Summer Photos and More

It’s been hard to get back to writing the blog entries for several reasons. For one thing,  we’ve taken no big trips to write about—some little ones, but nothing with photos to write home about. More importantly, health issues have taken priority. After two accidental falls (in Death Valley and Rio Grande Gorge, see previous posts) this spring, my legs and hips were giving me trouble enough that I thought I ought to talk to the doctor. His initial diagnosis was spinal stenosis—according to the Mayo Clinic, spinal stenosis is “a narrowing of the spaces within your spine, which can put pressure on the nerves that travel through the spine.” Suffers of lumbar stenosis may experience pain, tingling, numbness, and muscle weakness particularly in the lower back, legs, and feet. For me the condition means that walking very far (a block or two) gets painful to my hips, my legs get very tired (lethargic or leaden), and my feet tend to drag instead of lift as I step. This explains a lot about how difficult it was to tour in Scotland and play big courses. Golf, though, is a little better than just walking because relief comes from the frequent stops to hit the ball [Did I just say that the worse I played the easier it got?].  

St Fillans GC, where we are members, was a relatively easy flat walk with only one hill. It's a great wee course whether I'm healthy or not. 

Coffee shops or tea rooms gave me a needed break from walking.

Boat of Garten GC in the Highlands was hilly, but taking an electric trolley (electric hand cart to our American friends) made the course walkable.

Fraserburgh GC in the NE corner of Scotland was one of the links courses we played. The links courses seem to be easier to walk.

After a tough round I'd find ways to reward myself, like with homemade ice cream for dessert at Anderson's Restaurant in Boat of Garten.

Treatment for the condition at this point is fairly basic—pain relievers, which for me is tylenol, and physical therapy to stretch and strengthen back and leg muscles. Physical torture, I mean therapy, has been twice a week sessions with a professional therapist and a set of exercises every morning (Anne and I agreed that we can’t have coffee or computer until after we’ve exercised)—it’s been a 100% effective incentive except when we went camping. PT has also developed a set of exercises to do in the gym on the days I don’t play golf—now that’s a real incentive to get to the golf course. I can’t walk the course yet, but I’m working to get to where I can walk 9 holes, instead of taking the cart (buggy, to my Scottish family) like I do now.

All this has meant that traveling and the blog have taken a back seat to the gym and golf. I am now far enough improved that I can at least put together this post. Part one you’ve just read and part two is some summer photos I’ve taken from the activities we’ve been able to do. Hopefully the next post will have more interesting content (and less old age aches and pains banter) with some small trips in our future.

     Summer Photos at Highland Games. We attended both the McMinnville Celtic Festival (four days after we got back from Scotland) and the Portland Highland Games. Both were exciting, fun, and exhausting.

Here Anne is in our booth at the McMinnville Games. This festival is especially fun since I went to college at Linfield (where the games are hosted) for four years.

At the Mac Games it was fun to watch Mark Wechter, one of my former students at Brookings-Harbor HS. He is now world champion in senior division and competes worldwide.

Anne rests as we set up at the Portland Highland Games (about our fifth time to attend). We're in the gym at Mt Hood CC in Gresham where the games are held.

Here our booth is fully set up next to Granny Fi's Shortbread stand--we had the smell of great shortbread next to us all day. At the games most of the vendors struggled with sales--all except Granny who sold out everything.

     Family Gathering and Ankeny Hill Wildlife Preserve. In early July Anne's family had a gathering in Salem to celebrate Anne's sister's 50th wedding anniversary. Bev and Noel Stryker wanted to renew their vows with all the family present. It was a grand party and I even got away a couple of times to visit a nearby wildlife preserve.  

The Anniversary Couple (Bev and Noel) with grandkids (Stavros and Alex). 

Kevin Hoiland tended bar for the affair. He's an expert mixologist.

The Stryker-Tsangaris-Hoiland-Jones Clan(minus me, the photographer)

Hawk Hoiland, nephew Jon's favorite pal

At Ankeny Hill Wildlife Preserve are several ponds, and even though June is little late, there were still babies about. 

At least I can identify these: bee and California poppy.

And I know these are some kind of thistle.

     The Sisters Campout. For several years we've made it our tradition to camp out with Anne's youngest sister's (Charleen's) family in the Sisters, Oregon, area. The Hoiland gathering is a large clan (34 this year) with lots of trailers and motorhomes. This year was our first not to be in a tent--this was our maiden voyage with our new travel trailer, Morse the MiniMax.

