While we were waiting for our friends to join us, we decided to spend the morning hiking in Holyrood Park. In Scotland Eyewitness Travel, it says, “The area has been a royal hunting ground since at least the time of King David 1 (1153AD) and a royal park since 16th century.”.
Arthur’s Seat is a huge hill which is actually an extinct volcano, and from the top elevation 820 ft, one gets a sweeping view of Edinburgh. (more…)
After a long flight, we made it to London Heathrow Airport. We each managed a couple hours of shut eye during the flight, and we arrived feeling not that bad considering.
A second, much shorter flight, deposited us in Edinburgh, Scotland.
We figured out how to take the bus to downtown Edinburgh, which wasn’t that hard, once we walked outside the airport. (There is no counter *inside* for the bus, you just walk outside and pay at a stand.)
When we got off the bus, we were completely turned around. We almost got lost due to jet lag and a general sense of exaustion. It wasn’t exactly obvious which way was North/South. Finally, some construction worker pointed us in the right direction. Here I am hauling our checked bag up a steep road, what a behemoth!
We checked into our hotel (Holiday Inn Express – near Royal Mile) and headed out for dinner. They had recommended a vegetarian restaurant called David Bann so we set out to give it a go! (more…)
On Wednesday morning, we finalized our packing and ran last minute errands. Jenny came over to take us to the airport, she had also agreed to take care of the cats (Thanks, Jenny!).
As a risk mitigation strategy, I took the following picture of our checked bag. Normally, we don’t check a bag-but this is Scotland and there are just too many potential activities to fit all the gear in the overhead compartment!
On Sunday, I had a fabulous time summitting Silver Plume Mountain (12,457 ft) along with 7 other members of the CMC. This was my 2nd Co-Lead (aka Leader In Training) hike, and I was fortunate to have Dave as my sponsoring Leader.
Dave was thought provoking and challenged me to continually assess the conditions, decisions, and mood of the group. I decided to be a consensus building leader, so my approach was to include the group as much as possible. Dave helped to cement, in my mind, where & when the consensus approach might need to be adjusted-such as situations with a “Big Ego Climber” or “Indecisive Sheeples”.
Lucky for me, we had neither of these situations during this trip. We immediately gelled as a group and had a fun & challenging day! (more…)