SCOTLAND! ! !

I spent 10 days in Scotland - one day in Glasgow, 6 days on the Isle of Mull, 2 days in Fort William, and one day in Edinburgh. We were incredibly fortunate with sunny, hot weather the whole time. The field trip was amazing, but there was a lot of traveling around to see the other places and I'm glad to be back.

Funny statue in front of the Glasgow Modern Art Museum

Old school taxi

Our 'cottage' on Mull

Our beach!

Sheela relaxing at the beach during lunchtime.

The farmer is herding his sheep to the fields. This picture was taken right outside our cottage.

Radial mica in a pegmatite unit.

Geology friends: Rob, Zach, Pam, & Eric

Fit the part

Lil Lambs!

One of our stops

Another one of our stops - coooooold Atlantic Ocean!

Seafood catcher of some sort. 

Isle of Iona

Iona Abbey

On our way to Fort William

After our field trip, Ellie and I headed north to the highlands to hike Ben Nevis - the tallest mountain in the UK. It took us 5 and a half hours to go up and down. Being from MT, it was nothing, but to the locals, it's a HUGE feat. Kind of funny.

Hiking Ben Nevis. Most of the trail for the first half was built like these steps. 

 was really tough on the ol' legs to climb up stairs instead of an inclined path.

The hostel: It used to be an old barn and has been converted into a bunkhouse and restaurant

Waterfall.

Getting into some snowy weather near the top

Made it to the top! All 4,406 feet of it! We encountered some pretty terrible weather with low visibility and high wind (notice my hanky tied to the right strap of my backpack), but we found it.

Sheela came with me to the top.

Edinburgh

Gypsies & Stone Circles

Today Michelle and I took quite an adventure to a little teeny town called Ross Carbery. We thought we needed to go to the town before Ross Carbery, called Clonakilty, but we asked the 'Traffic Warden' when we got off the bus and he shuffled us back onto the bus and sent us on our way to the next town. We got off the bus and waved goodbye to our cheerful chauffeur (AKA bus driver). We walked to the town square, and thank god, there was a sign post with a map. We took pictures of the map in sections because as it turns out, there are no pocket maps of the town. Anywhere. So we had to guide ourselves using tiny digital camera images of the map. We walked along a nice little one lane road until we got to our first standing stone.

Lovely lane

This is Sheela on the first standing stone.

She is accompanying us on our adventures.

After we spooked a pheasant in the grass, we continued our hike along the road until we came upon a jolly old fella' named Thomas. He gave us a rundown of this cool mansion that is next to his property and told us how to jump the electric fences that surround his property.

Coppingers Court

After we finished cruising around here, we kept a walkin - heading for Drombeg to the stone circle (which I don't actually have any pictures of - stand by, I'll get them from Michelle). By this time, our little legs were getting tired and we hoped we would find someone there to give us a lift back to town - or at least part of the way. Luck be with us, we found a lovely gal named Jen. She nibbled on a snack with us while we sat next to the stone circle and gave us a lift a good part of the way back to town.

Sign post in Irish & English

Ruins of an ancient house at Drombeg

After a tea break in the pub, we set off in the opposite direction for another round of standing stones and circles. We stopped several people to check that we were on the right path to the stones, and nobody knew what we were talking about. Most people told us that nothing like that existed around these parts (which is baloney - there are lots and lots in that neck of the woods). We're pretty sure that everybody in the whole town was talking about us and assumed we were gypsies by the end of the day, despite our lack of flowing skirts and jangling beads and bells. We finally just trusted our gut and headed out. We were totally right and we found an amazing stone circle in plain sight that looked like nobody had been to in years. It was incredible. There is something completely unexplainable about the sacredness of the stone circles. There is just a feeling you get when you stand in the middle and spin a full 360 degrees, looking at each stone and the beautiful backdrop of the Irish countryside and sea.

