The road out West begins in TN!

Alright, It's Day 1 of our road trip across the Wild West in the CR-Z with our awesome dog, Murphy! Me and Hayley (not Hayley and I) love to drive, whether it is for a reason or no reason at all. So, when we were thinking of our next trip, we figured we just got a sweet hybrid 6-speed sports car... let's go drive the crap out of it! We thought about leaving Murph-dog at home or leaving him with Becky, but we thought he'd be fine in the car and he best dog ever, so why not just bring him along too! We loaded down the car with our pop-up Coleman tent (so we wouldn't have to waste time setting up and taking down the tent every day), two sleeping bags, blanket, pillows, camera gear, wi-fi card from Susan, netbook, atlas, general idea of what direction we wanted to drive, and water for our boy. That exceeded the allowable cargo weight for the CR-Z, seriously. You are only allowed 400lbs: Me, Hayley, and Murphy weigh 360 lbs, my camera backpack is 30 lbs, the tent is probably 10 lbs...that's it! Still, the CR-Z drives like a Cadillac, carves turns like a Japaneese car should, and gets 50 mpg. Off we go!

We left kinda early, not too bad, stopped and got breakfast and headed out west. We went out to Nashville and cut up through Kentucky to St. Louis. We tried not to take highways and stay on back roads as much as possible, but for this part of trip we didn't really care we were just trying to get out there fast. Murphy was getting used to his bachelorpad back there in the CR-Z!
 He is the best dog to travel with, we would lay back there and sleep then he would come sit propped up on the center console with his head between our seats just enjoying the ride with us! We took turn driving and I roade back there with Murph for a little while and took a nap. It's amazing what will fit in such a tiny car! We eventually made it to Kansas and drove about half way across the state before we got to our first camping spot... the Wal-Mart parking lot. I'm pretty sure you can't leave from TN and spend 2 weeks driving around the country and come back to TN for any less money than it cost us. We are the masters of cheap, as already you know if you read the 2 month Europe trip part of this blog.

That's Day 1, come back and read about some the awesome stories that are coming for us as we headed across the country for no good reason with our dog!

Chicago/Minneapolis

The first catch-up post will be our trip to Chicago with Cody, Cassandra, Bridget, and Con Hunley. (You can't just say his first name, it's one of those that always comes as a pair) We drove up there in the evening trying to keep up with everybody in the other car speeding their way through the night. We stayed in an awesome hotel right downtown off the Magnificent Mile. Parking was $40 a night!

 

The next day we took our cars over to Bridget's sister Sandy's and checked out their awesome rooftop corner apartment. It was one of the nicest places I've been inside and it was mostly glass with a killer view of the city! We all went downtown and walked around checking out the crazy cars and eating hot dogs... wait that was me and Cody.

The girls were hitting up the 'Mile pretty hard, going to every store from $4 shirts at H&M to AllSaints where they have $265 shirts. We met up at the Goodman Theatre to see the musical "Crowns" which was actually really good. Dinner was awesome too!

We toured the city some more the next day and went on an architecture cruise through the middle of river downtown. We got tons of cool shots and a nice lesson on the architectural history of Chicago. Later we walked around and went to Calumet Camera (while the girls shopped) and that place was photographer heaven! Cody bought his Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 wide angle and we played with it downtown until we met up for lunch.

 

That night, we saw a really cool magic/play/musical in a tiny one room theater that was about Harry Houdini. We had a birthday dinner for Cassandra at Sandy and Billy's awesome condo and called it a night! The next day we went all over town again shooting the scenery and playing tourist with just Cody and Cassandra. We split up and headed to Minneapolis.

We went up there to do Hayley's interview for Sky West. The drive was super long, but no big deal. We are pro road trippers! We got a room and prepped for the interview. The next day Hayley was busy mostly all day, but we had lunch at the Mall of America... that place is huge! She finished the interview, but didn't find out about getting the job for almost 5 months. We drove home stopping along the way at Culver's for the best burgers and cheese curds ever. So, even though there weren't any crazy stories or misadventures on this trip, it was still a whole lot of fun!

Next Up: Our Out West Road Trip... I promise this time!

It's been a while...

