End of 2019 travel...

I may have had a bit of a travel hangover after Scotland (not a real hangover, we did more sampling than drinking), but that didn't mean that I didn't travel a bunch. Here's an overview of where I went in the last 3 months of last year...

Sunset at home, looking at Mt Hood

Scotland VI: Glasgow, and Goodbye

I’ve been putting off writing about Glasgow, tried writing about it twice, but it's been hard to get my thoughts on (digital) paper. Glasgow was different from Edinburgh, different from the Heilan' towns we visited, and different from the German cities and towns I know so well. Aside from the lilt of Scottish accents, it had more the spirit of Berlin than its neighborly brother, Edinburgh.

Glaswegian humor: the government tried to make the Duke of Wellington less accessible
by putting him on a plinth. The cone re-appeared on his head the next day.

Scotland I - Edinburgh

This is part 1 of a 4-part series on my trip to Scotland with A - Stay tuned for segments on hiking in the Highlands, sitting in on a "session," visiting a whisky distillery on the west coast, and Glasgow!

Last Friday we boarded our flight from Stuttgart to Edinburgh, touching down in what we would later term "not really raining" between the green fields flecked with woolly backs. There is a convenient light rail which took us within 5-10 minutes' walk from our Air BnB, then we were out to find some food, a pub, and gear up for a full day tomorrow...

An afternoon deluge was followed by a brilliant double rainbow!

Skyline Divide

While we were wandering about the Alps, Jon (J2) told me about a Pacific NorthWest hike that we definitely needed to do when we got home. In his words, it was "the best views for the amount of effort that you put in." Mumsy is training for Kilimanjaro, and I needed a recovery trip after hiking the Enchantments a few weeks before... so on a weekend while I was still in Washington, we headed up the mountain!

 

Finding magic in Prague

Prague is one of my favorite cities, and not just because far-away friends often come and wander about with me when I'm there. It is truly a gorgeous city, with gilded theaters and graceful arched bridges, and the thousand spires it is famous for. The one thing I don't care for is the press of tourists, from gangs of Brits on stag parties to flag waving tour group leaders trailing mats of cameras like boats trail millfoil. It is frantic, loud, a press of people. But there is a magic moment in the day, after the sun rises but before the tourists do, when cafés are grinding espresso and shopkeepers flick cigarette butts from their doorsteps with straw brooms. 

the canal on the south side of the river, looking towards the National Theater

Friesland

I finally did it, one of the last travel things I've been afraid of. I rented a car and drove in Europe. Granted, we were only in Amsterdam for about 10 minutes, and most of where we spent our time was, as the guy at Enterprise put it, "much slower." It would have been a little faster had I  realized that a passport is required for car rentals and not left mine at home, but fast enough it was. On a raining sideways morning, we finally set off across the Afsluitdijk towards the land of our grandfather's fathers.

Im Schwarzwald Verlaufen (lost in the Black Forest)

Two months ago, tucked into the box of chocolate that arrived as usual from Germany around my birthday, was a little card that read something along the lines of "Credit towards a memorable day." Yesterday I cashed it in for an adventure in the Black Forest with Anne! She planned a hike for us in a beautiful, cliff-lined gorge that proved a little elusive...

Löffingen peaking over the hill... A view we wouldn't have had if we hadn't missed the turn!

Boston Blitz

After flubbing the schedule of my last post (written in Boston, about San Francisco) and taking a break for travel and holidays, I'm finally sitting down to look at pictures from this last month of adventures. Rather than the usual Quebec City post, I'll skip straight to my weekend in Boston. A friend from college picked me up at the airport, and we headed directly for the Freedom Trail... 

Faneuil Hall, market hub and venue for discussions from the beginning of US history. 

Minnesota Nice

I’ve been putting off writing this post, because I hardly know where to start. There’s a meme on the internet that describes Minnesota as “Nice.” What they mean is that there’s a tendency of Minnesotans to be agreeable, to not rock the boat, to step just a little out of their way to be friendly towards their neighbors. Normally, I’m not a fan of being “nice.” I much prefer “kind directness.” If I say I need to go, I need to go; don’t walk me through an hour of goodbyes that slowly move towards the door (also known as a “Minnesota goodbye”). As a kindness to each other, we can say one goodbye and simply leave! But it was a rough week on which I found myself in Minnesota, and a little niceness from old and new friends went a long way towards soothing my soul.

