It’s the 4th of July weekend. Time to think about patriotism.

First up, flag fetish. Recent pictures of Congressional meetings are staged with about 50 big American flags as the backdrop. WTF? Congress, particularly conservatives, think adding a bunch of flags to their event makes them look patriotic. Even when they’re announcing something anti-American, like an extra $70 billion in the budget for ICE. So stop with the flag fetish.

And speaking of the flag, I want liberals to reclaim it as a symbol. Not in the creepy fetishy flag-hugging style of Convict Donny, but as part of the brand. Rural conservatives have co-opted the flag as their symbol and theirs alone, thanks to Faux News, country music, and sports. Liberals need to make it crystal clear that the flag represents ALL Americans, not just the red states. A great example is this picture (the title photo) I took at last year’s No King’s rally in downtown Louisville. A tasteful smattering of flags among the protestors, along with lots of signs/slogans. The flag represents us, but we don’t do shitty anti-democratic things then wrap ourselves in the flag and call ourselves patriots. It doesn’t work that way.

Donny Convict’s convenient definition of patriots are those who will side with him, bow to him, as President/King. Like the January 6th rioters/criminals/thugs, who Donny called patriots and pardoned. That’s so wrong, so backwards, that I can’t believe MAGA buys it. Patriotism is being proud of your country and being willing to sacrifice something for the greater good. NOT bowing down to the country’s “leader”. Thomas Paine said it best, when he said that the United States is where “law is king”, as opposed to the king being the law. Patriots uphold the law, knowing it’s intended for the good of all Americans.

Patriotism these days means resisting the forces that are trying to dismantle our democracy. Those forces include the entire Donny Convict administration, most of Congress, six Supreme Court justices, the billionaire class that’s buying/bribing Congress and the President, Faux News, and a few deep-pockets funding organizations like the Federalist Society. It’s a lot. So far resisting has been passive – rallies, writing, voting in off-year elections, outraged broadcasting on MSNOW, etc. Pretty low-key and pretty ineffective, except the resistance rallies where protestors actually come into contact with ICE/DHS. I’m pretty sure that to beat back these considerable destructive forces, it’s gonna take a lot more active resistance – money spent, some kinetic interactions at protests, and massive liberal voting. If that doesn’t work over the next two years, we’ll either have a full-on civil war or we’ll sink into autocracy. Both of those outcomes suck, so let’s hope it works out in 2026-2028.

Almost 24 hours now in hot, hot Louisville. Got here late and then got up early. Thankful that the AC is working and the house is habitable after a month away and lots of contractors in and out, working on the basement.

The basement remodel is 95% complete, and it looks great. Blues and grays, nicely finished, new doors and windows, all trimmed out nicely. Plus in the last 24 hours I’ve received massive boxes of flooring, kids room furniture, mattresses, etc. All that needs to be put together/installed in the next ten days or so. I plan to do the big reveal to the grandsons after 7/10.

Today I played 18 holes of golf in the hot, humid morning (97 degrees when I finished), then cooled off/napped at the house, then began installing the padded flooring for the basement. And carrying all the packages downstairs – that’s a bigger job than I expected. Quite the day. Tomorrow will be a repeat, though I’m playing golf mid-day. We’ll see how that goes.

I was really grateful for the birthday visit of my high school buddy Mike. He’s one of a kind. We had a nice day at the beach then a nice day in the mountains. Here we are hiking in the mountains, about 6000 feet up Mt. Palomar. Title photo is the awesome 200 inch reflector scope atop Palomar.

Last week’s sunny, pleasant weather and time in the pool is now a nice memory. Here are the grandsons enjoying all that. Happy in the moment – we need to bottle this and sell it.

Spent the day yesterday using the pool as it should be used. Great fun. We only get a crowd here a couple of times per year, and it’s always a good day.

More of the same today, just fewer people. It’s shaping up to be a fine weekend.

We get the next wave of visitors today at the Socal house. About 18 people, mostly family, will join us for BBQ and pool fun this afternoon. Big crew. After that we’ll have 5 of them stay with us for another 3-5 days. We’ve moved a lot of food from Costco to our pantries, so we’re ready.

