starting to go down, we found ourselves on an unfamiliar trail headed in who knows what direction. Eventually, we found our way home, feeling stupid for going out so unprepared.

Anyway, summer is over. We celebrated last week at the annual Oley Fair party that the Stinelys have every year. It was great fun, as usual. The theme for the food competition this year was "Comfort Food." Garrett and I made Yukon Gold Potato and Wild Mushroom Gratin with Blue Cheese, figuring anything with those ingredients and that fattening had to be good. It was, and we took first prize, which means that next year we get to pick the theme. We're already looking forward to it!

Meanwhile, I finished two interesting books recently. The first was an autobiography by Jacques Pepin called The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen. Another interesting foodie story. Next, I read (listened to) Border Crossing by Pat Barker. Barker wrote the amazing Regeneration Trilogy, historical fiction about shell-shocked WWI soldiers. Border Crossing is a much less ambitious book, telling the story of a child psychologist (Tom) who rescues a young man (Danny) attempting suicide. Danny "coincidentally" turns out to be someone Tom had worked with 11 years earlier, when as a child, he had committed a brutal murder and had been sent to juvenile detention and then prison, in part based on Tom's testimony. Apparently, in Britain, juveniles can be released relatively quickly after committing murder, and are given new identities and protected by the "Home Office". So Danny was now "Ian" and seeking Tom's help in coming to terms with his past. Barker does a great job of getting in close to the relationship between therapist and patient, just as she did in Regeneration. But the book sort of peters out at the end, as if she got bored with the subject. Still, she is a great writer and the book was worth reading.

Scotland Continued

We're still having a blast but have continued to have driving challenges. After leaving Inverness (not a very interesting place), we decided to drive along the more "tranquil" east side of Loch Ness. That meant long stretches of curvy single track roads, which means the road is only wide enough for one car. When a car approaches in the other direction, one or the other of you have to pull off onto a "passing pullover" (if you can find one). What for Lisa was a beautiful trip, for Garrett was a white-knuckled thrill ride around blind turns and hills. Adding to the excitement, were the gigantic tour buses making the same trip. When two of them met on the single track road, it was quite an ordeal! We did make one wonderful stop, at the Foyer Falls. We hiked down to view the falls, which look like Amber Ale rather than water. Interestingly, when you stare at the falls for a few seconds and then look off to the side, the rocky walls appear to be moving, an optical illusion called the Foyer effect.

We finally got to Glasgow, thinking that the worst was behind us, but proceeded to slog through street layouts that make absolutely no sense at all. Add to that incomplete maps and driving on the wrong side of the road, and Garrett was gritting his teeth and surviving some anxious moments, while turning corners and trying to find where we're going whilst not getting front-ended. However, we managed to find the cathedral, a nice B&B and a wonderful Tapas restaurant. The meal was the reward for the driving conditions.

Today, we managed to find our way out of the city and stopped in Abington (no not in Montgomery County), a sleepy little town with one hotel and pub. A tasty lunch revived us and fueled us in and through Carlisle. We stopped and found a place for the night and thus found ourselves an opportunity to check email and update the blog.

Tomorrow we're off to Manchester with a stop along Hadrian's Wall. Thinking of you all and missing our puppy. We hope all are doing well! Thanks to Josh & Trev for the brief notes. We'd love to hear from the rest of you too!

More fun in Scotland

Since leaving Edinburgh, we've continued to drive on the wrong side of the road through the beautiful countryside. Amazingly, Garrett only attempted to drive on the right once! What was even more fun was driving on roads that are only wide enough for one car, but with traffic going in both directions! Whew! That was NOT fun.

Our first stop out of Edinburgh was at Falkirk Wheel, a simple yet elegant engineering marvel that lifts boats from one canal to another, over 114 feet of elevation. They told us that the energy required to move the wheel was equivalent to 8 toasters! Thanks to Archimedes, the wheel can handle any size boat (because if you put in a 1 ton boat, 1 ton of water is displaced). Very cool.