It has been really long time since I've made a blog post! I am going to try get this started back up, I actually get a lot of views from people searching about Exposure Lock, Macro Extensions, Cokin ND filters, etc. that I have posted about. I have been slacking on the travel part for a long while (since we got back from Europe). So, here goes. So much has changed since the last blog post on here, so we'll just recap and get going. We had the best trip EVER on our summer trip around Europe and met some really awesome people that truly made our trip! I asked Hayley marry me in Ireland (she said yes). There was tons of after-college fun going on, working, hiking, camping, fishing, driving around, tons of photos around the Smoky Mountains of elk, deer, Cades Cove, bears, waterfalls, the starry skies, and hot rods. My sister had a baby, tons more pictures have been taken. My cousin had a baby, tons more pictures were taken. I got an awesome new camera, Nikon D7000. Did tons of photo work, weddings, babies, cars, cabins, ads, brochures, websites, National Geographic, Animal Planet, and a bunch of other stuff. We camped around some Florida state parks (that alligator pic was taken leaning out of a canoe), saw the Stone Temple Pilots in Cherokee, worked our same 'ol jobs a lot, thought "Hey let's go see the last launch of the space shuttle Endeavor when we get off work at midnight"...8 hours before it launched in FL! We made it to the shoreline about 10 minutes before liftoff and turned around and drove back home. We went to Destin with Candace, Virginia Beach, Chicago, Minneapolis, Alabama, Mississippi, Nashville a bunch. Most importantly, somewhere in that summary of our awesome post-college time... we got married and bought a house! It's been awesome, of course we knew it would be. Since then, we've been all over the place doing tons of fun stuff!

 More recently, and this where we'll start back with travel bloggy stuff, we both got new jobs. We didn't really mean to get awesome new jobs at the same time, but I design all the stuff that holds up all the lights and speakers for concert stages...big concert stages. Hayley got the job that fuels our travels, even though it keeps us apart a lot. We went to Minneapolis and they had a interview for Flight Attendants, they had a whole conference center full of people, probably a few hundred. Over 8 hours of interviews and various stages of cuts, they narrowed it down to about 50. Those 50 were then narrowed down and they called some back for a job, Hayley got it! She is based out of Minneapolis and flies Delta planes for Sky West. Stay tuned for awesome pictures and travel stories!
Up next: Road Trip out West!

It's Getting Closer...

It's getting closer! We have been to the park a few times over the last couple of months, finally deciding that campsites #6 and #12 are best suited for the project. We have gathered most our gear and are making progress towards the tentative date of December 12th through the 19th. So far, we have:

• Small Sine Wave Inverter
• Portable 9Ah Lithium Battery
• 70Ah Lead-Acid Battery
• 5 IR Trail Cameras (possibly a couple more before we go)
• Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 OS Super-telephoto Lens
• Plenty of Other Photo Items
• 1Tb Hard-Drive
• Puma Field Guide
• Tent, Clothing, Boots, etc.

What we still need before we go:

• Plaster Kit
• Food Ideas

We plan to spend the first three nights at site #6 and make our way over to site #12 for the rest. We'll have a car, so we will have a battery charger in case something happens to the inverter. Also, we can drive the 5-6 miles across to the trailhead for site #12. The date is not set in stone, because we have to work out our schedules to find a week both of us can do it. There was another report of a Mountain Lion emailed to me recently and I saw a Bobcat on the back side of the park near US-129 (closest to sites #12 and #14). No photos of it, but here's a peek at a nice buck I stalked with a friend in Cade's Cove a couple weeks ago.

On another note, Dr. Don Linzey, the leading expert on the Eastern Mountain Lion and the man with the map of reported sightings, is coming to the Smokies as part of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee's "Wilderness Wildlife Week". He will be speaking about the search for Panthers in the Smokies on Saturday, January 8th at 12:30 in the Music Road Convention Center. Maybe I can get him to write a foreword for the book.

Senior Portrait Deal!

Last minute Senior portrait sessions starting at $90. 

Fall colors are fading fast, mention this blog post when booking at www.IsaacCogdill.com before Christmas, and get a two-hour, on location shoot with online viewing and print ordering for $90.