But before all that fun, one last look at what Convict Donny and his team of fools are doing to the country. SCOTUS had a field day yesterday, ruling that immigrants seeking asylum, following all our rules and laws, can now be immediately deported. Laws be damned, we (MAGA/SCOTUS) don’t need to follow them. And that no new asylum seekers will be allowed. America, via MAGA, has decided that immigrants are evil and we want them out. Especially the non-white ones. This head line says it all: Stephen Miller says ‘America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers’ after Supreme Court rulings. So much for the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That ship has sailed.

SCOTUS also decided that Bayer shall have no financial responsibility for damage done by Roundup. And that Hawaii’s attempt to get some control over handguns was illegal – Second Amendment “trumps” what a state’s citizens want, it seems. So much for all that “states rights” noise that the GOP made for years.

If that’s not bad enough, Donnie’s OMB Director Russell Vought wants to control every federal dollar based on MAGA priorities. That’ll be a disaster. From The Nation:

This is how things are supposed to work: We pay our taxes. The IRS collects them, and they are deposited into the US General Fund. These dollars from the General Fund are then disbursed to agencies according to what is authorized and appropriated to them under law by Congress. Agencies then dole this money out to state and local governments, or to community organizations and other partners, through grants or contracts. Some agency allocations decisions are formula-based (e.g., based on population or other criteria), while others depend on expert advice to make these adjudications.

But if Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought gets his way, this long-standing process will be put in the dustbin. Under proposed revisions to the Uniform Guidance that governs the expenditure of federal funds, decisions on all grants will now be in the hands of political commissars rather than subject-matter experts. The new proposed rule is over 400 pages long, and there are many other terrible provisions within it.

The new rule affects everything from healthcare, transportation, education, and food assistance to, of course, scientific research. This means grants to rural hospitals, for mass transit and road and bridge repair, for special education programs and Head Start, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and cancer research would now be subject to the whims of Russell Vought and his cronies.

Little by little, Convict Donnie’s team is reshaping how things work, attempting to leave MAGA hooks in every aspect of the federal government. We may never get a rationally functioning government back in place.

Not to be left out of the destruction, NY Democrats just elevated an absolutely crazed person to be their next US Representative. Darializa Avila Chevalier is as batshit crazy as Marjorie Taylor Greene ever was – just in a different direction. She will supply Faux News with headlines about crazy Democrats for the next few years. I can’t accept ANY of her stances – you’ll have to look them up; it’s too painful for me to list them – so we’ll have to find a way to distance her from any mainstream liberal messaging. It doesn’t help to have a lunatic like that as part of our brand.

All in all, it’s a grim picture. Congress and SCOTUS have enabled a malignant narcissist, a power-mad sociopath, to carve his way into the world’s biggest budget and take what he wants. The corruption and destruction is mind-blowing.

When will the sheep wake up?

Well. After five straight days of golf fun, today is a day of R&R. That’s rest and recovery, sorely needed. I can’t remember a busier time. First the two-week trip to the UK, then the week-long drama of my brother’s passing, then a frantic day and a half going to the Rush concert, and finally the five-day golf, eating, and drinking binge with my KY cousins. That’s pretty much a solid month of unusual activity.

We get a couple of days for R&R, then it all starts again for a week. Huge crowd coming here post-World Cup event, then Em and the gang for a few days, overlapped by my high school buddy Mike coming by for a birthday visit. Mike and I travel together back to Nashville on the 1st, then I hop over to Louisville where I plan to hole up and truly rest a while.

This is all kind of a side effect of my recent attitude of “why wait, do it now, you may not have tomorrow”. Like most anything I dive into, I tend to overdo it. Just a little too much fun all at once. But I’m surviving, if not thriving.

In retrospect, three of the four golf clubs I took the cousins to were a big success. Rancho Santa Fe, Torrey Pines (shown in the title photo), and Pechanga were all hits. The local club, not so much. Here’s a shot of the 7th hole at Pechanga with its magnificent view.

Here’s a picture of La Jolla, the land of pelicans. They have absolutely taken over La Jolla Cove. The smell of their droppings is intense – a strong ammonia smell. We had a nice meal that day at Eddie V’s, but the pre-meal walk around the Cove was a bit much.

