Culloden and Stirling


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August 31st 2007
Published: September 22nd 2007
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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 to imagine running across the clumps of cold bracken, on the way to your almost certain end. War the old-fashioned way - you got to look someone in the eye before you decapitated him. It's at once repulsive and appealing, the need for that kind of mental and physical fortitude.

After Culloden, we swing thru Stirling to visit the William Wallace monument before ending up back in Edinburgh. Scored some delicious Italian, then crashed hard at the hostel.


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6th October 2007

mmmm....yes.
I enjoyed your comment about war...about looking someone in the eye. Garrison Keillor talks about how we have not felt the effects of war on U.S. soil in so long because our Civil War was so devastating. There is something to looking the man in the eye you are supposed to kill and realizing that you are both men and both have wives and children, and that one of you will never see them again.

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