Predators of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently removed the Eastern Cougar (puma concolor), also known as the Mountain Lion, from the endangered species list classifying the cat officially "extinct". After conducting a recent survey of approximately 600 scientists and wildlife service rangers in 21 eastern United States, the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the eastern sub-species of the Mountain Lion (puma concolor) no longer exists. We believe they do! The Mountain Lion is the largest of the American cats. With a range from the Yukon territory of Canada to the southernmost region of the Andes in South America, the Mountain Lion has the most expansive habitat of any large mammal in the Western Hemisphere. However, there has been very little concrete evidence of the large cats living very far east of their current range. Stories of Mountain Lion sightings are common in the American states east of the Mississippi River, but such sightings are almost always unverified due to lack of real photographic proof. Nowhere in America are the facts about the Mountain Lion's range more speculative than in the eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina region known as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. With over 9 million visitors each year, the GSMNP is the most visited national park in all of the United States. It is no surprise that many reports are made of Mountain Lion sightings in the park. The Mountain Lions (and Red Wolves) were once common the area into the late 1800s with the last 100% proven instance of a mountain lion living in the region was in the winter of 1920. Tom Sparks, a resident of what is now the national park, was attacked by a Mountain Lion (also known as a Panther, Cougar, or Puma) and the cat was later killed. According to Don Linzey, author of Mammals of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, there were 43 reported sightings of the cats between 1908 and 1976. Sightings have become increasingly more common since the increase in tourism to the park over the last 30 years since the data was taken. Sightings of large cats now average 7 per year in the GSMNP.

Why Do It:

The purpose of this project is to once and for all retrieve photographic evidence of large predatory cats in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We hope to ultimately prove that these mammals still roam the land of the United States east of the Mississippi River...and get them back on the Endangered Species list. Another reason we want to do this project is to create an amazing set of photos. This project will allow us to finally write and illustrate a full-color book featuring some of the most elusive animals in the area.

How Will We Do It:

Photographer Isaac Cogdill and adventurer Rob Watson will document a 7 day stake-out of the backcountry of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in search of the Mountain Lions that are now classified as extinct. As the project is carried out, Isaac and Rob will stay at a single-tent backcountry camp site for seven days supplied with all the gear needed to record and document the many species of large mammals and other rare and exotic plants and animals of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The goal is to return with evidence of these large cats as well as many photographs of the main prey of the Mountain Lions, the White-tailed Deer and daily activities of all animals of the park from Black Bears and Bobcats to Coyotes, Owls, and Falcons. The entire collection of observations, field notes, information of various species encountered, and photographs from the excursion will be compiled into a full-color, bounded, softcover book. In addition to the books, limited edition prints of the projects photos will be made solely for contributors.

What Needs Funded:

Nearly everything needed to complete this project is at hand: Tent, sleeping bags, ropes, rain gear, photo gear, remote cameras, audio recorder, laptops, maps, GPS, first-aid, outdoor clothing, packs, etc. Funding for this project will be used to rent a super telephoto lens and an extra battery that will accompany existing photographic equipment, a solar charger to power our small netbook computer and charge batteries for headlamps and cameras. Funds will also be used to offset transportation costs and for miscellaneous items such as casting materials as well as the production of prints and books. ANY EXTRA FUNDING over the goal amount will go to the purchase of additional books that will be donated to local school libraries.

What If We Return Without Proof:

The blog and full-color book will contain many photos and textual observations taken during the week long project as well as descriptions of the many species photographed during our stay. The success of this project will educate many people about the Mountain Lion and give a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes lives of some of the many animals that allure visitors to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and will inspire us to continue searching for the last remnants of the Eastern Mountain Lion.

Video Music: Re-Entry by Lee Rosevere and This Old Town by Isaac Graham
Two Cougar Photos by David Tyrer flickr.com/​photos/​8321586@N07/​

STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's Final Launch!

STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's last launch. Cape Canaveral, Florida. We decided last night (the night before the launch) at about 10pm that we should just go to Florida and watch the launch in the morning. I got off work and left Gatlinburg, TN at 10pm, we got our stuff, and took off for Titusville, FL. We had to make it before the launch at 8:56am...about 10 hours from when we left. We drove super fast and got there about 40 minutes before launch and found a perfect spot to watch from the shore line. It was really awesome, none of us had ever seen a shuttle launch or even knew what to expect. We lucked up and got a perfect show! This is a still from the 720p/24fps video from my Nikon D7000 at 100 ISO and 1/50th with the Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens. I was very impressed with the video from the D7000! I shot it at 720p/24fps because my card was kind of slow and I was afraid it would drop the video part of the way through the launch, so I dropped it to 720p instead of full 1080p. The last mission of the space shuttle Endeavor! Check it out in 720p HD on Vimeo... http://vimeo.com/23824683
STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's Last Mission

STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's Final Launch... and our first! from Isaac Cogdill on Vimeo.

