Frequency Hopper Update and New Posts Coming Soon!

Yours Truly hugging a tree in the Queen Ann Garden of Stirling Castle in Stirling, Scotland

My tour of Northern England and Scotland winds up this week!

I've had a tremendous time. Most everyone has been super friendly and helpful.

A few points of order:

deltamagnet@yahoo.com or deltamagnet@facebook.com

- At this time I'm soliciting new adventures. If you are the representative of a travel bureau or own a business you would like me to visit, please email me.

- Presently, I have solid couch surfing offers from pals in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Tehama, Japan. These are my best leads for a 2012 international trip. Nearby B&Bs, upscale hostels, and unique housing situations: please ring me up! The doors are wide open and I'm in planning mode.

- I'm launching two new "ongoing series": Cafes I Have Known and Bookstores I Have Known. If your cafe or bookstore business would like to be featured in a future post, please let me know and I will arrange a visit when next I'm in your town.

- Below are some of the posts I'm organizing for the summer and fall.

I'll be folding in my promised Colorado, Wyoming, and Arizona posts also.

If you'd like a notification when a specific topic is posted, please email me and I will let you know when it is up...

Manchester, England

Salford Lads Club Smiths Room Quest (with video)

Newcastle, England

Segedunum and Hadrian’s Wall Adventure

Glasgow, Scotland

Tramway Hidden Gardens Adventure

Glasgow Necropolis Adventure

Pollok County Garden and Burrell Collection Adventure

Strathyre, Scotland

Right-of-Way to Rob Roy’s Grave Adventure (with video)

Ben Vane Hiking Adventure (with video)

Falls of Dochart and Killin Trail Adventure

Stirling, Scotland

Stirling Castle Adventure

Edinburgh, Scotland

Craigmilllar Castle Adventure

Arthur’s Seat Adventure (with video)

Egilsay, Scotland

Edible Egilsay Adventure

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville Cycle Tour Adventure

The Columbia Viper and Superhero Tourism

Knoxville, Tennessee

Knoxville Noon Music

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

Dollywood Adventure

Asheville, North Carolina

Linville Caverns Adventure

Black Mountain College Quest and Montreat Hiking Adventure

Carl Sandburg Connemara Farm Adventure

Raleigh, North Carolina

Crepe Myrtle Pride Celebration

University of North Carolina Greenbelt and Botanical Garden Adventure

St. Louis, Missouri

Going Up In The Gateway Arch

Thanks to all my readers for making these journeys so fun to pursue!

xxoo
Dale

Oban, Scotland McCaig's Tower Adventure

The proprietress of Strathyre's Rosebank House , Mal Dingle is driving. Her sister, my friend, Iona is in the passenger's seat.

We are talking about how there is very little professional tango dancing in London. Iona dances tango professionally and has difficulty finding European men who can keep up with her!

I'm in the back seat eating seasoned peanuts and copious amounts of fruit. If there is such a thing as a vegan garbage disposal, I'm probably it.

In the U.K., people drive on the opposite side of the road than Americans do. It means fewer accidents, although one waits much longer at traffic lights.

They also drive crazy fast on narrow roads here. That's what they get for translating everything into metrics!


At low tide in Oban, Scotland, the gulls frenzy picking at dulce and washed up sealife along the schist banks.

You can see McCaig's Tower at the top of the hill.

The hike up was steep but brief. Only about 15 minutes from the seaside.

McCaig built the tower to honor his family and employ Oban's stone masons during the winter months. The estates of both John McCaig and his widow were famously contested, leaving the tower we see today without its planned museum and sculpture garden.

From Oban, people ferry off to the islands of Mull and Lismore in the distance.

Iona is enjoying some oysters and crab here. Yes, they were excruciatingly fresh. I made contact with those-who-were-about-to-die in their baskets at the fish stand. Poor little guys!

In the U.S., salt water taffy is the ubiquitous seaside sweet. In Scotland, sugar mice fill that role.

Invented in Crieff by Gordon and Durward in 1954, sugar mice are especially popular at Christmas.

Tradition is that their tails should be made of string and not licorice, though the ones I saw didn't have tails at all.

Newcastle Castle Keep Adventure

Yours Truly inside the Newcastle Castle Keep

When I get a crack at a castle, I think of Marcello Mostriani, in La Dolce Vita, holding a candleabra, bounding through an Italian ruin. I think of loud laughter in acoustically perfect rooms.

The castles I know have steep, worn steps too small for any feet to fit on entirely. My movements within them are quiet and deliberate. On the turret stairs, I am always thinking about my feet, descending a fan of spiral stone wedges.

The stairs leading to the chapel and garrison rooms at Newcastle Keep

I typically engage in the type of adventure that moves fast. At Newcastle’s Keep, I know the adventure will be more like crossing a rope bridge or descending a crevasse.

When I see the blond face of the Keep, I interpret playful industry from the 12th century brickmasons.

These men suggested an elephant at rest where the old castle motte must have appeared like the hump of it’s back curled resting against the River Tyne.

Though few English had actually seen them, the "face" of the castle keep is consistent with artistic interpretations of elephants from Medieval times

Inside, I explore the garrison room, where men were jailed in irons. I trace the cool arches in the chapel and feel a warm shaft of light tickle my skin through cross-hatched window panes. The most favored and least cherished representatives of human nature came together on this floor.

The Keep chapel

I imagine the town under seize by the Scots, how the townspeople would gather in the Great Hall for protection, how they might receive an address from a representative of the Royal Family staying in the King or Queen’s chambers. I imagine the balcony lined with bow-drawn archers ready to the defense.

One of the four towers atop the Keep. Most can be entered via a crawlspace.

Some believe a stone in sentient, that it holds memories, and the intensity of the actors who touched it or passed can be felt within.

Modern Newcastle as seen from the Keep rooftop

But perhaps it is that, like stones, the people of Medieval times were durable beyond the softness of our age. Perhaps this legend is the crutch that enables our compassion for them, their fears and superstitions.