Next we headed to the little town of Dunkeld on the River Tay. Unlike Trevor, we did not go whitewater rafting, but the current was definitely strong enough. We visited Dunkeld because I had heard about a pub there, the Taybank Hotel, that is called "the musical meeting place of Scotland." Since we were there on a Monday, there were traditional wool spinners in addition to musicians. The music was great, consisting of whistles, flutes, border and elbow pipes (sort of like bagpipes but powered by bellows rather than breath), fiddle, guitars, some singing, and alot of foot stomping. Almost all of the clientele (with the exception of us) seemed to be locals, and they were all super friendly. In the morning, we took a long, leisurely and beautiful walk along the river and then visited the ruins of the Dunkeld cathedral, which dates from the 1400s.

Back on the road, we drove through Boat of Garten and then stayed at Grantown on Spey. In the morning, we went to the Osprey reserve, which is along Loch Garten. Unfortunately, the breeding pair of ospreys, EJ and Henry, had already left for Africa without producing any hatchlings. But we did catch a glimpse of what appeared to be an Osprey, and the setting was quite lovely.

Now we are in Inverness, waiting for another hour or so for the Norway-Scotland world cup football game to start. We figured it would be fun to sit in a pub with a bunch of crazy Scots and watch the game. Tomorrow, onto Loch Ness and possibly all the way to Glasgow.

It's all been fun but exhausting... and expensive. If you think gas is expensive in the states, we filled up our little Ford Focus with 42 liters of gas (about 10 gallons) and it cost 40 pounds... about $80. With the dollar so weak, everything here is extremely expensive, so we won't be bringing back any of those beautiful Shetland or cashmere sweaters (for a mere $500).

One more thing... it's been really interesting to see the headlines in the papers here. Most of the Katrina converage has consisted of Bush bashing, with occasional stories of Brits who were stuck in New Orleans. But when you meet someone on the street and they hear you're from the United States, the first topic of conversation is the Katrina tragedy.

Finding internet access has been more difficult than we had anticipated, but we'll try to post more soon. Meanwhile, we HAVE been checking our e-mail, but have not heard from anyone, so please let us know what's going on.

Manchester to Edinburgh

After an overnight flight from Philly to Manchester (arriving Saturday), we rented a car and began the drive to Edinburgh, stopping along the way in Knaresborough, one of the oldest towns in England. We wandered the streets and had a long, leisurely (slow) lunch. The restaurant we chose advertised quick service, but their interpretation was anything but quick. But, hey, we're on vacation!

We arrived in Edinburgh at around 6 and got lost looking for the Turret guest house, where we would be staying. After checking in, we set out on foot to find a place for dinner, ending up at a Moroccan restaurant that had very good food as well as an excellent belly dancer. Fortunately, we weren't invited to join her! We also drank a bottle of Moroccan wine, which was quite good. Who would've known?

Yesterday (Sunday), we wandered around Old Town in Edinburgh, visited the Edinburgh Castle, and then continued our wandering in New Town. New is relative here... built in the 1800s rather than the 1400s. Edinburgh is a really interesting and vibrant town with lots of pubs, filled with large groups of guys drinking beer. Sunday was the final day of the Edinburgh festival, to be capped off with a huge fireworks show accompanied by the Scotland National Orchestra. We were lucky to hear them practicing early in the day (since we couldn't hear them at all from our vantage point during the fireworks). After a late, light lunch at a pub, we walked back to the guest house and took a long and much needed nap. Then, we grabbed a cab back to another pub in Old Town where we met a group of people for a Literary Pub Tour. Two actors treated us to an interesting, amusing, and fun walk through town as they regaled us with tales about famous writers in Scotland (especially Burns, Stevenson, and Scott) and their drinking habits. After that, fireworks, and another walk back to the guest house, stopping along the way for a late dinner at an Indian restaurant.

Today, we're off to see the rest of Scotland (or at least whatever we can fit in over the next 5 days). We have been lucky thus far to have beautiful weather, but today it's cloudy and rainy. Garrett has done an amazing job of driving on the left side of the road. He's even managed to not throttle me as I gasp and cringe as we enter and exit the many roundabouts. Good thing he is driving and not me!