Cokin Graduated ND Review

The Cokin filter system comes in three sizes: A Series, P Series, Z-Pro, and X-Pro. The A series filters are 67mm x 67mm square and can cover lens thread sizes ranging from 36mm to 62mm. I bought the P series holder because I planned on using the filters with bigger lenses. The P series are 84mm wide and fit thread sizes 48mm to 82mm (except 54mm) and work with most of the lenses the A series will fit as well as larger front element lenses such as the common 52mm, 62mm, 67mm, and 77mm Nikon threads and 58mm and 77mm Canons. The Z-Pro filters are sort of expensive but are made of “3^rd Gen CR39 Organic Glass developed by Cokin” instead of CR39 Organic Glass (used in most eye glasses) like the smaller filters and will fit lenses with threads ranging from 49mm to 96mm (except 54mm) and are 100mm wide. The X-Pro fits threads from 62mm to 112mm and are even bigger.

The Cokin Graduated Neutral Density filters are extremely useful, regardless of which size you prefer. The main reason to use a graduated neutral density filter is to keep from blowing out the highlights in the sky of a landscape style photo.  The filters are dark on one half and clear on the other, the only difference in the various styles is the way they fade from dark to clear. The Cokin ND8 P121 has a hard/fast fade. The P121 is most useful when the contrast changes from bright to dark quickly (like a sunset at the beach) The ND8 P121 S has a more gradual fade than the P121 but harder/faster than the P121 F and is great for when the scene is not split by a hard straight line. The P121 F is dark on one side and clear on the other. It fades evenly from one end to the other and can be slid way down to make a nearly even neutral density filter for long exposures.
I have the Cokin ND8 P121, the ND8 P121 S, and ND8 P121 F. I only bought the ND8s because the ND4 and ND2 looked like they would be too light to make much of a difference. I’m sure they would be useful in certain situations. Adorama sells all of the Cokin line in just about every size. If you buy them from these links or through the banner at the top of the page, it will help me keep this site going.

Graduated Neutral Density Filters @ Adorama

(Most Cokins are currently back ordered because of Cokin's management buyout, but Cokin will be back soon)

Welcome Home!

So, long delay, but we had an awesome two days in London! We walked around all day long seeing everything from Westminster Abbey to the Tower Bridge and Waterloo Station...which is a long dang walk. We took tons of pictures and got back to Dan's in Andover to get some good sleep. The next day, our last day (almost), Dan's mom cooked us a nice roast with raspberry apple pie before we left for London! We took our stuff to Gatwick Airport and then headed into town by train. It was raining, but we went to Chinatown, bought another bag so ours wasn't over the 60 pound limit and got some dinner. We took some night shots of the city, saw a guy bust his "boys" full speed on a subway pole and headed back to the airport...our hotel for the night! We ended us locking our stuff to a bench and sleeping under it. That was an awful idea! We slept for about an hour and woke up at 3am and stayed awake for the whole boarding/security process until our plane left at 9am. The ride was nice with plenty of food, coke and touch screen games and music. We got to Nashville via ATL at 5pm! Candace, Beau, and my mom were waiting for us with an awesome sign and it was time to give Hayley her real ring! There was a guy playing guitar and he played a slow song for us and I got down and one knee and did it all again :) Hayley was very excited and everyone clapped for us! Now are back in good ol' Tennessee! Thanks to everybody for actually reading this blog, it was a ton of fun documenting the whole trip through words...and ~12,000 photos! We met some awesome people and we're glad that everyone could keep us with us the whole way!

Stonehenge, Crop Circles, and Avebury!

We had an awesome day! We woke up early, ate left over croissants for breakfast and caught the train to Salisbury at about 11am. We got a bus ticket to see Stonehenge, but it was pouring the rain when we got there, so we just stayed on the bus and went back to Salisbury...then stayed on the bus and went back to Stonehenge (gotta get our money's worth haha). We got off the second time because the weather was great! We walked around taking tons of pictures. It is in a area called the Salisbury Plains where the British military trains every one from pilots to snipers, so we got some shots of a jet pulling some Gs over Stonehenge...not in the same picture though. I seriously had to pee SO bad I was sweating, but you had to leave Stonehenge to get to the bathroom and I didn't want to waste the trip there just because I had to go! So after a little while I couldn't work my camera it was bad so I ran across the place, straight out the entrance, went to the bathroom, then cut everyone in line and went through the booth and back to Hayley...nobody said anything. So, we got plenty of pictures! Dan picked us up (with his dog Jerry) in Salisbury and we went out to hunt down some crop circles out in the countryside. Most of the fields were harvested already, but we saw one huge crop circle that really awesome! Dan, took us by some cool Stone Age burial mounds, and to Avebury where the village is surrounded by two rings of these stones, bigger than Stonehenge, all the way around the village! We ate at the Red Lion Pub in the middle of the rings and rode back to Andover. It's bedtime now and London early tomorrow, so pictures will have to wait!

