Winter 2019-2020 (06-30-20)

Well, I thought I was all done blogging, but now that we are traveling for the summer, I think I changed my mind. We will see how long it lasts.  My reasoning? Well, partly because I am more interested in writing when we are doing fun things, and partly because at least 7 times in the last week, Paul and I have asked each other things like....where we we when we ate those scallops that time?....did we hike that trail when we were here last time?......What year did we go to----?  And the answer could always be found in....you guessed it...my blog.
So, with that being said, here is a synopsis of what our winter was like...

Winter in Havasu is, thankfully for us, filled with family, friends, and fun.

  

The holidays were their usual crazy time, with Rvers in the yard and guests in the house.

We never know who is going to be around, but we are always happy when the crowd includes our daughter Jess.

Our friends are always up for a good time, so when the weather is nice, outdoor activities include games on the back deck, Teryx rides in the desert, and campfires in the back yard.

When the weather turns lousy, the fun moves indoors with dance parties, Guesstures, the annual Yankee Swap, and of course Farkle.

Of course, no holiday would be complete without the official weighing of the carrot cake!


















The festivities don’t end with the holidays- January brings the Balloon Fest, and more friends-

Whenever the weather permits, we make the trek to our favorite restaurant, El Paraiso, preferably in the Mustang, with the top down, but it isn’t always warm enough for that

February we hosted our annual WinterBlast party for the Fireworks festival.

As usual, we didn’t stay home the entire winter- we took a few trips for various reasons.

  In November we took an impromptu trip in the camper to meet up with Mike and Julie in Tucson for the Celtic Festival....

And were lucky enough to be there for another gorgeous Arizona sunset.

In December we headed to El Paso to check on Paul’s mom ( I finally remembered to get a picture!)...

















... and stopped in Phoenix on the way home for my cousin Linda’s Sweet 16 (60) birthday bash weekend.  Everyone dressed up as they would have when they were 16. Paul wore his Eagle Scout uniform (yes, it still fits) and I wore corduroys and a plaid flannel shirt. The birthday girl was dressed up as Homecoming Queen.













Well, that sums up the Party aspect of the PPP, but we also have the Project portion as well.


Large and small, we had lots of projects.  The biggest was probably the solar panels we had put on the roof. Paul has been waiting for the price of solar to be worth doing, and now we finally have the entire RV garage roof covered with panels.  He has fun checking our output every day.










Work wise, leveling the side of the yard was probably the hardest…We had literally tons of dirt brought in so that we could level the side near the fence.

 This makes it much nicer for parking our stuff over there.

Some of the projects mostly involved us just writing checks….those would include the new rain gutters along the back ( and some in the front) and the new shade, so that we can “close off” more of the back deck.

And, some of the projects could have been accomplished by just writing a check, but Paul chose to keep himself busy by doing things like making his own corn hole game….

The Edinburgh Experience (08-15-19)

Along the way to Edinburgh: We stopped at the William Wallace Memorial in Stirling.  Sir Wallace (Braveheart, as played by Mel Gibson) was a defender of Scotland, and rose to power in the late 1200s.

At that time, Stirling was the only gateway from the south to northern Scotland. In 1297 King Edward I sent troops to squash the rebellion headed by Wallace, but they had to get across the very narrow Stirling Bridge to reach them.

 It was expected that they would easily trounce Wallace and his small army, but Wallace's troops cut them off as they attempted to cross the bridge, dividing the army in half and slaughtering over 5000 men.





Eventually Wallace was betrayed, brought to England, found guilty of treason, and put to death. That is the extremely short version of his story :)

Edinburgh in August is a hopping kind of place.  The crowds are amazing, and kind of fun- for a few days, anyway.












In addition to the month long International Military Tattoo, there is an enormous book fair and a festival called " the Fringe".

Our flat was smack dab in the middle of the action, which was awesome, because we had turned in our rental cars, and navigated the city on foot, which is very easy to do in Edinburgh.

Quite a few of the roads were closed off, and temporary pubs and cafes were everywhere.

First on the agenda was a tour of Edinburgh castle.  Mike and Julie have seen it, so we were on our own.

Although some of the castle was left looking like a castle, much of it has been transformed into a museum.

With so many places to eat, we decided to eat most of our dinners out, instead of cooking- our first night we kept it simple and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe.

Back when planning our trip, one of the first things we did was decide when we would be in Edinburgh, so we could buy our tickets to the Tattoo.

The venue is outside, at the castle, so we were lucky it was a nice night.

