Independent Scots

She stands resolutely in front of her home in the "mucky wee port" of Port Glasgow, Scotland. My Aunt Madge, helmet and gas mask at the ready, standing against the Nazi threat.

The threat was real. Bombs rained down on the nearby shipyards, and on British, American, and Free French bases. My mother and aunt spent each night in an Anderson shelter; in the morning they climbed over fire hoses to get to work.

This week, Scotland is confronting its own sovereignty. Mercifully, this time the confrontation is somewhat peaceful.

Sheep's Head Way

I like to hike in peace.

Consequently, today, we find ourselves hiking the Sheep's Head Way  along "a peaceful, unspoilt peninsula" in a remote southwest corner of Ireland

If I Google "Sheep's Head Way" I get 14,500 results. If I Google "Giant's Causeway" I get 3.8 million results. We'll give The Giant's Causeway, the Blarney Stone, and numerous other "must-sees" a wide miss.

Travel Gear: Rain Jacket

The rain was torrential.

"You look funny" commented some miserable-looking middle-aged woman as she stumbled towards us on the Wainwright Coast-to-Coast hike across England.

I gurgled something to show I was glad I had added to her happiness on that grey day. I suspected this was her first and last long distance walk.

We certainly looked unusual. This was probably her first encounter with rain jackets with humps to accommodate backpacks. Fewer than 200 are sold each year.

Our State Fair

The Minnesota State Fair is a big deal. It runs for 10 days through Labor Day with a total attendance around 1.8 million.

This morning, I was one of those attendees.

I'm not one for crowds, or food on a stick, or animal competitions. But I do like to drop in on the Fair every few years to check out some of my old favorites.

It's the strong continuity with the past that gets me. On today's visit, I was seeing the same things I had seen on my first visit, a third of a century ago.

Travel Gear: Trekking Pole

 

I often hike with one trekking pole. Some hikers prefer two poles: I don't have enough hands to carry two while operating my GPS, or grabbing tree limbs.

It's largely about balance, but I suspect my knees are grateful when I lean on the pole while climbing.

Unfortunately, a trekking pole makes air travel more complicated.

Nagasaki/Saint Paul

Nagasaki aesthetics, Como Park, St. Paul, MN.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are twins; Nagasaki and St. Paul are sisters.

In March 2014, I got to meet St. Paul's sister.

I decided not to stay at the Hotel Saint Paul Nagasaki, its name designed to attract my compatriots. I had not come all this way to overhear their comments in the breakfast room.

It was the Nagasaki of 1800 that drew me here, but I first needed to pay my respects to the victims of the atomic bomb.

Glass Houses and Buried Museums

The Farnsworth House

A Glass House in Illinois

Completed in 1951, the Farnsworth House, near Plano, Illinois, is widely regarded as one of the major architectural achievements of the twentieth century.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe took his belief that "less is more" almost to the limit by designing a steel-framed, glass-walled box.

The box floats above an Illinois field, supported by I-beams. This is more of an idea than a home.

A Cold Beer in Passchendaele

World War 1 erupted 100 years ago.

About 50 years ago, I decided WW1 was a travesty. I remember my father's sadness and my mother's rage when I announced my (paternal) grandfather died at Passchendaele for nothing.

Teenagers are not known for tact, and I am not proud of that outburst.

Ignoring Barriers

If I'm on foot or bicycle, chances are I'll go round barriers like this one.

In recent weeks, barriers across trails all over the Twin Cities have become a fact of life. Flooding and fallen trees have made walking and cycling more interesting.

That got me thinking about a hike back in April on Sado Island, in the Sea of Japan.

I wanted to walk to the top of a snow-capped mountain. Trails at higher altitudes were still impassable, so this would be a road walk.  I figured it would be a quiet road, or at least it became a quiet road after I passed a gravel quarry.

Then I came to the locked gate shown at the top of this post.

I decided not to bother using my phone's Google Translate app to figure out what the signs were trying to tell me. I probably wouldn't have done anything with the information.

I climbed round the gate and continued my trek to the top. I wondered if I would be intercepted by the authorities, adding to the drama of my walk.

My senses were well-rewarded.

Note: Next day I hiked in the valley and wrote about this in Plain Views of Sado Island.