Ediburgh, Ogle, and Andover!

Sorry for the delay, we had a hard time finding a place to stay, got a negative reference on Couch Surfing from a guy who barely even gave us any direction, and stayed in Edinburgh instead of Glasgow. We had an awesome time in Glasgow with Mathilde and Tich! Mathilde told us about Balloch which is a town by Loch Lomond to the west of Glasgow and we took lots of pictures, I even broke out my macro lens! We missed the train back by less than 10 seconds, but we just went to a cafe for 30 minutes until the next one. We got groceries again and make pizza for dinner back in Glasgow. We got up early and headed to Edinburgh for the day! Patrice was with us for that too and we walked around everywhere, ate some dang good ribs, and mac n' cheese, saw the castle, walked across town for some awesome views then...we had to figure out what the heck we were gonna do! Patrice had to catch a plane to Croatia and be at the Edinburgh Airport at 5am and we couldn't stay with Mathilde and Tich again because they had a full house with some old friends. So, we went from place to place asking for a room (the Fringe Festival is all of August in Edinburgh and there is not a single room anywhere, even on CS). We ended up splitting a 2 person room 3 ways, RUNNING to Waverly station to catch the last train to Glasgow then running to get the train to Mathilde's to get our stuff, then RUNNING back, with all of our stuff to catch the last train back to Edinburgh (while eating Burger King) so we wouldn't have to come back very early in the morning to get our bags...Well, Patrice made his flight and we made it to the Ogle castle in Ogle, Northumberland, England! It was super nice! Since I am the 29th generation of a direct line of Ogles (my Mom is an Ogle and, if you go back 4 generations, so is my Dad haha) descendant of the very first Ogle (Humphry of Ogle 1085-1155)...we just had to stay there! We walked around Ogle, which is a very small community really not even a town. We checked out the land around the place and then just enjoyed the place! The owner's daughter cooked us dinner because we were starving and had no clue that there was nothing to eat in Ogle! She also made us a full English breakfast, tons of toast, juice, and even gave us a ride back to the nearest train station along with leftover croissants for a snack! Our train was late, which is good because we were late too, but then as soon as our train arrived in Birmingham, we saw our connecting train pulling away! Then we waited for another train...it was late, so when we got to Reading, we saw our next connecting train pulling away! So we got sandwiches and tried to call Dan in Andover. We left him a message and just hoped he would be there when we walked off the train in Andover...he was! Good thing because it was raining. Him and his girlfriend took us back to his house where they had cooked a green curry dinner for us, we played with their dalmation, Jerry, and met Dan's mum and sister for a game of Rummikub. We are going to bed now, but in the morning we are going to Salisbury to see Stonehenge and Dan is picking us up at 6:30 and we're going to check out some crop circles around Hampshire! We'll update tomorrow...I promise!

Glasgow, Scotland!

We cleaned the rooms...and bathrooms. We got milkshakes with a guy named John that was working at the hostel from Australia before we caught the train. The train ride to Glasgow was not too long, and Patrice, Mathilde, and baby Rose met us at the train station! Last night, we went to Mathilde and Tich's house, walked through the park and got supplies to make a pasta dinner. Tich (Richard) gave me a sweet "Harris Tweed" hat like the one I saw in Pitlochry! So, we plan on checking out Glasgow today, but so far only breakfast and showers are done and Hayley is playing with the baby :)

Farewell Mano, Louise, Eric, and Gus!