We’ve had clear skies the last few days, so the evening activity of stargazing through K’s telescope was a big hit with everyone. Here’s a shot of Jupiter and a few of its moons.

All in all, a great start to the birthday month. Next up, some fun in KY if it ever stops raining there.

We’re entering Day 3 of the great 2026 golf adventure with the Louisville cousins. After a bad start at Golf Club of CA (long story), we had a magnificent day at Rancho Santa Fe Country Club. Perfect weather, beautiful course and a lot of fun.

The food and drink is taking its toll, so I’ve gotta find a way to cut back. I’ve dusted off the old cooking-for-company skills, and we’ve had two straight nights of excellent meals with very good wine. I feel it. Turns out that celebrating a 70th birthday is gonna require some discipline.

Today we play Torrey Pines, and I’m really looking forward to that. Torrey was one of the courses I got to introduce my brother Don to, many years ago. Here he is at Torrey in 2004. I’ll dedicate today’s round to him – in a better world, he would be playing with us today.

It’s been quite a day. A so-so buffet breakfast at a hotel. Then we had a lot of time to kill, so we took a drive and did some sightseeing along the Ocoee river and lakes. That entire area, up through the Cherokee National Forest, is really something. Beautiful. I can see why Don wanted to settle here. Here’s a picture just below one of the dams as the sun came out and caused a small rainbow due to the mist from the waterfall. No pot of gold, though.

It’s a beautiful forest and river valley. Good drive for a sad day. Then we went back to the hotel, got dressed and headed out for the funeral service. Plenty of people came out to honor Don – his friends and family. Lots of nice remembrances and stories. Beautiful flowers.

I came away with a renewed decision to ask for a party, a wake, rather than a traditional funeral. I hope the people I know get together with plenty to eat and drink, and good music. I’ll make sure at least one Rush song is played – have to think about which one that should be.

After the service we retired to Don’s home for some food prepared by relatives and some small talk. Then, a short drive to the hotel, where just as we arrived the heavens opened up with a fierce display of lightning and torrential rain. Fitting, somehow.

Title picture is an old shot of my brothers and Dad back in the 80s. Don is the one in the middle. Just hard to believe he’s gone.

Loved this Rolling Stone review of Rush’s night two performance in LA. I am sure lucky to have been there. This Reddit thread on the show isn’t bad either. The two old guys and the new drummer knocked it out of the park.

Catching up on sleep a little at a time, though the time zone delta is large – 9 hours difference between the UK and Pacific time. The rule of thumb, that one can expect to shift an hour or two per day, is holding true for me this time. My sleep patterns, bad as they are, got waaaay out of whack this trip. Tomorrow’s trip to Nashville, 3 hours delta, should be a bit easier. But the return on Monday will put me back in big delta territory. I’ll then be in a single time zone for 15 whole days. Woo hoo!

It’s definitely a rough stretch right now. Sleep problems, some long travel days, stress/sadness over my brother’s passing, and yesterday we learned that we have a bad case of identity theft to deal with. Someone is using K’s name/address/SSN to file fraudulent tax returns and attempt to get refunds. I’ve been in touch with the IRS, they’re aware now and say they’ve stopped the fraudulent returns. But now there’s a huge cleanup problem involving banks, credit agencies, the IRS and Franchise Tax Board, Social Security….ugh. It’s a mess. I’m well equipped to deal with all the online steps one needs to take to clean it up, but there will be lots of time on hold with various agencies. And now we’ll have to change most financial passwords and enable two-factor authentication for everything.

Scanning the news this morning, it’s pretty awful. Convict Donnie and his flying monkeys continue their destruction of everything they touch, and continue their right-out-in-the-open looting of taxpayer funds. It’s depressing. I’ve gotten to the point of wishing a terminal health event on the central figure, ASAP. If he exits, much of the evil infrastructure he’s installed should crumble or at least weaken. Don’t get me wrong, Vance will be bad, but Convict Donnie is a once in a millennium locus of chaotic evil.

On a positive note, I got my new/vintage Harman Kardon 330c receiver yesterday, hooked it up this morning, and it sounds great. I can’t A-B it with the Sansui 505 yet, but when I get back from TN I’ll be able to. Its sound is clean, understated. Plenty of punch, but not in-your-face like the Pioneer in KY. But I’ll know more when I can have a real A-B session with the Sansui. Here’s a picture of the setup in the living room listening room, facing southwest. The 330c is the equipment on the left side.

