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A Window on Oban

A Window on Oban

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I’m sitting in a window seat overlooking Oban Harbor, trying to imagine living in the midst of such beauty. Would you stop noticing it? Would it become just some pretty wallpaper, something you glanced at from time to time while going about your everyday life? 

The two charming rooms in this B&B make me think otherwise. The lady of the house showed us in, laid the key on the low coffee table in front of the window, stood with me just a minute explaining how things work, lingered as if to say, this is something special. 

Because it is, and you feel it the moment you walk in. The window frames a view of shining water, docked fishing boats, and many-chimneyed houses made of no-nonsense stone. But it’s a view that depends on the movement of clouds and the angle of the sun, or whether a small ferry or a large one is moving across the waves. It’s a view that’s always changing, and always lovely.

West Highland Way

West Highland Way

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The West Highland Way is a 95-mile walking path that runs through some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet. We walked eight miles of it today.

Along the way, we met fellow travelers: a young woman from Germany who raved about the distillery in Oban (where we head tomorrow), a family whose members hail from Canada and Holland but who originally came from Scotland, a couple who lives only 90 minutes away from us in West Virginia but who came here to hike the entire trail … and many more folks. 

Foot travel invites friendships and confidences. It’s the original mode of transportation, and as you might expect, I think it’s the best. 

Eternal Glasgow

Eternal Glasgow

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Glasgow has a modern vibe but an ancient core. It was the core that impressed me most during our wanderings yesterday, especially the cathedral, which dates back to the 13th century. It was the only great Scottish church to survive the Reformation, the guidebook told us.

To see it, even just from the outside (we arrived after it closed for the day), was to be reminded of the stark cold stones of the past, a time when life was more likely to be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” in the words of Thomas Hobbes, who I thought for a moment might have been Scottish but was actually British.

Behind the cathedral is the Glasgow necropolis, a romantic burial ground in the Victorian style, with paths meandering among the monuments and a”bridge of sighs” that carries the living to the dead. 

Like the cathedral, the necropolis has a whiff of the eternal about it.

The Order of Things

The Order of Things

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We’ve been here only a few hours but the soft accents, warm welcomes, and (what else?!) bagpipes have made us feel right at home. 

Our first two days are in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, and we’re venturing out to explore it soon. This errand has two purposes: to see the sights and to stay awake until we’re a wee bit (warning: I plan to use the word “wee” often while here) adjusted to the five-hour time difference. 

We’re bunking at the National Piping Center, with its museum dedicated to all things bagpipe — plus a few rooms and a cafe that serves whiskey, tea and a killer tomato-red pepper soup. 

I noticed this sign as we checked in. I like its order of things. At least for today, we’re putting sleep last too. 

A Single Step

A Single Step

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I live close enough to Dulles Airport that I can hear the planes taking off and landing, especially, I’m sorry to say, when windy or stormy weather requires the use of another runway. 

Until recently, though, the only way to reach the airport was by taxi or by wrangling a ride from a friend or relative. But that has changed recently. Now you can take Metro to Dulles … provided, of course, you can reach Metro. 

Which is how we came up with this crazy scheme: Today, we’ll embark on this journey of (more than) a thousand miles with a single step. We’ll walk out of the house and trek about 15 minutes to a bus stop, where we’ll board a bus that will take us to Metro, which will take us to the airport.

It seems an appropriate way to begin a trip that will rely almost solely on public transportation. But around here, it will seem pretty crazy. And that’s what makes it fun.

Home, for a Minute

Home, for a Minute

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Today is the slender filling of home in a very large travel sandwich. Tomorrow we leave for three weeks in Scotland. Was this trip planned by a madwoman? Yes, of course, and that madwoman would be me. 

So yesterday and today it’s a flurry of laundry and repacking, of settling in but not settling down, of checking lists and paring them to a sliver of their former selves. 

Tomorrow evening we take off for a country I visited once decades ago and found much to admire: castles and lochs and vistas galore. 

But before that, the dust will be flying. 

Freeze Frame

Freeze Frame

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Back home now, with only a few items missing, and none of them mine (or at least not that I’ve noticed so far), I think about what this week means to my family, the role it has begun to play. 

The toddlers, two going on three, may actually remember this summer’s trip, and if not, they will remember next year’s, I hope. The baby had a new place to crawl — actually a couple of new places, if you count the fair. The pre-teen was given a little more freedom. And the adults had a chance to reconnect and have fun. 

The months and years pass, and while this week doesn’t completely slow them down, it does freeze-frame them. And that will have to do.  

(What a difference a year makes. Photos by CCG.) 

Rosy Glow

Rosy Glow

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There are stands of ancient hemlocks in New Germany State Park, an oasis of green trails and lofty heights. A cathedral of a forest.

And then… there are the streams, and the late day sunlight slanting on them.

In some spots the light struck the creek at such an angle that it gave the water a strange, rosy glow, as if it were blushing or bleeding. As if it were lit from within.
Vacation Loop

Vacation Loop

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The sign says “End County Maintenance,” another way of saying “No Outlet.” But from the beginning I was intrigued by a break in the fence, a parting of the trees.

Last year I discovered it, and this year I’ve enjoyed it: a cut-through path, one that connects our street to the main drag of this neighborhood. 

The cut-through has created a loop walk where I thought there was none. And I’ve been strolling it this week whenever I can. 

(Not the loop walk but part of a detour, which is a vacation loop of its own.)

Baby Crawl

Baby Crawl

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On your mark, get set, go! And the babies were off and running at the Garrett County Fair Baby Crawl. 

Our entry in the race was a little more interested in socializing with her competitors than she was in winning the race. 

It took the babies in this heat quite a while to reach their moms. One of them was fast asleep and did a face plant on the green mat. As his mother said, the baby crawl was scheduled during morning nap time.  What can you expect?