At the Highland Games in New Hampshire

In years past I often chose my birthday as a travel day to some fascinating destination - usually in Europe.  This year I wasn't able to cross the Pond, so I let a small piece of it hop the Pond for me.

NHScot runs the New Hampshire Highland Games at Loon Mountain.  A weekend festival of food, music and uniquely-Scottish feats of athleticism.  

I stayed at the Lost River Valley Campground, about five miles from Loon Mountain.  The forecast was promising for the Saturday of the Games, but it was to be cold for the Friday evening of my arrival.

Cold was not the word.  It dipped below freezing, and the flimsy nylon walls of my tent did nothing to insulate me from the fell chill.  Fortunately, my sturdy LL Bean sleeping bag - and the $4 watch cap which was a birthday present from my friends the Cullens - saw me comfortably through the night.  And a little Irish coffee saw me through the morning's chilly welcome.

It was cold and windy almost the entirety of my Saturday's visit to the Games ($30 for a day pass, plus $4 processing for the advance ticket.)  Of course I wore a kilt, but I must admit that, under it, I wore a little more than a true Scot would wear -- it was just too cold to be properly de-underclothed. A nice tweed blazer complemented my kilt and kept my torso almost-warm.

My friends and I boarded a free shuttle bus from Clark's Trading Post, just a couple miles from the campground, to make our way to the Games. The air was full of sounds -- bagpipes, laughter, raucous cheering, drums, fiddles and the contented murmur of a satiated crowd.

I had subpar haggis for lunch, with lukewarm mashed potatoes.  Beer was good.  Later, I had a very good Scotch egg with gravy. Beer was still good.  Even later, I snacked on some small-batch shortbread I wisely purchased from one of the dozens of small vendors.  Didn't have beer with the shortbread.

My friends and I watched some of the caber tossing competition.  Rather than try and explain it to you, my loyal readers, please take a brief moment to watch this specially-prepared video instead:

We spent the entire day enjoying the Games.  Pipers and dancers competed.  We visited a re-enactors' camp and saw period scenes from Braveheart days through World War One.  We meandered the dozens of clan tents and learned the history of many of the major clans and septs of Scotland -- highland and lowland.

Lots of fun.  And funnest of all was being with good friends and playing Uno after a shared dinner back at the campground.  Sometimes, when I travel solo, I miss the camaraderie that only comes with true friends.  Don't get me wrong, I always meet fascinating people and create my own special moments, but traveling and experiencing with family or friends always makes the time seem even more special.

Jack, Ethan and I stop and pose for a pic.  I wish I had remembered my comb.

Gulfport, St. Petersburg and (maybe) Squirrel Pie

I just spent four glorious days visiting my Grandmother in Florida.  The weather was ideal each day – mostly sunny and in the mid 70s.  Back home the Arctic Vortex kept temps in the teens and twenties….  I have just two words for you – outdoor shower.  My Grandmother has one and I reveled in it every morning.

My Grandmother, as she puts it, is just over 16.  She definitely has the teen spirit regardless of her near centenary status.  She ran me ragged with errands – the supermarket, the bank, the office supply store so she could have plenty of paper and ink for her voracious computer appetite.

 We enjoyed a meal from her favorite seafood place, Leverocks, and had a lazy night of take-out pizza.  I simply had to snap this pic, because the slice of pizza is bigger than my Grandmother’s entire head.  That didn’t stop her from digging in with gusto!

Here’s the Florida homestead.  A simple, unpretentious and typical one-floor Florida home.

And here’s one of its other residents, looking back at me with a questioning tail.

Unfortunately, I discovered that some other, less-welcome creatures had taken up residence in the attic. 

Back in the day my parents had cats.  Sometimes the cats would get a little hyper and would chase each other throughout the entire house.  Back and forth, over and over again.  My Mom used to call it “elephant races” because they made an enormous, rumbling noise wholly disproportionate to their mass.  Well, whatever was in the attic enjoyed the races, too.  Either that or high-impact aerobics.

I was afraid these houseguests might be rats.  The noises were simply too powerful to be mice.  Or birds.  Or bats.  Or attic-dwelling dromedary turtles.  I don’t do rats.  Or mice for that matter.  So we called a pest control company.  The good news is that the creatures kept to themselves and to the attic – no evidence that they were sneaking into the rest of the house.  They were just heavy walkers.

