Day 1616: Siblings on tour

Jet lag.  It takes days to recover.  We were asleep by 9:30 last night and then Colin called to welcome us home.  So sweet, but I was so disoriented I didn't know where I was or where the phone was.   We woke by 5:30 am and have worked like madmen all day.  Apparently, it's what we do.  

Steve installed the extension on the drain spout and then hauled twelve loads of dirt, finished his fund raising route.  I downloaded photos, shopped for flowers and then created another dozen container gardens, raked grass, trimmed the Japanese willow and swam a half mile.  Is that enough for one day?  And exactly why do we feel compelled to drive ourselves?  Well, I do love being outside and creating beautiful flower arrangements.  Plus, I am not going to die sitting in a chair!  

My favorite photo of the whole trip!

Steve took this one when we were visiting the Glasgow Botannical Gardens on Saturday.

We were so very fortunate to have this time together.

Day 1615: Time to sleep

This is my last task before I collapse and finally sleep.

Since there was hardly any food in the house, I scrambled a couple eggs at 5 am and we fell into bed. The thing about old folks though is that it's hard to break our natural routines, so sleeping past nine was out of the question.  That's ok.  I couldn't wait to get outside to see my gardens and mow!

It rained only once the whole time we were gone, so although the grass was long, it was also quite brown in the front.  I zipped around the yard making hay rows of the cut grass.  It will have to be raked tomorrow.   Some of the hostas doubled in size!  The most amazing change was the lupine.  Fifty four spikes on one plant!  And they were nearly four feet tall!

So, we did seven loads of laundry, mowed and trimmed the lawn, did grocery shopping, vacuumed the globs of black cat fur from everywhere in the house, sorted mail and papers and put away suitcases.  On top of everything else,  yesterday Steve missed the first day of the fire department's annual fund raising appeal, so he had to go out and do his route today.  While he was out, I swam 150 lengths.  Had to!  The day was gorgeous and the water was 82 degrees!

Never got to download our trip photos, so that will come tomorrow when it's raining and then I will add photos to the posts.  Now, it's time to sleep!

Day 1614: Triple Whammy

Any one of the mishaps that happened on our journey home would have made the trip an eventful one, but we got a triple whammy.

Left the hotel at exactly 10:45 and with no traffic, we arrived at the airport a little after 11:00, checked in and got to the gate quickly.  Then, as we watched luggage being off-loaded from our plane, four fire trucks pulled up.  When crews were fueling the plane, the connection was faulty and allowed fuel to spill out on the tarmac.  Fully suited crews piled out to stand by while a fuel spill was cleaned up.  First, they sprayed it with foam and then covered it with absorptive pads.  All activity around the plane stopped while they worked.  The incident resulted in a one hour delay.

We arrived in Reykjavik late and the terminal was jammed.  All the flights were delayed because the air traffic controller's work slow down was still going on.  There were no chairs and very little food.  The food options are well-suited to Icelanders and other Scandinavians, but westerners were a bit put off.  Evan had introduced Steve to Skyr, and Icelandic type of yogurt, so he chose that and I picked a Greek yogurt and potato chips.   The one really positive aspect of Reykjavik's airport are the forty or so outstanding private bathrooms.  We left Iceland an hour late, too.

I had planned a three hour layover in NYC to make the connection to Buffalo and I could see it slipping away.

Two hours out from JFK, the captain announced the first diversion because of a huge storm over the east coast, and then another and then another.  We were just circling for a long time.  Finally, we cut through thick clouds with lots of turbulence and landed.  We thought we had only minutes to make our flight, but once phones were turned back on, we got texts announcing that the Buffalo flight was delayed by weather also.

The airport was jammed with people who had been caught by the storm.  Planes from all over could not land in NYC and got backed up everywhere.  Screaming babies, impatient passengers, not enough chairs, inadequate food and blaring music made for a very tense and noisy night. Why on earth do they keep blasting that raucus music? That might have helped the babies settle down.

Ultimately, the flight that was supposed to depart at 10 pm, finally took off after 2 am. We finally rolled in the driveway a little before 5 am.  A long journey indeed!

Day 1613: Hop on, hop off

Mary and Rachel departed for home by 10:30, with Mary feeling ill for their long journey.  Our group set out to tour the city on the hop on, hop off bus. We've been traveling so much that we needed a low key day and this was perfect.  We spent time in two favored spots: the Riverside Museum and the Botannical Gardens.  Both were worthy of a day each, but we only had a few hours.

