Category Archives: Travel

Peaches

For me, no summer is complete without a visit to Chiles Peach Orchard in Crozet, Virginia. This weekend my  friendy Wendy came for a visit and we managed to squeeze in a trip to the orchard before the start of school…

“From laden boughs…”
“Oh to take what we love inside, to carry within us an orchard…”
“the round jubilance of a peach”

Years ago, my writer friend shared a gorgeous poem with me, and I’ve been waiting for the perfect day to share it with you. Today is the day! You can read it here:  From Blossoms, by Li-Young Lee.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Copenhagen

En route home from England, we had a longish layover in Copenhagen. We decided to spend the night in a hotel:

At the crack of dawn the next morning we made our way to the subway station…

We rode into the center of town and had breakfast along the canal:

We took a quick walk before heading back to the airport to fly home:

Enhanced by Zemanta

Last days…

Our week at Corshill Cottage came to an end. We drove back to Edinburgh to catch our train back to Manchester, but first squeezed in a quick trip to the Camera Obscura. From the Outlook Tower at the top of the Royal Mile we got panoramic views of the city:

Inside the tower, we got another view of the city in the camera obscura, a darkened room in which mirrors and lenses are used to project a live image of the streets of Edinburgh onto a large horizontal screen. Our guide told us that when the apparatus, (the same one that is still in use today), first debuted in 1853, people would vomit and even pass out from the shock of seeing the live projection.

The rest of the Tower was devoted to optical illusions:

Finally, it was time to get back to Manchester for our last few days, and the pleasures of home life there:

Teddy and Granny
Tea in the garden
Colin catches up with his brother.
Nicholas chats with his aunt.
Watching Countdown

My daughter spent many hours of the day boning up on Greek mythology with a new book from her aunt:

and with her dad’s Classical Studies notebook from grade school:

At night she dreamt about Greek mythology:

There were some serious ping pong matches:

The little brothers won a point against the big brothers, which was then taken away for excessive celebration.
We liked Granddad’s cool “one hand in the pocket stance”
Granny’s got game…

Frolicking in the garden:

On the day we left, Granddad indulged the kids by taking them on a pilgrimage to see the home stadium of their favorite team:

Old Trafford: “Theatre of Dreams”

And finally, it was time to bid a fond farewell to our family:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Scotland, Pt. 4 – The British Open

We went to the first day of the British Open. We parked ourselves at the 17th hole and enjoyed the spectacular views at Muirfield:

Here’s Phil Mickelson on his way to his eventual win:

Others did not fare so well. Colin deemed the next day’s sports headline “typically British”!

The real competition began later that week, of course:

“Desktop Golf” with Uncle Mike

“Pitch and Putt”

Hope your weekend is wonderful!

Enhanced by Zemanta

Scotland, Pt. 3 – My husband’s first home

My husband has always loved Scotland, where he was born and spent the first twelve years of his life.

He and his dad took a hike around Ben Ledi, the first hike they had done together when he was a little boy. When they first walked the trail decades ago, these trees had just been planted and were knee-high:

Although it’s a little grainy, I was so glad they were able to mark this occasion by taking this photo at the top:

That evening he humored me by taking me to this church we kept passing en route to the cottage, so I could get some photos:

Like the trees, the gravestones dramatically showed the passage of time. On some stones the elements had completely erased the engraving, which once marked the day someone who had been loved and cherished was born and the day they died:

The next day we took a day trip to Dollar. We parked our cars on the beautiful street bisected by a babbling burn, right next to the house where my husband first lived:

We walked to Mill Green and the kids played in the icy cold stream where my husband and his brother used to play as children:

We trekked up Dollar Glen to Castle Campbell, once known as Castle Gloom:

By the time we got there, the kids were exhausted:

They revived with a game of roly poly:

…which was fabulous, until Someone-Who-Shall-Remain-Unnamed rolled right into a pile of dog poop.

We continued our tour by stopping to see the church where my husband had been baptized as an infant:

The baptismal font

And then it was back to the cottage, and to an early birthday celebration for both my husband and daughter:

We can only capture these fleeting moments of our “one wild and precious life” imperfectly in photos, in stone, in our memories…but by God we try.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Scotland, Pt. 2

The next day the kids visited Stirling Castle:

In the afternoon, we took the Sir Walter Scott steamer, first launched in 1899, around Loch Katrine:

Back at the cottage, the kids happily took advantage of the long hours of daylight to kick around a soccer ball:

Look, my photography trick still works like a charm! To get this:

…let the kids do this first:

or this nonsense:

Happy Birthday to my one and only:

Enhanced by Zemanta

Scotland

The morning after we arrived at my in-laws house in England, we took the train to Scotland. Colin had been in Edinburgh all week singing with his choir at St. Mary’s Cathedral and we were going to meet up with him there.

The boys do their best impression of me.

Colin met us at the station and we walked through West Princes Street Gardens to St. Mary’s.

We walked past the Floral Clock:

Edinburgh Castle perched high on a hill top:

And this statue:

The kids and I cooled our heels at a nearby store while Colin’s group rehearsed for their final Evensong:

“Impressive!” I said when we finally walked into the cathedral.

