Category: travel
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Scotland Adventure – Day 6
And that’s pretty much it. I slept in a bit this morning, finished packing everything up, and drove the van in to drop it off. Here’s a Google Map of my travels in Scotland (driving, not hiking). I covered a lot miles: View Larger Map After I dropped the van off, I was looking at…
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Scotland Adventure – Day 5 – Loch Ness and Stirling Castle
I woke early in the middle of nowhere and headed out. I wanted to stop by Loch Ness just to say I had. Turns out, there isn’t a great place to just stop and say you saw Nessie. Oh, and Loch Ness is freaking enormous (it’s a lake)! I did see a Loch Ness exhibit…
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Scotland Adventure – Day 4 – Castles
So, after all my whining about my heels, how bad were they, really? Glad you asked: Really, they did hurt. Anyway, with my hiking complete, it was off to visit some castles. I had originally only planned to visit one castle, Stirling Castle, one of the more famous castles in Scotland. But with an extra…
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Scotland Adventure – Day 3 – Cuillin Hills
My colleague who recommended that I go hiking in Scotland recommended that I go to the Cuillin Hills. These “hills” are widely regarded as the most rugged terrain in all of Scotland and are located on the Isle of Skye. Considering that they are only about 3,000 feet in elevation, I didn’t believe they could…
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United Kingdom – Ben Nevis
After the prior day’s travails, I slept in pretty late for me – 9:00 am. I was debating whether or not I should hike Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK, given the poor condition of my heels, but this was the primary mountain I came to climb. Physically, I wasn’t sore from the…
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Scotland Adventure – Day 1 – the Pap of Glencoe
I spent July 3rd through the 6th in London at an academic conference. With my airfare covered by my university, and having made two prior trips to England for conferences, I thought it might be fun to extend this trip by a few days to see more of the United Kingdom. I asked Debi if…
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an interesting conception of love
During my spring break I went to the Cherokee Nation to volunteer with students. During that trip we had several people come talk to us about Cherokee culture. One of those speakers said something that stuck with me. He explained that there is no word in Cherokee that translates into the word “love.” He said…
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beignets at Cafe Dumond
Despite having been to New Orleans at least twice before, neither Debi or I had ever had a beignet. So, we made a special trip to Cafe Dumond before driving back to Tampa to pick up some beignets. Toren and Debi loved them: Me? I thought they were okay, but a little too sugary for…
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the Audobon Zoo
We took Toren to the zoo while we were there. It’s a nice zoo; very large. But Toren didn’t seem extremely interested, though it could have been lack of sleep. He did get his picture taken with the Buddha: To entertain Toren on the ride up we put Star Wars – The Clone Wars on…
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dinner and a movie
While we did spend a fair amount of time at the conference, we also found time to sneak out with Toren to see some of New Orleans. We caught a movie at the aquarium… Well, Debi and I did. Toren was so exhausted from not taking a nap that he fell asleep about 5 minutes…