Title picture above is another Rush shot from Tuesday night. Quite the memory. Need a few good memories lately.

Exhausted. Running on fumes. That’s my status for today. I’ve been living out of a suitcase (a small carryon, in fact) for 18 days. Never more than two nights in any single place. That one’s on me; I didn’t think about how hard that would be and didn’t know what would happen at the end of the Europe trip.

So to recap, I originally planned to fly back to Socal on the 6th, giving me three days to recover until going to LA for the Rush concert. Then I decided I wasn’t comfortable waiting until mid-July to see my brother again, as sick as he was, and changed plans to swing through Nashville on the way west. On the day we were flying back into the states, I heard from my brother that he would prefer to not have company that weekend, and he asked me to delay my visit. I wasn’t happy – a lot of effort had gone into the travel changes – but I had to honor his request. I pinged him once more gently when we were in Nashville for a night (his place is 2.5 hours east of Nashville), but no go. So we drove off to Louisville for a quick visit with the grandsons and a check on the construction work at the Louisville house.

That all went fine. We got to Louisville on Sunday the 7th, visited family and got ready to head to Socal on the 8th or 9th. Then on the morning of the 8th we got word that my brother had died. I’ll never know exactly why he waved us off a visit on the 7th, but at this point I suppose it doesn’t matter.

For 24 hours I agonized over the next steps. Stay in KY for a TBD funeral date? Go west as planned? Attend the Rush concert? Ultimately I decided to carry through with the plan to head west early on the 9th, hustle home (an hour+ north of the SD airport), then head for LA with my friend Tracy to the Rush show. Celebrate life while you can. And a big factor was that Don was a Rush fan just like me, and I think he would have wanted me to go. Loud music and golf were two passions we shared. Tracy and I toasted him multiple times, a mini-wake, and it was fine. Though exhausting. The 9th was a 21 hour day culminating in a three hour Rush extravaganza.

I’ll have to say the Rush show was spectacular – they haven’t missed a step or a note. Geddy and Alex were honoring their own fallen family member, Neal Peart. And the music – you could feel it deep in your chest. Here’s a couple of pictures from it. We were 12 rows back on the floor.

Next up – 2.5 days of rest, then a rapid trip to TN and back Saturday-Monday for the funeral service. And here’s a picture of a younger, happier Don. The way I want to remember him.

I’ve not done a good job keeping up with (documenting) the journey, but there should be some time in the next few days.

Yesterday we left Dingle and traveled about 90 minutes to Killarney. In spite of the move, it was a fairly restful day as we had no planned excursions and (shocker) it was gloomy, cold, and raining. So we stayed inside our hotel(s) and rested up for today’s big journey, the Ring of Killarney.

Our penultimate hotel, The Cahernane, is one of the older hotels in Killarney and a grand one with quite a story. Here’s a picture I took of the hotel during a few minutes between rain showers. And our view toward the mountains is the title photo above. It’s a perfect example of our motto since entering Ireland: “Wow, I bet that’s beautiful on a sunny day.”

The view from our hotel in Dingle (The Pax House) was wonderful, when we could see it (Wow, I bet that’s beautiful on a sunny day.) Vast swaths of pastureland and ocean. The main sitting room in the hotel was comfy with dozens of plush chairs from which to enjoy the view. Jules the dog ruled the room – he greeted every guest and had his own special chair. The Pax House owner, John, clearly loves his dog and has done an incredible job decorating the place with artwork from all over the world. I can’t recommend the Pax House strongly enough, though one would be wise to book it 9-12 months in advance. We learned that the hard way. It fills up for an entire tourist season within days of John opening the website for bookings. Example view below.

We did have a great day being guided around the perimeter of the Dingle peninsula by our guide Mossy, short for Maurice. In 4+ hours, we took in the Conor Pass, some 5000 year old stone ruins, an 1100 year old church partially destroyed by Cromwell (they really hate Cromwell in Ireland; he was that era’s version of Convict Donny), a cool beach and giant seascape, some pre-Christian-era standing stones with Gaelic writing…quite a lot. Mossy had a final surprise for us when he took us to a standing stone in a church/graveyard, and told us it was the only “marriage stone” in all of Ireland. He showed us how placing your fingers in the top hole of the stone and reciting vows was the way the Irish had their marriages “written in stone”, and challenged us to do that for our 25th. We did, and it was a memorable moment. I signed up for another 25. Here’s the stone at Kilmalkedar and a reference.