Park Butte hike (Tea at the Top)

I'm standing at my desk, looking out at newly re-greened grass and wet asphalt. I love this change in weather and the cozy, tea-sipping, book-reading mood it creates. But before the clouds blew in, we got out onto the mountain for one last clear, dry, early fall day. The mountains were out, and Dock Butte was in fine form! 

Mt Hood, with Timberline Lodge

I'm a big fan of the old lodges in national parks (if multiple stops in Glacier and other places haven't clued you into that already). A couple of weekends ago Sister and J suggested we go hiking at Mt Hood, which of course I agreed to! Unfortunately, weather and a sea-level acclimated fur nephew conspired to cut our hike short. That didn't keep us from taking a pleasant stroll above the treeline and checking out the beautiful lodge.

Canadian, Oregonian, American, Washintonian, Swiss, German... and Swedish? 

Joshua Tree

One of my Swedish friend’s wishes while in LA was to visit one of our national parks. Aside from the Channel Islands, the nearest national park to LA is Joshua Tree. After sitting in traffic on Thursday, we thought that Friday would be a great day to ditch the city and head to the desert. Luckily our mustang agreed, so we hit the road.

Route planning (Thanks, Ruth, for the photo!)

Off to Los Angeles...

Some friends I hadn't seen in a few years were heading to LA for an extended weekend, so I flew south to join them. We didn't have much of a plan besides "rent a car, hike a bunch, and see at least one national park, and have fun!" I think we hit it on every count! The first day started with a leisurely breakfast near our VRBO in Pasadena, and then we headed towards Santa Monica for a hike...

Loki the Trickster Dog

We adopted a pet. He's brunet with a squiggly white blaze that falls off the left side of his nose and a coat that makes him look like an old bearskin rug when he is most relaxed, at which point he kicks his back legs out behind him and lays flat out with his tummy on the ground.

Loki

Crashing a Czech Wedding

The pretense for our trip was a friend's wedding. That wedding took place in the middle of our trip in Ostrava. Lucie and Ales picked us up in the morning and took us to a cafe that looked like there Ostrava Mafia was meeting. Half a dozen friends of the bride and groom sat around a coffee table, wearing suits and dresses with yellow accents (their parents names the original group the “waps”). They had gathered to discuss ”the Plan.”

Brno

The day that it started raining in Baden-Würtemberg, we jumped on the train and headed to the Czech Republic. After a train ride, frantically running around rainy Nuremberg trying to find our bus, a double-decker ride to Prague, and a helpful Czech conductor (with cousins in the US) putting us in the correct train, we were relieved to see our friends waiting for us at the train station in Brno. Lucie and Ales whisked our hungry selves off to one of the good local eats in downtown Brno. Pilsner Urquell, fried cheese, stuffed peppers, knedliky, and excellent company brought us back to wakefulness.

Stuttgart

I visited Stuttgart three years ago at about the same time of year. This time around we waited until the last day of our stay to go into the city because the Wine Festival started that day. While we did eventually spend a wonderful evening in the city center eating Maultaschen and chatting friends of our host, we had an entire afternoon to explore the city before everyone was off work.

Löwenstein

We spent our first full day in Germany with friends in the wine region around Stuttgart. Bea, who visited us with Anne in April, is from a town called Löwenstein. Most of her family still lives there and operates a wonderful winery.

Montréal, rapidement

Normally in June I post about Quebec City, since we have annual update training sometime in the early summer. I almost always stop in Montreal en route to Quebec City, since there are no direct flights from Vancouver, but I rarely leave the airport. This time, I came up with a way to squeeze a visit in without extending my trip past 6 days. A friend from college had recently moved to the city with her husband, and offered to share their couch. I flew out a day early for the meetings, caught the bus to their neighborhood, and spent the day that the rest of my co-workers traveled exploring a new city! 

the Basilica

The first day of summer (in Tacoma)

The local high school team was at the state meet in Tacoma this weekend. Sister #3 is a star runner, so we headed down to watch her run! After she PR'd by 2 seconds in the 800m, we had a few hours until the next event, so we took Sisters #4 and #5 and headed downtown for an adventure in the sunshine. 

leaning slightly left at the Glass Museum