A tattoo showcases military music, and Edinburgh has one of the best in the world. There were performers from many different countries, in addition to Scotland.

My favorite is usually the pipe bands.

After an hour and a half, the concert ended with fireworks.

The Fringe Festival began in 1947, the same year as the "invitation only" Edinburgh International Festival.  Performers who weren't invited to that festival invented their own, and it has grown over the years, so that now there are more than 32,000 shows over the course of the 3 week festival.










Naturally we had to see a show! Most of the performances are short, and very inexpensive.  Some are outside and some are in small pubs or theaters. We chose to see a comedian, in the afternoon.  I can't say we understood all of the humor, but it was entertaining, and now we can say we have done it.

On our final day the weather was iffy, so we checked out the Museum of Scotland.  Admission is free, which is nice.  I found it huge and a bit confusing, but I did discover that backgammon was around in 1717, since Mary, Queen of Scots gave this set to one of her companions.

Bowling is also a very old game- these artifacts date to about 1640.  The original way it was played is different though.  Two or more men would choose a spot 2-3 miles down a road, and throw a bowling ball until it hit the target.  Whoever did it in the fewest throws, won.  The pins came into the game a few years later.

The last thing I wanted to do before leaving Scotland was try a cask ale.  These are locally made, but are nocask carbonated and are served at about room temperature. It was pretty good.

Highland Games and Glencoe (08-12-19)

All 4 of us enjoy Highland Games, and were definitely excited, as we headed to the Abernethy Highland Games in Nethybridge.






Along the way: We stopped at the Glen Morangie distillery. This is one of Mike and Julie's favorite Whiskies.  So sad that it was 11 am and we were driving- they settled for buying some new Glencairn whisky glasses.

Although we are no strangers to Highland Games, for Paul and I, these were the first we have been to in Scotland. Here there are games almost every week in the summer.

Most are small, local games, a few are bigger and last more than one day. This was a relatively small one, but extremely well done, and a lot of fun.








Our rooms were at the historic Nethybridge Hotel, built in the late 1800s. The hotel let us park our cars in the lot, even though it was only 10 in the morning.  From there we could easily walk to the games.

 One of the dancers was sitting next to us, with her dad, so I chatted with them a bit, and enjoyed watching her compete.












The outer track hosted numerous races, for people of all ages.

In addition to the piping and drumming competitions, there were, of course, the traditional heavy weight competitions. 

 One of the favorites  is the Caber toss.The athlete walks forward, holding what is essentially a telephone pole. When he has it balanced, he throws it.

 The first requirement is that the pole has to flip, end over end.  If it does, the goal is to get it to fall as close to straight as possible. In other words, using a clock analogy, if the athlete is standing at 6 O'clock, he wants the caber to fall at 12 O'clock.

Whoever gets the closest, wins. 

A new world record was set when Colin Dunbar, from the U.S., tossed a 56 lb weight 17.5 feet in the air. Yikes.

Once the games were over, some of the pipe bands marched to the hotel, and set up in the garden, where they played several traditional Scottish songs before disbanding.

From Nethybridge, our next destination was the historic town of Glencoe.

These days, Glencoe is a haven for hikers, however, it has a very sad history.  This area was inhabited by the MacDonald clan in 1692 when King William lll offered a pardon to all who had fought against him.  

The MacDonalds were delayed in swearing their allegiance and missed the deadline.  In February, they were housing a group of soldiers, including many of the Campbell clan.  After 10 days, on the night of February 12, the Campbells received an order from the King to kill all MacDonalds under the age of 70. In the middle of the night, they started the slaughter. While many escaped into the night, most of those died of exposure. 

On a more fun note, that first night Julie and I went for a short walk, and ended at the site of a Harry Potter filming location- Hagrid's Hut.

With one day to hike, Paul and I chose the Lost Valley Trail.

For several miles we hiked along numerous waterfalls, climbing up about 900 feet of elevation.

At the end, our reward was a view of the Lost Valley....

On our non-hiking day, we explored the nearby town of Kinlochleven.  The drive to get there was pretty spectacular.....

The town itself is picturesque and owes it's beginnings to the aluminum industry,  of all things.

In the early 1900s, because of the availability of water and hydro power, an aluminum company built a smelter here, and what was a place with two hunting lodges, grew to a town of thousands. It is still a decent size town, known for it's climbing, and winter sports.

Interestingly, during World War I, prisoners of war helped build the infrastructure of the town, and were housed with the locals.

On our final day, I took a day off, and Paul went exploring with Mike and Julie..