Closes, close to the Castle

We dressed in our warm clothes, long sleeves shirts and wool sweaters. Took the rain jackets and an umbrella we got last night. We're off to the Edinburgh castle, it's very raw, cold and windy and could rain. No city driving today, took the bus.

It's hard to tell the size of this castle from the picture, but it is very large. It sits upon a hill dominating the city, is in excellent condition and is still a working castle. We took a tour and explored all the rooms and displays. There is an impressive memorial hall for all Scottish soldiers killed in all the wars, a prisoner of war room and display, museums for each of the branches of services, cafes and of course gift stores. For 2 weeks in August, the military Tattoo festival goes on. This is a large pipe and drum festival, presentations and displays. The bleachers in the parade ground are still up. Overall, it took us about 3 hours to go through it. And the views from above are great.

Extending down from the castle is the Royal mile. Currently it's a cobblestone street of shops and some restaurants. Lots of tartan stores, kilt makers, some bars/pubs, castle or Scotland souvenoirs. We walked most of it, I bought a lambswool, tartan neck scarf, Bill got some whisky with honey (yummm, good) and other items.

 The stores and building are very old and historic and connecting all the major streets, are closes (Scottish for alley). Most are passable and there are business off these close. One tour company takes you to Mary King's close. These alleys thrived back in the 1500-late 1800. People had their "homes"  and businesses off these alleys, usually just a large room, no facilities of any kind and stacked about 10 stories high. Medieval living at its best. Then the plague comes along and pretty much wipes out everyone. The few that survived became "foul clengers", or body removers. So called doctors also came and treated you by lancing the pustules, then cauterizing the gaping hole. I'll save you the rest of the gory details.  Still, it was a fascinating underground tour.

In the mid 1800's, the city decided to build their offices on top of the houses of the close. They then removed half of the building, from the top down, used the bottom half for the base structure and built on top. Nice huh. So today, you can go underground to see the remains of the bottom half of these houses/rooms. You get the history, the plague lessons and see life as it was then. It wasn't prettty.

What is that word?

So that pretty much filled our day. To finish, we ate at a pub called Deacon Brodies. He was the inspiration for the Dr. Jekyll Mr Hyde character, basically went around chopping up people. Food and beer were good and we were pooped when we got "home".

Scotland

Well, it took a 3 hour train ride, 1 hour on the subway, 5 hours to Iceland, wait 2 hours, 2 hours more to Manchester, drive 5  over hill and dale but we finally arrived at our first BandB for the trip. At least 24 hours later, probably more, we were in Otterburn, England, way up north.

Otterburn is such a cute, quaint, typically English small town. It's hard to get over how everything looks here.

House on main road.

After getting settled, we found a pub, had a pint, pizza, talked with some locals and then went to sleep for about 12 hours. The next morning we walked the town to take a few pictures, then headed north to Scotland.

Tantallon

Harry Potter castle (Alnwick)

Anybody there?

Along the way, we ran across more than 5 castles. The area is covered with castles or ruins. Most charge to get in but we just took a few pictures. We did stop in another impressive town, Alnwick, walked by the castle, also known as Harry Potter castle as the filming was done here for the movies. The town was very intriguing with small streets, alleyways, small shops, very explorable. We did actually go in one castle, Tantallon, in Scotland. It's actually ruins, but you are able to go up into turrets, keeps, down in dark rooms and roam around. The weather was nasty, so it was a quick run through. This castle sat on the coast of the Firth of Forth (bay into Edinburgh) and was besieged many times. We bought an Explorer pass and this allows us into many castles for one prepaid price.

 There will be many more castles to explore in Scotland. Along with distilleries and golf courses (looking, not playing).

For right now, the start of the trip is great, the weather is improving and the scenery is beautiful. We drove into Edinburgh, our next stay for 3 nights. Actually, our GPS did a wonderful job of taking us straight through the city. New things to get used to, left hand driving, faster drivers than us, roundabouts (also thinking left) and hard to find street signs. We've done a couple of "recalculating" and 180s  (roundabouts are handy). Till the next post, we're having a pint for you or a wee dram of whisky!

Summer's over

Our summer excursion, up into New England and eastern Canada, has come to an end. Not only has Fall weather arrived but the calendar says so too. We saw quite a few leaves changing colors and starting to fall. The temperature in NY was 10 degrees cooler than in PA. and we got the comforter out for the nights. It was beautiful up there for the Summer and I bet Fall is too.