Verdict?  Squirrels had found their way into the attic through an unscreened gable vent and had decided to settle down and raise a family.  Swell.  The pest control guy set out a trap near the plum tree in the back yard (probable food source), and said someone would be back in a day or two, probably with more traps.

More on the squirrels in my next post.  In the meantime, back to visiting my Grandmother….

So, aside from pesky varmints, chores happily undertaken and hours of quality conversations, laughs and reminiscences, my Grandmother kept insisting that I should have some fun.  She wouldn’t take me at my word that visiting with her was a lot of fun all on its own.  She was alarmed that, despite my numerous visits over the years, I had never really explored Gulfport or the attractions in nearby St. Pete and Tampa.

So I agreed to wander a bit while she was busy working on her computer – she is the chair of a committee for one of her genealogical societies, and she wanted to be ready for a meeting.  She was also putting some things together for my dad’s family-tracing efforts.  And, although she doesn’t partake in elephant races, she does enjoy the occasional catnap.

 I explored Gulfport Beach and the historic and quaint “downtown” area two hours at a time over the course of my stay.  Much of Gulfport began life as a tiny enclave devoted to military veterans.  Over time it became its own, tiny little city with an equally-tiny population in comparison to hulking St. Petersburg next door.

Above is a picture of the Gulfport Casino.  No gambling there – it’s a dance hall and event venue.  Dances and dance instruction are hosted there nearly every day, with concerts and other activities keeping it active much of the year.  It sits right on the thin strip of white sand that claims to be Gulfport beach.  Not the best beach by half when compared to St. Pete Beach or nearby Pass-a-Grille, but plenty for the locals.

Gulfport has reinvented itself in the last few years. It has consciously retained its small, Old Florida charm but has encouraged and welcomed artists and artisans to the community.  A large public market is hosted along the downtown streets each Tuesday, and there are monthly and periodic art and performance festivals.  Google Gulfport and you’ll see what I mean.

Tuesday Market in Gulfport, Florida

There are no hotels or chain restaurants in the historic old-town downtown.  A few B&Bs, some rental homes and local – and great – restaurants and shops.  Heck, the post office is located within a consignment shop!

O’Maddy’s bar and restaurant was a favorite of my parents’, and it’s a favorite of the locals, too.  It’s busy all day and all night.  It sits at the end of the beachfront road, just across from the small pier.  It’s also steps away from my Mom’s favorite place in Gulfport, a simple bench in a small park at the very end of the beach.  I visited the bench, too.

 Lots of fun wandering around Old Gulfport.  And did I mention that street parking is completely free?  Beach parking, too.  Never hard to find a spot.

In my next post (as this one’s getting a little long), I’ll update you on the dancing squirrels.  I’ll also take you along with me to the Salvadore Dali Museum in St. Petersburg.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the title of this post – "(maybe) squirrel pie"?  While my Grandmother and I were joking about the dancing squirrels, she let me know that squirrel pie wasn’t too bad.  By the end of my third night, I was ready to take the plunge and try some – humane trapping be damned!! 

Montréal - Le Nouvel An et le départ

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I spent the morning of New Year's Eve back in the Old Port of Montréal, at La Pointe à Callière - the Montréal Archaeological Museum.  Situated on a triangular strip of land near the river in Vieux Port, this relatively new museum chronicles the history of the City of Montréal from the Ice Age through European colonization and today.

20.00$ for a single admission.  My tour of the museum began with a slick multimedia presentation narrated by Montréal herself.  The auditorium was situated above an open excavation pit with exposed building foundations clearly visible - the site of the museum was last inhabited by an insurance company building from the 1800s, and was in the heart of the original European settlement of Montréal.  The half-hour presentation was really pretty good, and covered the original settlement, cooperation and contre-temps with the aboriginal peoples, and the evolution of bilingual Montréal (although today French is the dominant language).  

The exhibition space is a cleaned-up excavation of the foundation of that insurance building, and points below.  It is peppered with exhibits of finds from the dig (and digs from around the city), including bones, pottery shards, old nails, coins and clothing.  Very interesting displays, and all were bilingual.  The museum is working to open up a section of old sewer tunnels to allow visitors to meander a while like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

There was also a special exhibition at the archeological museum -- strangely it was about the Beatles (the rock band -- not what would have inhabited those sewer lines!)