“Really?” Colin sniffed, “It’s not as if it’s an original medieval church or anything. It might date to the Victorian age.”

Whatever.

The boys had just bought a Tintin Cuthbert keychain and were delighted to discover that their kneeler cushion happened to feature St. Cuthbert.

After the Evensong, we made a pit stop at Tesco to stock up. Colin was excited to find:

Haggis Potato Chips, I mean “Crisps”!

And then it was off to meet the rest of the family at the cottage we’d rented for the week in Aberfoyle:

View from the cottage:

Flowers in the garden:

The countryside around the cottage:

We’ll be starting our trip back to the states tomorrow and I’ll start posting again when I can. More adventures ahead…This Saturday we will be celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary and then we’ll head to the beach with my whole clan – all seventeen of us!

Enhanced by Zemanta

We made it!

By the time we were about to leave for England, I felt like I had spent half a lifetime doing load after load of laundry, sorting through clothes, creating piles of things to pack, editing and re-editing those piles, writing up a hefty instruction manual for the small army of people taking care of our dogs, cleaning the house…I thought I was handling it all pretty well, but I must have been emitting serious stress vibes. As I was going about my business tying up loose ends before we actually headed to the airport, my son came to me and said in the soothing tones one would use when talking to a child about to have a tantrum, or a lunatic holding a lit stick of dynamite, “Mom…I know packing stresses you out, but could you please, please try to stay calm?”

It would have been a lot easier to, were it not for the incessant questions:

“So, when are we going to leave?”

“What time is our flight?”

“Are we almost ready to go?”

When my daughter started drumming her little hands on the kitchen counter, I lost it just a teensy tiny little bit:

“Please go sit quietly in the living room while I finish getting ready to go and don’t ask me any more questions!”

Other than running into the President at Dulles and getting my kidneys thrashed all the way across the Atlantic by the antsy toddler behind me kicking my seat, the trip was uneventful.

We made it to Hall Bank…

The boys were reunited at last:

Can you hear the swelling of the violins?

Seconds later…

The cousins were there waiting!

That first day the boys initiated their little sister into a sacred rite of passage that the children in our family undergo at the age of seven:

“I keep getting engulfed in panic!”
“Think, ‘Just keep peddling!'”

She was discouraged and exhausted:

But a week later:

She is now our third child to learn how to ride a bike at Granny and Granddad’s house.

The last time we were in England was four summers ago. This was the day my son learned how to ride on the very same bike:

It’s been wonderful to reconnect with family here, but I’m missing my family in the U.S. Yesterday was my father’s birthday and today is my mother’s. Sending happy birthday wishes from across the pond for the two very best parents and finest human beings I know. xoxoxo

Weekend Snapshots 5

We’ve had many family celebrations here over the years…

Peking GourmetThis unprepossessing restaurant in a sightly shabby strip mall in Falls Church, Virginia is a D.C. institution. The walls of Peking Gourmet Inn are covered with framed, signed photos of illustrious guests such as presidents, senators, and generals. The restaurant’s reputation rests on its Peking duck, brought whole to the table, expertly carved, and served in pancakes with scallions, cucumbers, and hoisin sauce. This weekend we noticed that one V.I.P. had been bumped from the most prominent spot on the wall in the lobby area for a far more important personage:

PSYYup. Psy.

Our family gathered there this Saturday for the first birthday celebration of my cousin’s daughter:

For the doljabi ceremony, she did a wardrobe change into the traditional hanbok first worn by her aunt and then by her cousin for their first birthday celebrations:

After lengthy deliberation…

…she finally decided upon:

The pen!

It was a lovely occasion:

Happy Birthday!

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Gateway Arch

The Gateway Arch, perched on the banks of the Missippi River, was designed by architect Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel. At 630 feet, this stainless steel structure is the world’s largest catenary arch and the tallest monument in the U.S. During the Great Depression, the “Jefferson National Expansion Memorial” was conceived as a monument to Thomas Jefferson and his vision of westward expansion. City leaders saw it as a way of tapping into New Deal money in the hopes of stimulating the economy and creating jobs. Amid lawsuits and court cases, thirty-seven city blocks were cleared by condemning and demolishing almost all of the structures within the area, forcing out local people and businesses. It wasn’t until 1963 that building actually began. It once again became the focus of controversy when civil rights activists protested that there were no skilled African American  laborers being hired to work on the arch. The iconic arch was finally completed in 1965 and was opened to the public two years later. The arch itself is a soaring, gleaming marvel. There are broad expanses of lush green grass all around it, where I saw families sprawling and little girls turning cartwheels. To get there, I walked under a bridge where I could see homeless people curled up asleep on the concrete, their modest belongings stuffed into the makeshift lockers created by the structure.

I hadn’t realized that you can actually go into the arch. You have to crouch to fit into the creaky egg shaped tram capsules that take you to the top of the arch. There is a walkway at the top and tiny windows (larger ones would not withstand the pressure) from which you can observe the city for 30 miles around. Taken from the top of the arch:

Enhanced by Zemanta