Highlands, Castles, and Whiskey - Scotland

We spent 5 days driving through the highlands of Scotland late in August. We stayed in some great waterfront hotels more or less out in the countryside and smaller roadside towns.

The Isle Of Skye was first destination and highlight of the trip. Very beautiful hills and mountains, sheep herding dogs, highland cattle, and Talisker Whisky. Another funny find was these purpose built stone domed pigeon houses near the castles. A perfect home for pigeons where you could walk in and grab one for dinner anytime....

We also had a beautiful afternoon at Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness. Here's our usual Possum Junction shot... Do you see Nessie?



We closed out the trip with a day in Edinburgh. The military Tattoo Festival was just coming to a close that weekend so there were lots of people and performers out in the streets. We spent some time in the castle, climbed a church tower, and rode the city bus tour when our legs wore out.

Click through to see more pictures below. Further down is a map of where we went...





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U2 Live in Dublin's Croke Park

We're not the biggest U2 fans in the world but when U2 plays in their hometown of Dublin, you go. The show averaged over 80,000 in attendance over each of 3 nights. We bought tix in a block of six with Colin and Rod that I worked with at IBM and met them in the seats with their respective partners. It was a good show and I was glad to be there and see it but stadium shows just don't measure up to seeing your favorite bands up close in the Cat's Cradle...

Pictures of us didn't really turn out but here's a panorama of the stadium during the show.

Visiting Germany

Allison was off to Paris and the rest of Europe with her Mom first week of July so I flew out to Brühl to visit Leilani, Jeff, and the Kids for a few days. The other objective was to do some riding in the hills of Heidelberg so I packed up the road bike and brought it along.

Little did I know the hardest ride of the trip would be through the local paths to Heidelberg and back with Leilani for 5 hrs on the city bikes... with a trip up the philosophers walk. The next day I planned a route in the hills and Jeff and I covered 3x as much distance in half the time but on the good bike it still seemed easier. Somehow I completely failed to get any pictures of the kids on this trip... but planning to be back soon anyhow. The few pictures I did take.... Click through below.

Mom and Dad in Ireland

Mom and Dad (Asa and Verla this time) came over for a visit to finish off their trip to Europe... I took them Hiking in Glendalough on a beautiful day. They also went out on a couple bus tours to Kerry in the south and Giant's Causeway in the north. It was great to have family in town again as we never tire of the visitors from back home. A few pictures below are a mix taken by Mom and me. Click through the first to see the rest.

Volvo Ocean Race

OK, we've got some serious catching up to do.... Reaching all the way back to the first weekend of June we went down to Galway to see the send off of the Volvo Ocean Race. I was a good fun festive scene. Some boats even seemed to have groupies that traveled port to port... The Irish contingency was the Green Dragon boat which was a joint venture with the Chinese.
Click through the photo for a few more.

Chris Graduates - Finally!

My brother Chris has always been our family 'genius,' an exceptionally smart and talented kid. He just finished his PhD at Purdue in Chemical Engineering, and I made the trip home from Ireland to go to his graduation. Too important to miss! It was a great day, and really fun to be back at Purdue... was my first trip back in 10 years!! Starbucks in the Union?? The Sweet Shop restored back to its 1950's glory?? I can't believe how good the kids have it these days.. After buying armloads of new Purdue gear from the bookstore and a quick pint at Harry's, we headed out on the graduation party circuit. Chris's friends and adviser were all delightful, and it made me miss my grad school friends from Duke. Chris will now be working at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, doing something to hopefully save the world. Congrats little bro!!

Me, Kyle, and our super smart PhD brother Chris

This past weekend I traveled out to Bergamo and Milan Italy. Allison was back in the states to see Chris graduate from Purdue and the Giro d'Italia Stages 8 and 9 were on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's stage passed near Bergamo before looping around some small mountains and returning to finish in town center. I brought my bike and rode about the last 90km of the course. I stopped at the top of the last climb and stopped on a hill for about and hour and a half 'till the peleton rolled by then finished out the course into town.

On Sunday Stage 8 was Circuit race (laps of about 10 miles) within the city of Milan. I left the bike at the hotel and rode the train out to Milan for the day. The circuit race was better as a spectator as the riders would come around every 20 minutes or so instead of only once.... At the end of the day I managed to get a spot right on the barriers leading up to the finish at the 250m mark. Would have had some great photos of the sprint finish win by Mark Cavendish but I accidentally left the camer in Movie mode so all I got was 2 seconds of blur... oh well.

I reverted to pure tourist on Monday and toured City Alta the old part of Bergamo until it was time to fly out in the evening. It was a nice old town upon a hill and the weather was great all weekend. Some photos below. Click throught the photo for more.