Lots of guitars, consumer goods like lunch boxes, matchbooks, clothing, opportunities to listen to the band's hits, and interesting factoids about the Beatles and their performances in Montréal. 

 I'm not really sure why the museum had a Beatles exhibition, but I would guess that they hosted it to draw additional traffic to the relatively young museum.

The place is pretty great for kids, too.  There are several hands-on exhibits where kids can dig for bones and treasures, and to get their young Indiana Jones groove on.

 Check out these Rolls Royces -- the Beatles sure knew how to ride in style!

I had lunch in the Old Port before returning to my hotel for a brief respite.  It was cold -- very cold.  The breeze didn't help.  The air temperature was about -2 F at Noon, with a windchill of about -15 F.

I was dressed warmly in layers -- including thermal underwear -- but the cold still got to you, especially the strip of cold skin around the eyes, above the scarf and below the hat.

I wandered some more through different parts of the underground city on my way back to the hotel, partly to check it out and partly to avoid the cold.  Probably took me an extra hour to get back to the hotel, but it was fun to people-watch.

Back at the hotel I met a group of 20-somethings from Hamilton, Ontario.  The guys were in Montréal to party for the New Year, and they convinced me to go for a pint down the street (there are about 20 bars, restaurants and bistros along my hotel's street.)  We enjoyed more than a pint, and I got an earful about the Junior World Hockey Championships, which were happening.  Canada beat the U.S. for the title.  One of the guys, Michael, wouldn't shut up about the intricacies of hockey!!

I left the guys after a few hours and returned to the hotel for a bit to get ready for New Year's back at the Old Port.  As many of you know, I'm a morning person and 10 PM is a late night for me indeed - I'm not even sure that midnight really exists.  It was about 8 PM and I decided to take a quick nap before donning my winter best and making the slog back to the Old Port.  Though Montréal has a subway system, none of the stops are really that close to the Old Port.  And, because there's a superhighway separating the Old Port from the rest of Montréal, you have to take specific streets to get over there.

I woke up from my nap at about 1:15 AM -- Happy New Year!! Instead of spending the New Year at the party in Old Port, I slept through it among the wood-paneled walls of my hotel room.  Should've set an alarm, but I was only going to rest my eyes for a half-hour!!  Lame is not the word for how I felt about it.

On New Year's Day -- colder still -- I thought I would hike up to the top of Mont Royal, the large hill that's the city's namesake.

I spoke with my hotel proprietor, who told me to take the subway to the Mont Royal stop (of course!) and then take a bus up to the top of the hill -- it would be too far and too cold to walk.  He couldn't remember the bus number, but he said there were signs.

There was NO ONE on the streets at 9 AM.  Barely any cars.  Totally deserted.  Almost everything was closed, except for Tim Horton's (read: Dunkin Donuts).  Got to the Mont Royal metro stop.  Found the bus stop.  The buses were running on a Sunday schedule for the holiday, and the next bus (#11 if you care) wouldn't make its way to the stop for another 40 minutes.  I decided to walk.

It took almost an hour to make the trek by foot -- up a windy road.  The bus passed me when I was about 20 minutes from the top.  It was so cold that my eye lashes were freezing and the vapor from my breath was freezing onto my scarf -- my black scarf was white with breath-frost.

Above:  The Olympic Stadium, and the St. Lawrence beyond.

Below:  Some big bridge separating the Island of Montréal from the rest of the Province of Québec.

I risked frostbite to take these pictures for you - really.  My gloves were too clumsy to manipulate the camera.

Mont Royal is a huge park, and in the winter you can cross-country ski, skate, sled and do a whole bunch of winter-type stuff.  There were a few brave souls there doing just that, but the parking lots were nearly empty.  The warm and heated visitor centre was closed for the holiday -- no respite from the arctic cold!  I did, however, finally find a smidgeon of sense and I took the bus back down the hill and to the metro stop.

Had lunch, wandered around for a bit (most places still closed, even many restaurants), and decided I should go home.  I had originally planned to stay until Thursday, January 2nd, but I had heard about the impending snow storm from my Dad and I didn't want to drive through the mountains of Vermont and into the heart of the storm nearer to home.  Left Montréal at about 4 PM.  With a couple brief stops and the border crossing, made it home safely at about 11 PM.  When I left Montréal it was -7 F; when I got home it was +20 F.... balmy.