The lunchtime pub

Irish countryside with the sea in the background

Bohonagh Stone Circle

A black sheep

Hook Head & Dorset Field Trip

I just returned this morning from a very busy field trip from Cork to Hook Head in Southwest Ireland (A to B). We spent 2 days around Hook Head practicing our sedimentary logging skills and enjoying the beach. On the evening of the 2nd day, most of our classmates headed back to Cork, while the rest of us met up with a few 4th year students in Wexford. We ferried from Wexford across St. George's Channel to Pembroke in Wales, then drove to our final destination in England (B to C). We took the late ferries because it was way cheaper, but it was quite miserable. On our way to England, we boarded the ferry at 8, arrived in Wales at midnight, and then our professor insisted dragging out a 4 hour drive into an 8 hour drive because we couldn't check into our campsite until 9 a.m. We finally arrived and set up camp and headed to the field. The Dorset part of the field trip was not required and was just for fun, and the 4th years made sure that it was darn fun. We stayed up way too late every night, had relaxed mornings, and leisurely tours of the Dorest coast. The weather was fantastic. It was downright hot on Saturday. All through the night on Saturday, rain pounded and turned our campsite into a muddy bog. Thank god for goretex! We didn't leave Lyme Regis until 7 p.m. on Sunday, drove the 4 hour drive back to the ferry port, and finally boarded the ferry at 2 a.m., departed at 3, landed in Wexford at 7 a.m., and drove back into Cork. The last thing I want to do is travel for 22 hours to go home at this point, but I think a good night sleep and a cuppa coffee should remedy that feeling! Montana, I'll see you on Wednesday!

Here's the route map:

Hook Head:

Shrimp burrows (that little inverted triangle to the left of Ellie's pinky)

Some cool fossil burrows that I can't remember the name of. They are on the underside of a ledge.

Marine fossils

Dessication cracks

Ediachara (spelling??) fossil

Neat folding in the upper left part of this section.

Convoluted bedding (soft sediment deformation due to compaction)

Playing on the beach after finishing a sedimentary log

Hook Head Lighthouse: the oldest operational lighthouse in the world

Hook Head Coast

Bivalve fossil (upper left) & crinoid stalk fossil (lower right circular bit)

Bivalve fossil

Largest crinoid stalks ever discovered. Some German 'paleoterrorists' came in one night with an angle grinder and cut the heads off and stole them.

England:

Neasa and me at Lulworth Cove

The fossil forest is in a military firing range and it's only open to the public on weekends. I thought this was hilarious.

Fossilized cast of a tree trunk in the fossil forest. It is preserved by stromatolites (algal mats) that encased the tree trunk and preserved its shape.

Sea arch at Durdle Door

Beautiful blue . . . . .

Lovely sunset at Kimmeridge

Dog Racing

Sorry for my absence the past few weeks. It's not because I haven't done anything, it's because I've been too busy to post. Here's my backlog of adventures.

Yesterday, me and 4 of my fellow American geology students took the bus to the dog racing park to see what all the fuss is about. It was amazing! There were 10 races, and all of us decided we should bet on a dog to get the whole experience. Ellie and I decided to go halvsies on a bet, so we arbitrarily picked a race and a dog, and we WON! Unfortunately, we only doubled our money, and we only put down 2 euro. It was pretty darn fun. You aren't allowed to take flash photography, so here's a video of the start of a race. I hope it works - I've never uploaded a video.

Sunshine in Ireland and Visiting Friends

Some of our IFG comrades who are studying in Germany for the year came to Ireland to visit us on their semester break. It was their turn to crash at our house after we stayed with them while we were in Germany for one of our classes. It's so fun to see those guys! Every time we see them the time flies way too fast, we eat too much good food, and we have a blast. It was a bummer to send them back to Germany, but it'll be grand when we all get back to Montana!

Beans on toast, a traditional Irish breakfast, to welcome our guests to Ireland.

Tea time in Kinsale with Eric

Pam & Ellie at tea time.

The gals outside Charles Fort.

Me, Ellie, & Eric

Stopping to smell the roses.

It got quite late on our adventure and the town of Kinsale looked very serene from our view point on the footpath. We stopped to enjoy the view and for a little pre bus ride snack.

Big ol' pair o' boots.

Taking a rest in the park.

Trying to smell the flowers along the river and avoiding the mine field of dog poos.

The bridge from the main campus to the geology department with the music department in the background up on the hill.

Beautiful view of St. Finbarre's Cathedral at sunset on a clear day. Not a common view around these parts!