Hiking Aberfoyle to Callander (10 mi)

September 24, 2024
by noutlaw
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Dear gentle reader… you’ll be excited to learn that our two traveling souls woke up in Aberfoyle to a brisk morning, prepared to encounter rain, but that never happened and the sun came out and it was a great day indeed! (ha if you get the reference…)

So the hiking today is mostly on logging roads – and a lot of the forest has been harvested – so you’re walking through a bunch of torn down forest so when you get to nice spots you really enjoy them. Yesterday (no post) we hiked from Drymen to Aberfoyle – which was a great first day hike – weather was a bit colder than today – but a lot of the same photos – cows, sheep, old rock walls, more sheep, some grass, more sheep, another rock wall, etc. Generally we are hiking from town to town and there’s nothing really in between, so having your proper gear with you is important. What we are finding is we’re pretty layered up in the morning when we leave, but then as the day progresses we have de-layered a bit, but then towards the latter part of the afternoon the layers come back on.

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A Duck!

September 23, 2024
by noutlaw
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So last night couldn’t really sleep – on again off again I guess. I realized how funny I thought I was the other day when we were on our free walking tour with our guide. We were at the castle and getting our history lesson when she started talking about witches and how the new king had decided that if you were a witch – then they would get rid of you (burn). It was pretty gruesome really – they killed over 4000 people. (now to the funny part for me)

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Made it to Drymen, Scotland

September 22, 2024
by noutlaw
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Well well, we did it, after an interesting day of breakfast, 2 cappuccinos and a Nutella treat, we were able to have our car pick us up successfully at the hotel and then venture the 1.5 hours to Drymen. Our driver says “never been to Drymen…” and he’s an older gentleman… I’m thinking yikes I’m sleeping with a sheep tonight, but no, it’s very nice here – a great room at an inn, and our dinner place was literally right across the street.

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Last Day in Edinburgh, the world is small…

September 22, 2024
by noutlaw
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Well today is a transit day, having spent yesterday doing a bit of laundry and walking around the University. This is where the world gets smaller. How small? Here it is…

So we are sitting at dinner the other night, casually chatting about all things pet (typical conversation goes “what do you think Knowshon is doing…”). Sitting next to us are two Americans also chatting about all sorts of things. In the most casual of ways I hear the guy say “Renton” – of course sitting there for about 3.5 seconds I think “no way”, then 2 seconds later ask “did you say Renton, as in Renton Washington?”. The answer, is yes, they are from Washington. I casually say – oh “I’m from Snoqualmie”, they reply “We live in North Bend” – flash my brain – couldn’t believe it – someone else on the planet from North Bend Washington that actually is in Scotland, even more mind blowing traveling the world. 🙂 Smallest synergy is that they live on Zemp Way (or Road or something) which was a really funny coincidence as the Zemp’s were neighbors and I was pretty good friends with Greg for awhile… So there it is – strange dinner fellows.

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Tea with the Queen of Lafayette? Castle and HMS Britianna (you know the royal ship in the show…)

September 21, 2024
by noutlaw
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Howdy, it’s Saturday morning and we spent yesterday in our new found country of Scotland. The days of 70F and warm are now gone and conveniently the colder/grayer/wetter Scotland has now come upon us. Largely this is good as we are well prepared for the later, not really if it was going to be warm on our hike. I mean I brought gaiters all this way, need some rain/mud to use them in…

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Oh Lord, Let there be air flow… please…

September 19, 2024
by noutlaw
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There it is, my secret new hotel prayer to the sleeping god – we’ll call him “Phan”. You see Cindy has this thing when we travel about “air flow” and how there must be “air flow” or for without said air flow there are serious sleeping disorders that appear in the night – which of course results in me having a sleeping disorder in the night. Largely, Cindy can’t sleep.

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London, working, meeting new folks and training to Edinburgh

September 18, 2024
by noutlaw
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Ok, we’re getting pretty good at this international traveler thing – guess we’re used to it by now. Yesterday was a late wake up day – largely due to jet lag and being up from 1-4 am and then falling back asleep. I set my watch for 8 am, bad thing about an alarm clock on your wrist is it takes about 1 second to turn it off, and when it’s off, it’s off… So we slept in, had breakfast late and then ended up at the Victoria and Albert museum, seeing a photograph collection from Elton John & his partner.

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First 24 in London, walk a lot, changing of the guards and biggest swan(?) on the planet…

September 16, 2024
by noutlaw
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Well we’ve been in London about 24 hours, yesterday we arrived around noon, then it took some time to get to our hotel. We took the express train to London from Heathrow which was fairly easy except for the walk to the train (long). We then decided to walk from there to our hotel, which was super nice – it’s about 70F and sunny – not too hot, nor too cold. We walked through Hyde Park, right by the last hotel I stayed at last time and then onto our hotel in Knightsbridge. We’re about 1/2 a mile from Harrods and in the fashion district. Who would know that we would be fashionable – me with my normal Boulder wear, Cindy with her camouflage t-shirt, and both with Hoka shoes on…

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Heading to Scotland to Hike (Via London)

September 15, 2024
by noutlaw
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Well we are outta here, made it to DIA way ahead of schedule, but that’s ok. Cindy is having separation anxiety from the pets, but she’ll work through it as soon as the door closes. We found two great house sitters through trustedhousesitter.com who stay in our house, take care of it and the pets and basically there’s no fee. There’s a charge to join the site, but considering dog storage at a place costs over $100/day for two dogs – it’s better for sure. I guess we’ll see when we get back.

We are heading to London today, staying there until Wednesday and then taking the train to Edinburgh until Sunday when we then car ride to our first little town. Monday a.m. we start hiking for the next seven days. My back really started giving me a fit over a week ago – thanks to my Dr for muscle relaxers… So I’m doing Yin Yoga and stretching daily for the next week. It’s amazing how the littlest thing can really send your back into a spasm and how long it takes to recover. Having a job where you sit at your desk for 8 hours/day (at least) doesn’t help for sure.

Last year we did the Camino de Santiago in Spain – which was pretty flat. This trek will be different – the “Rob Roy Way”. Temperature should be 50-60F during the day – typical day is about 10 miles, so that should take about 4-5 hours. My hope is to see lots of well trained herding dogs, combined with some fun loving sheep and cattle.

That’s about it – looks like London will be 70F so super nice for a couple of days. Cindy and I will be “working remotely” this coming week, then out of contact for a week – except in our very small hotels where we are staying. The towns are small – so you need to make dinner reservations ahead of time – otherwise you might not eat… There will be some interesting food choices for sure!

Ok that’s about it – follow along, let’s see how this goes! It will be a good work/life break for both Cindy and myself – great time to recharge – we’ve been going at life pretty hard this summer – so the break is well deserved.