Well, they talked us into staying another night in Lybster! We were just going to be lazy, but we ended up going out along the cliffs on the coast in front of their house in kayaks and the dinghy. It was really cool, we kayaked through a ton a huge caves and tiny cracks in the cliffs! I almost flipped the dang kayak trying to ride a wave across a gap in a rock...almost flipped it and almost made it! I had to wiggle around and push myself off the way I came across. We had a lot of fun and wasted a lot of "petrol" in the dinghy! We hung out with the Dutch couple that were staying with Mano and Louise and Eric, Frenchman...oh yeah, and Gus the Border Collie! We cooked dinner, they had a rice/fish dish and Louise made me some dang good breaded corned beef burger things and potatoes! We slept great, until the Dutch blew a fog horn to wake everyone up for breakfast! Mano headed off to the control tower on his bicycle, the Dutch couple (Rennata and Sander, I think they are called) headed out, and Louise took us and Eric to Helmsdale for a check on the sailboat ropes and some good King Rib and Battered Haddock! They saw us off at the train station and we headed to a hostel north of Edinburgh again to clean some rooms for a free private room and breakfast! Tomorrow, Patrice, the CSer we stayed with in Caen, France is taking a vacation to meet us in Glasgow, Scotland and we are going to meet him and his friends at 4:15pm tomorrow...after we clean!

Home of the Highlanders!

The next day in Lybster, Mano and Louise took us to Wick after breakfast. We saw the Whaligoe steps (317 steps down the cliff to the sea). We walked around in a "European market" in Wick before lunch. I had a beef-n-ale pie with onion rings! We headed back home, passed by the airport where Mano works and a quick stop at the Tesco (supermarket) to get dinner supplies. When we got back, Duncan took me out with a fly rod, we went wading up the river and I caught 3 wild brown trout! They are native to Scotland so it was a lot of fun!  The octopus stew was made for everyone except me...I tried it, it was...different, but they cooked haggis for me along with the swede and potatoes. Then, Mano took us and Eric out in the dinghy to see a castle on the coast and a bunch of caves, we saw a seal and a puffin! It was really awesome, but freezing! Me and Eric stayed up late and watched the night sky, you can see the Milky Way here it is so dark! We saw 4 satellites and 3 Perseid meteors! We are staying another night here in Lybster...

Hiking and Sailing in the Highlands!

To hold up our end of the sweet deal...we stripped sheets and pillow cases, cleaned bathrooms and showers, and mopped the floors of the hostel! It wasn't that bad really, we got a free nights stay in our private room ($70) and free breakfast for both of us. We wanted to hike to the mountain "Ben Vrackie" so we got our bags ready and ended up hitting a souvenir shop and getting a milkshake before we went! The hike was awesome, half way up the trail there was a lake. All of a sudden, it started pouring and blowing wind sideways, so we hid behind a rock until it slacked off, we could barely stand up in the wind it was so strong! After it quit, we were wet and started walking back to the town...then we decided we came this far (to the foot of the mountain) we had to keep going! We went up, all the way to the top, took plenty of pictures, but we finally made it! A RAF Tornado flew by while we were on the mountain, it was so low, fast, and loud we thought we were about to die! We didn't see it because it was so cloudy, but they run a training route over Pitlochry. We heard another one when we got back to our hostel. We tried to get back in time to get food, but everywhere was closed. So, we went to the grocery store, bought Scottish beef steaks and made fajitas and potato wedges in the hostel kitchen! We slept like logs, but caught the 8:42am train outta there to meet Mano and Louise in Helmsdale, Scotland. They had another guy, Eric, from France staying with them and we all went out on their sailboat and learned how to "tack" into the wind and hoist the lines! It was pretty awesome and nobody fell overboard despite all of the leaning over the sides to keep the sail up and the keel down! We had fish n' chips (I had Haggis) and headed to Lybster to their house. We met a man named Duncan, a friend of Mano and Louise, and he offered to take us fly fishing for trout tomorrow! We are cooking octopus...looks awesome, but could be deadly for me, so I don't think I'll try it :( Fishing report tomorrow!

Yorkshire to the Scottish Highlands!