Anne, our new 2017 F150 hauler, and Morse the MiniMax (bed, bathroom, kitchen on wheels).

Our camp location is about eight miles from Sisters, OR, in fir forest.

Camp is now set up.

Indian Paint Brush

Found only one of these really attractive caterpillars--checked all the similar nearby bushes, but could only find one.  

Found only one of these as well; and boy was I lucky to find her.

Campfire was well tended each night (shovel and water close by).

Next: That will depend on PT and what the doctors say.

Spring in Scotland #2: The Best, Part 2

One of Scotland's unheralded North Sea beaches near Fraserburgh.

In this post I continue categorizing the Best of Scotland from our recent trip. It took a little time to get to this post because as soon as we got home from our trip we had only four days to get ready for the McMinnville Highland Games where we set up a vendor’s booth. For three days we sold books, photos, and extolled the virtues of traveling to Scotland. Now that all the games equipment is put away (or at least stored in the garage) I can finish this blog.

Our booth at the McMinnville Highland Games four days after returning from Scotland.

      The first grouping of photos is related to golf in the Home of Golf. We played 17 rounds of golf on ten different courses. Five of the rounds were in competitions and the rest were just for fun—although we always have fun in the competitions as well. The golf courses ranged from hilly parkland courses to highland heathland tracks to hundred year old links and dunes courses. Most fun was playing in informal competitions at St Fillans in Perthshire where we are the club’s only international members.

Anne tees off at St Fillans GC 3rd hole.

The 4th green at St Fillans GC, partially bordered by Scottish bluebells.

View of the 14th green at Crail Balcomie Links on Fife (seven miles from St Andrews).

Boat of Garden GC is a fine heathland course in the Scottish highlands.

Very different from golfing is the touring we do at ancient sites in Scotland. The country is filled with ancient standing stones and stone circles as well as burial cairns. We made an effort to visit Celtic crosses and stones carved with Pictish symbols. It seems that any place not filled with ancient stones is occupied by castles, also of great age. These and other ancient sites took up much of our touring time.

The Dupplin Cross in St Serf's Church is a Pictish cross from the 10th C.

Ruthven Barracks just outside Kingussie was built after the 1715 Jacobite rebellion to house English troops trying to keep control of the wild Scottish Highlanders. 

Anne in the gardens at Crathes Castle west of Aberdeen.

Donnottar Castle south of Aberdeen has been used in many movies.

A mason's mark cut into one of the stones of Elcho Castle. The marks help identify who cut the stone, thus who gets paid for it.

Always one of our prime interests in Scotland is the gardens and flowers. I love making pretty pictures and in Scotland in any season I find plenty of subjects to photograph. This year was particularly colorful because they had a nice spell of warm weather around Easter which brought out the blooms. Everywhere we went we kept hearing, “You should have been here on Easter.” On this trip we managed to visit three formal gardens, but found plenty of other opportunities for flower and tree photos.

A Perthshire forest trail near St Fillans and Lochearn.

Two flowers from the St Andrews Botanical Garden.

An example of a Scots Pine in the Cairngorm National Park.

Fitting in neatly with the flower and garden photos is a category of general scenery. The whole of Scotland should be designated a Special Area of Natural Beauty. We visited spots we knew for the great scenic vistas and found new ones to enjoy as well—many of them in the highlands.

The single-track road through Glen Lyon, the longest glen in Scotland.

Sma'Glen at the southern edge of the highlands.

Loch Morlich and the Cairngorm Mountains

Clouds over the Cairngorms

Sunset at 9:30PM in Elie on the northern coast of Fife.

And finally, also very scenic are the photos of special wet places—rivers, burns, waterfalls. With some wet days the waterways were full and flowing fast. It was a fun challenge to try to convey these waters in the best way.

River in the Cairngorm Mountains

Falls on the River Braan

The Falls of Feugh near Banchory west of Aberdeen.

The Packhorse Bridge in Carrbridge--the reason the water is brown is because of dissolved peat.

In conclusion, this entire two part blog has been a farce. It’s not possible to categorize or compartmentalize an area as complex as Scotland—too much has been left out. I hope rather you will bunch together these images—stones, harbours, flora, fauna, villages, et al—and get some sense of the beauty that is Scotland.

NEXT: Who knows where the wind, or maybe the MiniMax trailer, will take us.