Well, the main reason we went to the mountains a few weeks ago was to attend the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games. What is this, exactly? Think of it as the Scottish Olympics. It’s actually also the largest gathering of the Scottish clans in North America.
Oak is part Scottish. So, part of the excursion was to find his clan at this shindig! We found the Maxwell clan in our first lap around the huge line of tents with all of the clans. We thought about buying something with the plaid on it (like a scarf), but dude, that stuff is expensive. Not to mention being wool, which I am allergic to. Darn it!
So, we further explored the scene. We enjoyed watching all the sports – there was a marathon, Scottish dancing, regular track and field games, and then all of the heavyweight competitions, which were especially interesting. Everything takes place in this huge field, with the food, clan tents, etc. around the outside. So, it was kind of hard to capture any of the sports in action. Here’s the Hammer throw – like a huge shot put attached to a wooden dowel. I also enjoyed this thing where they had to throw a big thing of straw in the air. The caber toss is probably the most famous; where they try to basically have to flip a huge log from end to end.
After we got tired of the sports watching (in the sun) we retired to the “Celtic rock music grotto.” There were actually two grottos, the other playing more traditional music. Of course, the presence of bagpipes was pretty much everywhere, especially in the field games.
Of course we had to get some “Scottish food.” Turns out it’s pretty much the same as the rest of the foods in the UK, aside from the haggis. The haggis they had at the festival was not looking authentic enough for us (it came outside of the “stomach casing”). So, instead we got fish and chips and a meat pie. Not bad, but not the best we’ve had either. What can you expect from basically fair food, I guess? Oak has taught me the merits of using malt vinegar on my fish and chips so the lackthereof was disappointing. And before I get a bunch of comments about haggis being gross, I’ve seen Anthony Bourdain eat it on TV and it’s really almost like sausage. Plus, you don’t even eat the stomach part. So, whenever I make it to Scotland, I plan on giving it a try! All for a part of my inherited heritage! LOL.
I have a lot of updating to do. This past weekend, we spent in the NC mountains where our main objective was to attend the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games (more on that later).
On Sunday we were getting on the Blue Ridge Parkway and just happened upon the NC Arboretum, so we decided to check it out.
A quick exploration of the area around the welcome center found these extremely hot orange flowers:
Oak decided we needed to see the greenhouse. Of course, it was a hike to get there, and we see that it’s only open for tours during the week from 9-5. Here’s Oak near the greenhouse grounds:
On the walk back to the visitors center, it started to rain. Luckily it didn’t last too long, but it was definitely in an on again/off again cycle. It let up enough for us to explore the other gardens near the visitor’s center. The bonsai exhibit was particularly interesting. I never realized that bonsai actually are miniature trees, not a special breed of tree. You could actually look at these plants and imagine immersing yourself in these tiny little forests. They are really quite amazing in person.
I’ve got some more photos up on flickr.
(Scrapbooking nerd alert. Proceed with caution.)
I was reading this entry on Ali Edwards’ blog about 3 essential scrapbooking tools to travel with – a small notebook, a gluestick, and precision scissors. The idea of mixing in “ephemera” (what scrappy chicas call ticket stubs, brochure pieces, etc.) with your daily notes for each day of for some reason, had not occurred to me. For the last several years, I’ve been filling up little journals full of notes about our travels – sometimes more detailed than others, but always handy to refer back to if we visit the destination again and doubly handy when I create scrapbook pages about the trip.
Then, I thought about the very first travel journals that I made. I’m pretty sure that making a journal of this sort was my mom’s idea (thanks mom!) as something to keep me occupied while our family was traveling. Most of the entries are about weekend camping trips, but I do get very excited to write in there when we made trips to Florida and Myrtle Beach. My very first travel journal entry dates back to May 1989 (holy moly, that’s 19 years ago!). I wrote about our riveting weekend at Dream Lake Campground in Warsaw, NY. My entry reads:
May 1989 camping at Dream Lake with Uncle Tim + Aunt Lynda Jessica + Heather+Timmy. I made two crafts I made a god’s eye and a catepillar. And I saw a movie called Old Yeller. We roasted bananas and apples and made S’mores. I caught two fish. (Mom and dad too!)
Apparently it was an oversight that my parents were also camping with us. Though, I am pretty sure it was an assumption on my part. As you can see, my “ephemera” is a lovely Dream Lake Patch and car sticker. And reading this actually brings back a few pretty vivid memories: making that god’s eye (I remember remaking it like 6 times) and crying when Old Yeller died. Things I’m pretty sure I never would have thought of again otherwise.
It’s also kind of amusing to read further in the book as I approach my pre-teen years and become more and more snarky. Apparently one weekend I was jealous that my cousin had made some friends at the campsite playground and didn’t invite me to join them in whatever they were playing. How dare she! (Jessica, don’t worry I forgive you!! hahahaa)
I’m thinking of moving back to this sort of journal for my travels when I finish up my current notebook (I’m about halfway through). My dilemma is though, how do you merge together scrapbooks and journals? Rip pages out of the journal and put them in the scrapbook? Copy the journaling over? Or just carry on with using the journal as a reference? The information architect nerd in me (blame work for this one) wants everything to be linked together logically so that on the off chance that one of my descendants wants to match up my scrapbook and travel journal, they’ll be able to. Why can’t you create hyperlinks or tag clouds on paper? Huh?
Time to summon the scrappy chicas for help on this one!
Speaking of travel, we’re going on a weekend trip to Savannah, Georgia for July 4th. What are your holiday plans?