There are too many pictures to illustrate all the things we saw, but I do like these two pictures of the wild western Ireland seascape. Turns out that Ryan’s Daughter was filmed in this area back in the 70’s, and I remember seeing that movie with my parents back in 1970. My mom was mortified that she had brought me to a movie with some spicy scenes, though I’m sure they were tame by today’s standard. The beach in the photo below was featured in the film.

Today we took a long rainy drive around the Ring of Kerry, and I’ll write that up tomorrow. I’m at least a day behind on documenting.

Here’s a hurried post from the wildly-crowded Edinburgh airport departure area with some one-liner observations about the last few days, and Urquhart Castle in the title photo.

• We both love Scotland. It’s got a great feel, a good vibe. Gorgeous and rugged country, especially in the highlands.
• We only had one bad weather day out of the last five, a great ratio. Unfortunately the cold/rainy day was when we e-biked in Foyers and we took the boat road on Loch Ness. But so it goes.
• Foyers Lodge was spectacular. Way out in the middle of nowhere, but sure beautiful. Real nice people running the place too.
• I’ll reiterate what a great job the Scots do taking care of their country, their land. We could learn a lot from them.
• After moving a dozen “little” travel details to drop by and see my brother in TN on the way west, turns out it’s not gonna work out. That’s frustrating. A story for another time.
• I made a great decision to not drive while I’m here. Much, much less stressful. And maybe not any more expensive, as I didn’t need a rental car, just paid private drivers when we needed to get from A to B. Pretty smart move, now that we’re in the midst of it.
• Tonight we stay in the Shannon area, and then tomorrow off to Dingle. I have no fucking idea what to expect in either place (clover? Leprechauns? indecipherable accents?), but I’m assured it’ll be great. We’ll see.
• Ninety minutes to boarding…next stop Ireland.

My on-the-lam camera has returned to me. After an unsuccessful escape attempt, aided by a traitorous backpack, the camera’s brief journey to Perth and parts unknown has come to an end. It took the efforts of four kind Scots to facilitate its return – Annette, who located the camera in Perth rail station’s non-communicative Lost Property office; an unknown honest person who found it under a seat and turned it in at Perth; Roger, our gregarious driver around Inverness; and Andy, Roger’s mysterious retrieval agent who just happened to be passing through Perth at the right time and was willing to coerce ScotsRail into releasing it. I hope I managed to send enough thank-you cash to Roger and Andy for their efforts. I won’t forget their goodwill.

Today is a mirror image of our first post-wedding days in Scotland 25 years ago. Rainy, overcast and cold, with no end in sight. Highlands weather. Our hotel here in Foyers is great, as is our room – hotel shown in title picture above. Elegant, situated with an amazing view of the Loch (when the clouds part, occasionally), quiet, and boasting a Michelin-starred rating. Our original post-wedding stay on the Isle of Skye was similar. But I’m much better equipped to deal with the forced stay-inside weather now than I was 25 years ago. Back then there was no Wifi, no laptop with me. A nascent worldwide Internet, certainly not present on Skye. And I’m much more tolerant of forced downtime now than I was then. Sipping coffee this morning in a plush sitting room, decorated as a turn of the century Britain library, watching the cold rain outside, is…OK. Reading, writing, contemplating…it’s all good. We planned to ride e-bikes today and do some hiking, but it doesn’t appear the rain will stop. We might go anyway – light rain in a hillside Scottish forest or in the tiny village square could be fun. We’ll see. Here’s the view we got yesterday upon arrival, during a brief break from the gloom as the storm approached from the west.

After our time here at Loch Ness, we leave for a long drive to Edinburgh, then a short flight from Scotland to Shannon, Ireland. We’ll visit Shannon, Dingle, Killarney and Dublin in our brief four day stay. The weather in Ireland looks a tiny bit better – there’s a chance it won’t rain at least one of the days we’re there.

