Craig Leacach, Glen Shee - Munro #1

On Saturday I summited my first Munro!  For those of you who don't know what a Munro is, a Munro is a mountain in Scotland with a height over 3,000 ft.  They are named after Sir Hugh Munro, who produced the first list of such hills, known as Munros Tables in 1891. Now for some of you 3,000 ft may not seem very high but for Scotland it is!  There are a total of 283 Munros and 227 subsidiary tops in Scotland.  We'll see how addicted I become to bagging them.

Our day of hill walking started very early. We left Aberdeen at 6:45 AM and headed into the Cairngorms where one of the local ski hills, Glen Shee is.  We arrived at the parking lot just after the sun had risen.  The hills were covered in snow and the sky was blue.  Knowing that the weather might give us some issues we started our walk, passing through and over creeks as we walked across the valley floor to the other side where the base of the Munro started.  We made the summit of Craig Leacach at high noon with blue skies, snow blowing from the 50 mph winds and gusts up to 80 mph.  Any stronger and I might not have stayed on the mountain.  We were going to attempt to bag an adjacent Munro but the weather started to turn and we decided to play it safe and proceeded to hike out.  Good thing too because our visibility was quickly reduced to a few feet in front of us as the winds picked up the snow.  In total we hiked 6.25 miles in 5 hours 9 min.  Not bad for a Saturday!

Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Before Shot

It's cold!!

Merry Christmas from Scotland!

My years of Ballet paying off as I cross a 1.5 inch wide beam of wood

Nearly at the summit, seeking shelter while the wind gusts up to 80 mph!

At the summit

Happy Hikers!

After shot

 The rest of the pictures can be viewed on my Picasa site.

My new digs

I've been in my new house here in Aberdeen for just over 3 weeks and I have managed to completely unpack and throw a cocktail party!  Here are some pictures of where I am living now and where Kady will come to live in January when she makes the big move from Montana to Scotland!

Kitchen

Kitchen

Kitchen

Downstairs Shower

Dinning Room

Dinning Room

Garden

Front Entry

Looking into the front hall

Living Room

Living Room

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Guest Bedroom

Guest Bedroom

Office



Office

Three Weeks of Travelling

It's been a long month, September that is!  Three days of official work and the rest of travelling and consolidating my life into a 20 foot long cargo container that is now sailing to Scotland.  While I was in the states I was able to visit Rachel, Brent, Aislin and Cadel in Seattle where we all had a great weekend.  We took Aislin bowling for the first time and here are two short videos from our trip to the bowling lanes.

I also spent three wonderful days in Montana with mom, Ali and Kady.  I've missed her so much and I can't wait for her to join me in Scotland in January.

More pictures and updates to come as soon as I get settled.

Can you spot a Puffin?

One of the things that I wanted to make sure I did while living in Scotland was to see an Atlantic Puffin.  I found out that along the cliffs just south of Aberdeen, Puffins nest during May and June.  I found that the local Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was giving Pick Out A Puffin! walks.  So I signed up!

What better way to see puffins than from a bird enthusiast!  We learned all about the sea birds that nest along the cliffs near Aberdeen.  Here are some pictures from my evening walk on one of the most beautiful Scottish days I've had yet.  It was still 75 degrees at 8 PM! 





Can you spot a puffin?




Here's a hint as to what they look like




Scotland at 9PM!



Planes, Trains & Automobiles... well planes and automobiles that is

My second home trip was another whirl wind of flights, delayed baggage, cancelled flights, one of my longest and closest friends wedding and a new family member.  To say the least I had a blast and even caught up on some sleep.  I started my 12 days off from work with 3 flights that took me from Aberdeen, Scotland to Santa Barbara, California.  I had 4 great days with my dad relaxing and enjoying the company of all his early morning coffee shop buddies.  I was able to catch up with some friends from my UCSB days, went to Robert and Patsy's wedding and got to hug my god daughter.

After a fun filled weekend I was on my way to Seattle to help entice my nephew who was 10 days over due to make his first appearance.  My flight to Seattle was cancelled and to my surprise Alaska Airlines not only bought the entire flight dinner, they brought in a plane from another city, and gave us a $300 vou1cher towards a future flight for being inconvenienced.  Must say, very impressed with Alaska Airlines. 
I arrived in Seattle 1.5 hours before my nephew was born.  It was such a joy for my grandma and I to see Cadel within the first 5 hours of his life.  What a little bundle of joy!  My mom arrived later that afternoon and we had 4 generations together for 6 days.  It was wonderful to see everyone together and to see how Aislin is with her new little brother.
Here are some pictures from my latest adventure back to the States...


Did we coordinate our purples to match?!?





Robert and I



My dad and I



Everytime I held Cadel he fell asleep





"GGB what is Cadel doing?" asks Aislin



Full of giggles



So serious!



Four Generations



The Finley Family



Saved the best picture for last!

The oracle of Delphi is in

The last day of our field course was spent sight seeing at Delphi. This historic site is beautiful!

The site had been occupied by the village of Kastri since medieval times. Before a systematic excavation of the site could be undertaken, the village had to be relocated but the residents understandably resisted. The opportunity to relocate the village occurred when it was substantially damaged by an earthquake, with villagers offered a completely new village in exchange for the old site. In 1893 the French Archaeological School removed vast quantities of soil from numerous landslides to reveal both the major buildings and structures of the sanctuary of Apollo and of Athena Pronaia along with thousands of objects, inscriptions and sculptures.

Here are a few pictures of Delphi, the rest of my album can be viewed: https://picasaweb.google.com/mtwildflower/Delphi?authkey=Gv1sRgCPqj67Sz_PiEtAE&feat=directlink

The hills are alive with... flowers and some rocks

Each year I get to select training courses for continuing my education at work. I always get a classroom course and have been lucky to get a field course as well. Over the past five years that I've been working for Marathon I've been fortunate to get field trips to California, Canada, South Carolina, Ireland and this year.. Greece.

My training this year was looking at the Corinth rift system and sedimentary deposition of large scale alluvial fans. Most people who will read this last sentence will respond with... what??? Don't worry about it. Just enjoy the pictures. If you know a geologist, you will know that the pictures I am talking about will be of ROCKS. Well here are a few non rock pictures, but I had to add a few of rocks too.

To see the rest of the album: https://picasaweb.google.com/mtwildflower/NautilusFieldClass?authkey=Gv1sRgCJWA-rqxqqjNSg&feat=directlink