We left southern Vermont and headed to Southern NY, just outside of Binghamton. The entire area is covered with trees, rolling hills and big farms. Our campground was a former farm and we played some golf on a former farm. But the farms are also set on the sides of the valleys. It is not flat out here. Next stop is just outside of Harrisburg, PA. This is Amish farm country and there are some really big farms, miles of corn and soybeans, hills and Amish. There is no need to go into Lancaster to be in the middle of the Amish culture. It's actually very pretty and peaceful.  Some of the small towns have some very pleasing stone and wood buildings and barns, or quaint main streets. A lot of buildings are originals and kept up very well. Our camp is up in the hills, again weak cell and computer service, twisting and winding roads, and a family camp. That means everyone leaves the cities for a weekend of camping in the "mountains". Lots of golf carts being driven around the camp, up and down the hills. It's a busy place.

When booking our site at the Harrisburg camp, we intended to be there last Friday. But all area camp grounds were full due to the RV show in Hershey, the largest RV show in the country, so they say. So we decided to go, Thur., and it really was pretty big. Miles and miles of RV's to go through. We didn't need to check out everyone or all the types, and the weather didn't cooperate well either, but it was fun. We actually met 4 sales men, with 2 different companies, from Idaho. 2 from Pocatello, and the other 2 from Boise. One actually worked at the RV dealer we bought the ALFA from. Small world. The give away was Bill was wearing his BSU shirt. And others always comment when they see his shirt. Usually something like "did you see that game?" BSU has many fans outside of Idaho. GO BSU!

So now we move to Harrisburg, on Sun, eat up the fridge food, pack, get the trailer readied and stored for a 3 week rest while we go check out things in Scotland. Checking the Scotland weather, I guess we better pack the rain coats.

This blog is rather short and pictureless (is that a word?) but that's all I've got. We hope to be able to post a little in Scotland and pix too. Keep your fingers crossed and we'll write when we get back.

Moving on

Well, we've left Vermont and New England after spending a week up in the north, Burlington and another week in the south, around Bennington. We took several drives, did a little hiking, and admired the scenery. Some of the heat moved in and temps reached into the 90s, a last dying gasp of summer before cooler weather settled in.

 While in Bennington, we decided to try a little kayaking. So we packed up the "wet" clothes into the dry bag, got all the little paraphanalia together and headed to a lake recommended by the visitor bureau lady. By the time we got there, it had clouded over, the wind came up and the temperature went down. Not exactly kayaking weather. So we found another back road to explore, came upon a lake not too far off the road and almost had a nice picnic. All except for the rain shower! Guess we waited too long. But the weather changed daily. One day we had the a/c on and then the comforter on the next day at night. The leaves have started to change and some are falling. Over all, our summer weather was very pleasant.

We were able to see the Boise State broncos play and beat Virginia Tech on ESPN. The last campground had cable and that was imperative for Labor Day or have the Dish back up working. Dish wasn't up but we did have cable. What a great game.

Now we are in NY and just waiting till the 19th when we move into Harrisburg. Two more weeks and we leave for a 3 week trip to Scotland. We will get last minute things taken care of before we store the trailer while we are gone. Really looking forward to the trip.

Can you pronounce the name in blue?

I leave you with some signs for getting around Maine. The road signs are so helpful.

Images of Vermont

We drove another back road loop and visited a snowflake museum.  W.  "Snowflake" Bentley, of Jericho, Vt. photographed over 5000 snowflakes, discovered no two were alike and developed the equipment to micro photograph them. Who knew? Other stops included a sugar maple syrup tour, Ben & Jerry's tour, with free samples, a couple of antique stores and more covered bridges. Next to big, old barns, covered bridges are my favorite. The valleys and farmlands were great scenes and the weather was beautiful.

Round church

Bench in round church. Check out the middle legs

RR covered bridge

Driving the backroads, we find a lot of the covered bridges. And they are located on the state map for "easy" finding. Most just cross a stream. Practically all have been repaired, restored or improved. Most are also in the historical society now.

We have truly enjoyed our week in the Burlington area but look forward to seeing southern Vermont.  We're starting to see some color changes on the trees in the mountains.  Locals say it's because there hasn't been enough rain this summer.  It should be a pretty fall.  We're next moving about 150 miles south near the town of Bennington, Vt.   We'll be there for a week around the Labor Day Weekend.  Gail has made sure that we have access to ESPN for the Boise State game on Monday.

Great swimming hole
with rocks and ledge to jump from.

Jericho Vermont Flour Mill

Flavor graveyard of Ben & Jerry's