Tuesday 5 July 2022. Day 3 on the West Highland Way (WHW) from Balmaha to Rowardennan. 8.7 miles by Garmin. 784 feet Elevation gain. 6 hours 23 minutes walking. This will be called our day of the flowers as we saw so many very minute and beautiful species. With the help of the app - SEEK - we were able to identify many of them. The Oak Tree Inn was a very nice accommodation. We are in a cabin a short walk from the reception but the lovely lady, Rosemary, helped find our bags, tote a bag and walk us to the room and then had to go back to get our key. She let us in a room which had twin beds. We quickly scarfed down the biscuits on the table with the coffee makings ... read more

Sunday, 3 July 2022. Day 1 on the West Highland Way (WHW) from Milngavie to Drymen. 13.5 miles by Garmin. 658 feet elevation gain. 7 hours and 10 minutes of walking The luggage transfer service required our bags out at 0730 for pick up and transfer to our next hotel in Drymen. Greg the driver sent a brief outline of his background. He is a royal army veteran having served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Since our CPAPs were a third piece of luggage we paid 65 GBP to have them included in our group luggage. As mentioned in an earlier blog that meant a 0530 wake up call to get everything broken down, organized and packed up so we could have the bags ready to take outside at 0730. Greg should up on the minuted. ... read more

This blog will be a synopsis of our walk of the West Highland Way in July of 2022. This was the trip planned in 2020 but delayed with COVID issues. Our group has changed over the course of the two years. My wife and I and our friends Jo Finestead and Norma Wiebe and Sandy Clements have walked the Coast to Coast and a few other treks together the last 10-15 years so we will see how age and the terrain treat us on this walk. We left our new home in San Antonio at Blue Skies of Texas, a CCRC, and traveled by car to Dallas-Ft Worth where we stayed with cousin Chuck who had hoped to make the trip but outrageously high airfares forced him to withdraw. Then on to cousins in Fairfield Bay, ... read more

21 September 2019, Saturday Day 20 on Thames path. Putney Bridge to Greenwich, day 35 of travel The last day of summer, first day of fall or equinox is today. London promises a sunny 75 degree day. Tower Bridge to Greenwich We leave the Premiere Inn at Tower Bridge and walk towards the bridge. As one writer has said, "Tower Bridge is unashamedly Victorian Gothic in style, and inevitably attracted sneers from architectural purists. "However, the public loved the bridge, completed in 1894. We are still on the South Bank, following the river to Greenwich. We go along cobbled streets with tall warehouses ahead. We turn down Maggie Blake's Cause, commemorating a recent local activist who fought to allow access to the Thames River Path for everyone, against developers who wanted to restrict it to diners ... read more

19 September 2019, Thursday Kingston on Thames to Putney Bridge London day 18 of Thames Path, day 34 of travel A note about the previous blog. Harlan's brother-in-law and Bob, a friend from Anthem, have given identification to our 'oreo' cows!' They are Banded Galloways bred in Scotland. A 15.9 mile day. Left the White Hart hotel around 0800 with plans to walk to the cafe at Petersham Nursery for breakfast (Google says open at 0900). We crossed over the bridge and at the lower level of the John Lewis building we saw the archeological section of a arched roof structure of a very early 14th century merchant's house. This is the exact spot the barrel-vaulted cellar and ornate chequerboard flint and chalk walls were discovered when working in the old bridge abutments. We elected to ... read more