Got up early this AM to take some pictures and stroll around the Old Town, then we headed south, stopping first at Roslyn Chapel. I believe this was featured prominently in the DaVinci Code, though I have never read said. The drive from Edinburgh to Oxford is around 350 miles, which is just a little longer distance than my drive from OH to Evansville was during college. The difference, of course, is that back then I was only going one state over to get to school - today we drove most of the length of a country. We got to Oxford [View Full Entry]

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This morning I woke up early and went running along the River Ness. North of town just a little ways is a park called the Ness Islands, and I happened across a point facing upstream into the river. I had totally forgotten about this spot, but it was here over 8 years ago that I had smoked a cigar and watched the river split in front of me as a celebration of landing my job in the west highlands. Memories... We drove out this AM to the Culloden battlefield - a very striking place. One of those places where it's easy [View Full Entry]

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This morning I woke up, moved the car, and found a local coffee shop. The coffee's definitely better up here than south in England, but still rubbish, as they would say. I would encourage them to stick with tea, except I was really craving the java this morning. Then I just hung out for a while and people-watched as everyone headed off to work. If I hadn't ended up in Glasgow while working in Scotland, my next choice probably would have been Inverness. It's a little slower pace of life, but still enough of a city that you don't get cabin [View Full Entry]

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There is a hill walk just outside of Ullapool, probably only 800 feet or so of elevation gain. However, this "walk" had defeated me twice already. The first time was during my visit in November of '99 - within sight of the summit, I was forced to literally hug the mountain as 100-mph winds threatened to throw me off the side and dash me against the rocks on the way back to town. This was the same day in which a hailstorm left my face scraped and bleeding. Hill 1, Steve 0. The next attempt was in 2001, where we reached [View Full Entry]

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Finally got my run in this morning, I ran down the hill into town, then north to the turnoff for the Ben Nevis trailhead. In case you're uninitiated, Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK (just over 4300 feet - doesn't sound too bad until you realize that you start from sea level!). There, running along a single track road with Ben Nevis off to my left. It was going great until I realized: #1 that I really needed a bathroom, and #2 that the trailhead, my halfway point, didn't have one. So I utilized my survival skills gained [View Full Entry]

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We woke up a little late today. I was intending to go running this morning, but either my alarm didn't go off or I pretended in half-sleep that it hadn't gone off. Went grocery shopping with the German road bikers that were sharing our room, then headed up to Glen Coe to hike Hidden Valley. This was the 1st time that I had gotten to hike in the Glen, so I was really excited! Though it rained most of the hike, it was never too heavy. Fine Scottish weather. The pictures probably tell the story better than I could. The hike [View Full Entry]

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We stayed at the hostel where I had lived in Glasgow exactly 8 years ago...only problem was, it was totally different and in quite poor shape. No further evidence needed than the overflowing 3rd floor toilet which woke us all up around 3 am when the water soaked underneath and bit into the fire alarm. It soon after soaked out the poor lads sleeping on the 2nd floor, pretty much ruining their morning. It was now my turn to drive - mind you, on the left. It actually surprised me how quickly I remembered how to drive properly over there (and [View Full Entry]

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Finally landed in Glasgow, nearly a full 48 hours since I had left DIA (and 72 hours since I had slept for more than 2 hours at a time in a tiny airplane seat!). Lara and Jacob picked me up in Miss Clio (the little red rental car) and made our way into the city, where we hopped the bus to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival. A gloriously huge arts festival which comes around every year. It is glorious and gives you frantic fuzzies (the kind of warm fuzzies you get when surrounded by manic artsy types). Some of Lara and [View Full Entry]

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Those of you that know me well, or read my travel blog from last summer, know my extreme distaste for New Jersey (despite my gi-normous love of New Jers-ians and the movie Garden State...though that's probably just b/c Natalie Portman is in it...). Mainly b/c they don't let you pump your own gas. Newark has become the nexus of all which is distasteful about N Jersey. I took the hotel shuttle back to EWR this morning to try and get into NYC. As the Spanish music blared, we passed through the ghetto of Newark. Newark is bringing ghetto back and in [View Full Entry]

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I was up for 24 hours before I even started this trip. You know how sometimes you just don't think things through? When I bought my plane tickets many months before, a 5:30 am flight sounded like a great idea. However...a 5:30 am flight leaving from DIA this morning translated into needing to be at Stapleton to catch the DIA bus by 4:00 am, which meant leaving my humble apartment by 2:30 am. By the time I had run, fixed my bag, packed my bag, run to K Soopers for food to pack, and watered my plants, it was 1:30 am. [View Full Entry]

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