It’s anniversary day today, our 25th. We have a good day planned, designed to be peaceful and stress free. That’s the good news. The slightly less good news is that the weather has turned, quickly and sharply. It’s Scotland, after all. Yesterday was sunny and in the high 70s. Today it’s overcast, cold and windy – maybe 50 degrees F that feels like 35 with the wind.

We spent a nice morning on Loch Ness, taking a boat ride from the Inverness end of things to Urquhart Castle and back. It was frigid on the Loch, with dark choppy water. Bone chilling wind. More of a scene from a murder mystery than of an anniversary trip. But we enjoyed it all the same. Loch Ness is a really interesting place – wild and deep, it’s a deep geologic fault line that runs for approximately 30 miles east and west. At 800 feet deep, it’s a huge fresh water reservoir. And no, we didn’t see Nessie. Later today we move on down the Loch to Foyers and Foyers Lodge, a highly rated hotel and restaurant, where we’ll spend a couple of nights.

More good news, due to a conspiracy among private tour drivers, I’m getting the Sony camera back tonight. Our driver from yesterday knew a guy who knew a guy, and they’ve collaborated to transport the camera back up to the highlands and to me. Very kind of them, and I’m gonna owe some big tips before this is all over (some already paid). The Scots are generous, and those involved in the tourist industry are especially so. But those big tips will still be cheaper than a new camera, plus I get the days of photos currently trapped on the camera’s SD card. ScotsRail wasn’t much help in all this – each option we came up with ran squarely into a ScotsRail limitation or policy blocking our retrieval. The latest was their lost and found office isn’t open on the weekends. But all’s well that ends well, I suppose.

I took the opportunity midday to read the news, including US politics. That was a mistake – what a shitshow. We’ve discussed Convict Donny with a couple of locals, and we all agree he’s the worst.

So goodbye shortly to Bunchrew House (pictured in title photo above), and on to the next adventure. Bonus picture below from the amazing gardens at Cawdor Castle in yesterday’s warm sun. One garden is surrounded by a maze of laburnum trees, the yellow in the picture.

Welp. It’s been a while. So much has happened, don’t know where to start. Feels like constant motion since leaving Socal on the 24th. At the moment we’re in a 300 year old Scottish hotel near Loch Ness, trying to deal with the 19 hours of sunshine each day (light till almost 11pm, nice and sunny at 4am) and resultant difficulty sleeping. Between eternal sunlight and jet lag, sleeping is a big issue. Same as it ever was.

The flights over were fine – Iceland Air business class was about what I expected. You get what you pay for, and I thought it was a fair trade. Our first two days in Scotland were…eventful. Picked up at Glasgow by friend Annette, got settled in at her place after Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride through 1000 roundabouts, then took a nice walk through her Glasgow suburb of Milngavie. The Scots have made “Milngavie” unpronounceable, so I’ve given up trying. But it’s a lovely little town and I wish US suburbs were more like it. Walkable, bike and hiking trails, a walk-only retail area several blocks square. I don’t have any pictures of it at the moment for reasons I’ll explain shortly.

Our first full day here we made a pilgrimage to Annette’s hometown of Dunoon, with lots of stops along the way to visit places mentioned by K in her book Puck’s Fairy Glen. That was a lot of fun. The drive around Loch Lomond was beautiful, and our first big stop, Benmore Botanical Garden, was superb. Giant redwoods and a profusion of flowers, all nestled in 600 pristine acres of valleys and hillside. So much to see there – it was a perfect example of Scottish environmental ethic – they really take preservation seriously.

After the Benmore hike and a stop at the title-centric Puck’s Glen a mile away, we went to Dunoon to retrace her characters’ journey, then to visit Annette’s family for an afternoon tea.

