Travel Tips & Adventures

Long before there were high rises in Manhattan, ancient people built tall buildings in the cliffs. At Montezuma Castle, a US National Parks Service National Monument, you can see, from a distance, the handiwork of “Sinagua” dwellers from the 12th century. The Park is north of Flagstaff, Arizona near Interstate 17 and is normally $5 per person for those 16 and older.

Montezuma Castle National Monument

ALERT:

This is the last weekend (August 15-16) that the US National Park Service is allowing free entry to over 100 national parks. Montezuma Castle is one of the free locations during this special promotion. See the following list to see what is available to visit for free. (more…)

Scotland: Fall 2009

DAY 14

Even though we just got there (Edinburgh), it’s time to get out of town!

What do Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson and Angus Macfadyen have in common? They have all portrayed Scottish heroes at your local Cineplex. Whether or not the movies were entirely accurate (Braveheart & Rob Roy) is beside the point. The characters were real. William Wallace, Rob Roy and Robert the Bruce were, in fact, local heroes, much to the chagrin of the British monarchy at the time. (more…)

Scotland: Fall 2009

DAY 13
EDINBURGH

At this time, we will be nearing the end of our trip. There are still enough things to see that we could probably spend another week in Scotland, but that’s not going to happen. So, we have to make some decisions about what to see and not … (more…)

Scotland: Fall 2009

As promised from yesterday, we’re continuing our journey down to Edinburgh.

Day 12

Aviemore to Edinburgh

Distance: 126.0 miles
Time: 2 hr 48 min

We are going to make a few stops and hopefully we’ll have time for all of them.

1st Stop

Blair Atholl

The village of Blair Atholl is approximately a 90-minute drive north from Edinburgh or Glasgow just off of the A9, 35 miles north of Perth.

Blair Castle

The seat of the Dukes and Earls of Atholl is touted as Scotland’s most visited historic house and is also the home of the Atholl Highlanders, Europe’s only remaining private army. (I think I’ll see if I can rent them out for a few jobs that I have pending around the house.) (more…)

Scotland: Fall 2009

DAY 9 – Continued

We leave John O’Groats for a short trip to the town of Wick.

John O’Groats to Wick
Distance: 16 miles
Time: 22 min

A harbor town, Wick is also noted in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the Shortest Street In The World! 1 Ebenezer Place is a whopping 6 foot 9 inches. Yeah, that’s pretty short!

 
Wick is also noted for having the most northern malt whiskey distillery in Scotland, Old Pulteney Distillery. Although tours are given, we won’t have the time. (more…)

Part 6

Scotland: Fall 2009

Well, I’m back.
The emergency kilt fitting went reasonably well, although the bagpipe lesson was more problematic.

For some reason there were lots of neighborhood dogs howling … or was that the neighbors screaming at me to stop strangling that cat?

BACK TO THE PLAN …

Last time we were coming back from the island of Arran. We plan to arrive back at Glasgow Central train station at around 9:27 P.M. Hopefully, we’ll have enough time to pick up a car for an early morning departure but that might not be possible due to the really odd hours of rental car desks at the train station. (more…)