With the weather so gorgeous, the city was bustling!  I think every resident was outside and walking, shopping, or drinking with friends.  It was too busy to stroll, so we tucked into a cafe and had sodas, chips and salsa.  The evening was topped off at a delightful Italian restaurant.  My sister was explaining to the waitress that we are all siblings vacationing together and we still like each other!  That's a great accomplishment!

Tomorrow we will be traveling home and access to wifi is doubtful, so my next post will be Monday back in Fredonia.

Day 1612: Culross

I knew as soon as we stepped off the bus this would be the best day yet. Culross is a tiny, ancient town on the Firth of Forth with a population of only 300 people.   Seventeenth century structures have been restored by the National Trust and reflect the best of the era without the stink of garbage, coal fires and human waste that characterized that century.

A small park stretched between the road and the sea.  Then opposite, a cobblestone entrance led to Culross Palace, or Place, and a dozen other homes and shops.  The palace was a very modest estate with several additions, painted mustard gold.  We immediately spotted a sign for hanging gardens and hiked up steep stairs between six foot tall rock walls leading up hill to overlook the town.  It was a breathtaking view.  Gardens, orchard, hens cackling, herbs draping over the walls, clusters of purple flowers growing from cracks.   So beautiful!

We had lunch in a quaint biscuit shop.  A cheese biscuit with a bowl of spicy butternut squash soup with rose flavored lemonade.  So Scottish!

Then we took a brief walking tour of the village and heard so many stories of life in the 17h century.  The best one was the explanation for the small windows in the second story of most houses.  What could they be for?  I assumed they were used for dumping waste into the street. No!  They allowed barn owls to enter homes at night to catch the mice and rats that tormented the residents.

Incredibly, a wedding was taking place on the palace grounds!  Groomsmen and guests wore formal kilts, jackets and vests.  Women wore grand sweeping hats, flowered dresses and heels.  Finally, the bride and groom appeared, she in her lovely princess gown and he in kilt suit.  A beautiful scene.

We searched the Abbey cemetery for a gravestone with the name Masterton, but had no luck.  We gathered a few more leads and clues that will require further research.  Nevertheless, Mary was happy because several generations of their ancestors would have walked those same streets, worked in village and gazed upon the sea.

Day 1611: Edinborough

Zipping along the rail line, we spy brilliant green fields outlined by hedgerows and rock walls interspersed with patches of yellow rapeseed. We left past peak time and arrived in Edinborough's bustling station by 10 am.  The Royal Mile called to us and we chose to begin with Holyroodhouse and work our way to the castle.  Holyroodhouse is the Queen's home when she visits Scotland and has served the family for 500 years.  We toured all the official spaces and gardens using programmed units with headphones to learn more about Scottish history.

Meandering through the city at a leisurely pace suited us well till late afternoon then the seven of us split into four units.  Steve and Laurie toured the castle, Rachel took the hop on bus, Nancy went to the tartan shop and Steve, Mary and I visited Greyfriars Cemetery.  We also visited the shop where JK Rowling wrote the early Harry Potter books!

At the end of the day, as we returned to the hotel, my brother turned to me and said, "That was a great day!"  So pleased!  I wanted his first foreign travel experience to be special and enjoyable.  Tomorrow my siblings are traveling to Loch Ness.  We will be going to Culross, one of the Cobb's ancestral homes.

Day 1610: Sore feet

Early this morning we said goodbye to the Isle of Skye and boarded a train back to Glasgow.  We barely skimmed the surface of Skye with our whirlwind tour.   It's a matter of philosophy, I suppose.  Experience a little bit of the world quite thoroughly, or sample a wide array of nations and cultures.  We have favored the sampling approach in the past, but are now leaning toward returning to places we really enjoyed to learn more.  This is my third trip to Scotland, so I know it better than most, but still quite superficially.

Tomorrow, we are off to explore Edinborough's historical sites.    The weather is perfect, the best Scotland has seen in years.  We've barely stopped moving since we left home on Saturday and are now very tired.  My ankle is blue and swollen from the careless man stepping on me.  The allergic reaction to the bug bite is still tormenting me.  I'm hoping a good night's sleep will help the healing so I can enjoy the rest of the trip.