The trek around downtown Dunoon was cool, and the best was an unexpected visit we got in The Clansman pub. We were there because that’s where her characters started their journey, and because I wanted a Guinness. While there on the patio, in pops the roughest-looking quartet of locals you can imagine. Like characters straight out of Mad Max – shirtless (the guys), sweaty, bizarre haircuts and tattoos, one guy with a bloody nose and heavy attitude. Their attached girlfriends were equivalent. Most days I would cross the street quickly, just based on looks, but today I figured “what the hell?”. I said hello, we started a conversation. They were just returning from a three day punk festival (Punk on the Peninsula, held in Dunoon, who knew?) and were happy to talk about it. They were curious why an elderly yuppie-looking American was there, and I explained our book tracing journey. We got along great; they were really nice people. I left sad that I had judged them by look at first, and happy that I had broken out of my normal bubble. I didn’t get a picture of them as I should have, as I didn’t think fast enough to come up with a rationale that wasn’t a bit exploitive. But they’re safely in my memory, for what that’s worth.

The visit to Annette’s family in Dunoon was great, though a bit fuzzy in the aftermath. Turns out her brother-in-law is a scotch aficionado who seldom has a drinking buddy these days, so I obliged him. Also turns out that a Scottish afternoon “tea” can be quite a boozy affair – lots of little snacks on a rotating lazy susan with tower/tray, and a long menu of drinks. Tea optional. We all had a great time and then designated driver Annette carted us back to Glasgow, including a nice ferry ride across one of the ubiquitous bodies of water.

The final big event of the last few days was the loss of my Sony camera on the train. Long story short, my backpack popped open on the train from Glasgow to Inverness, lots of shit spilled out, just as we were leaving the station in Glasgow. I scooped it all up (or so I thought). After arriving at our quiet ancient hotel in Inverness, I readied for an evening photo walk, and…no fucking camera. It took a while to figure out what had happened, but I was pretty sure I’d never see it again. I went through the 77 stages of grief very quickly, as my primary sightseeing activity these days is/was photography. We contacted ScotsRail, and some honest passenger had found it under a seat (my old seat area) and turned it in at Perth, about 2 hours away from where we are now. ScotsRail is either going to put it on a train to Inverness today where I can retrieve it, or we’ll swing by Perth in a few days on our way to Edinburgh. All’s well that ends well, and I will be happy to get the Sony back. Though the backpack and I have taken our last journey together – popping open and regurgitating contents is a capital offense in backpack land.

Last photo for this post – a magnificent tree planted in front of our hotel in approximately 1700. A humbling thought.

Getting ready for a looong travel day today – about 20 hours door to door. A Southwest flight from San Diego to Denver leaving midday, a longish layover in Denver (by design, gotta go through international security/checkin there), then catching an Iceland Air flight from Denver to Glasgow. I chose Iceland Air because their business class seats were about half price of everyone else’s. That’s mostly because they have recliner-style seats in business class rather than lie-flat. I’m OK with that – it’s not like we’re going to Africa or Asia. It’s only seven hours from Denver to Keflavik (our stopover before Glasgow), and I’ve gotten pretty good at sleeping sitting up due to hundreds of hours on Southwest. So I hope the service and food are good, and we can get a nap or two along the way.

Once in Glasgow, we hunker down at a friend’s house for a day and a half – she’s picking us up at the airport. That’s perfect – if we’re zoned out, we don’t need to do much. If we’re rested-ish, we can get out and see the city. We’ve toured Glasgow before, and it’s a lovely city. On Wednesday we catch a train from Glasgow to Inverness, where the formal/scheduled/curated part of our trip begins. We’re not staying in Inverness proper, but at a nice little place on Loch Ness (Bunchrew House) for the first couple of nights. Then we move on down the Loch to a country estate, Foyers Lodge, where we can go biking, hiking, and take a cruise on the Loch. Two days at Foyers then off to Edinburgh for a short day there, then a plane ride to Ireland. The Scotland part of our itinerary will go by quickly (5-6 days total, depending on how you count flight days). I hope it’s relaxing – that’s the plan, but with travel you never quite know.

Final prep today – download travel apps from IcelandAir, RyanAir, and Aer Lingus. Each airline wants you to use their app for boarding passes and status updates. Plus read a little more about tipping customs in each country.

Title photo is a picture I took in 2006 atop Castle Stuart, where it all began. I always liked the light in that photo, and the Scottish flag. The castle itself (more of a fortified large house, actually) is pictured below. In 2001 we rented the entire place and 23 of our friends joined us, staying there for the wedding. It’s not open for such shenanigans today, and even if it were we probably couldn’t afford it. Destination weddings in UK castles got pricey after we set the trend.