Yesterday, we ate breakfast and Vaughan took us to a west coast town called Morecambe (near Lancaster) in Lancashire, England. We walked around and saw all of the old buildings in the city and went down by the coast. The tide was up so high it flooded the road, so we had to go eat lunch and come back. We went to Happy Mount park and ate the packed lunch we brought while we watched some old guys play "Crown Green Bowling". We went back to the flooded road and out to the coast of Sunderland Point at low tide, saw some old boats and the grave of the "little black Sambo". Vaughan showed us the house were he grew up and bunch of other cool sights. The roads there and back were awesome! We drove through the Yorkshire Dales, which is a national park. All kinds of fast curvy roads... We got back about 7pm and cooked a curry beef dish, which is pretty much the real national meal of England now instead of fish and chips. Vaughan has me wanting to print black and white photos at home now, after we looked through all of his prints. He also has a Mamiya 645 which would be sweet to mess around with! We parted ways with Vaughan, but he says he wants a change of scenery and really wants to move to the US for a while, so maybe we will see him again! We got the 12:03 train (nasty kids everywhere and gross seats/floors) to York to make our way up past Edinburgh to Pitlochry, a tiny town at the foot of a big mountain in Scotland, we are here for two days now. We tried to go to Edinburgh, but there is a festival going on and there is NOWHERE to stay! In Pitlochry, we are going to hike to the top Ben Vrackie tomorrow after we clean the hostel for 3 hours...yeah that's right! We got to talking to the very Scottish guy working at the desk and he said if we would help clean the hostel rooms from 10:30-1:30 tomorrow we could stay for free! We got a private room with a bathroom/shower for 2 nights now! More about the work/hiking tomorrow!

West Yorkshire, England!

We have been with Vaughan near Halifax in West Yorkshire, England for the last few days. We have been driving around, going hiking, taking lots of pictures, and checking out the area. Vaughan is really into photography and has lived here for over 30 years, so he knows all the good spots! He has been making us breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and we've had some good meals! Halifax is an old textile town and now it is mostly abandoned factories and immigrants, but still nice to see. Vaughan's house is up in the Pennine hills and is a really nice place to stay. We are staying here until Wednesday morning, so we are going to make a day trip with Vaughan to Lancaster and Morcambe bay area tomorrow.

More Liverpool and Scouse Accents!

Today was another awesome day in England! We slept in again, had breakfast, then had a photo shoot with Matt's Triumph. It turned out really nice! I don't have Photoshop, but I put the original shot from the camera on Facebook. We walked down the road to eat lunch at "Moby Dick", it was a great meal with lots of steak and potatoes (a real English roast). Then we walked past the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, home of the British Open a few times, to get Matt's car from the shop (not the Porsche, but his VW Corrado Storm that had a coolant leak). We got the train into Liverpool and took a "Ferry 'cross the Mersey" and Matt's showed us around the city. It was very nice...we saw the Cavern, which is the first place the Beetles ever played. We met up with Vicky again and walked around town some more before we watched a concert and crazy dance show at the docks by the Beatles museum and ate hamburgers! We went to a pub and heard a really good band play some rock music...Coke for me and Hayley! Now we are back at Matt's in need of some sleep, but tomorrow we are going to check out the "Iron Men" before heading to meet Vaughan in Halifax!

Liverpool, England!

We finally made it to the home of the Beatles! Matt picked us up at the train station and drove us out to his place in the neighborhood of West Kirby. It is super nice here! He cooked slaved over some curry for us and invited his two neighbors Steve and Shulah over and his friend Vicky. We had a good time listening to their awesome accents and they wanted to see our trip pictures, so we showed them a slideshow of every picture on our facebook for the trip! We slept in a little bit because Matt is a web designer and can work when he wants. Then, we got up and went out for the day in his Porsche 993 Carrera S! We went for a walk up on a hilltop and could see all of the peninsula around West Kirby and into Wales. Matt also has a Triumph so we went to the Triumph dealer and it was really sweet! We bought a British Triumph patch and two shirts. We checked out Chester, an old city in Cheshire that has old Roman walls around it from 80 A.D. Some of the buildings there date to the 15th century. We had awesome milkshakes, saw Paul McCartney's house and some homes of the Liverpool "footballers". We drove around in the Porsche for a while and checked everything out before going to the grocery store and cooking dinner at Matt's. Tomorrow we are having a photoshoot with the Street Triple and going to Liverpool!

Dublin!

We made it to Dublin! We were supposed to meet a couchsurfer, but we don't have a phone so when we got to Dublin we looked up their address...and it was an hour walk outside the city! They never said where to meet up so...we sent them a message and said we were in the city center, but couldn't walk to meet them. We already had another CS'er here for tomorrow night and we had no internet, so we gave him a call and asked if we could just come over and use the WiFi to get a hold of the other guy. Turns out, he said we should just stay here for the night and tomorrow too! We are getting some sleep, but checking out Dublin tomorrow!
UPDATE: We checked out Dublin! We walked around the city and ate some lunch at a pub, no drinkin'. Then, we headed back and met with Valerio, our CS'er, and went out with him and a guy from Israel to a pub. They wouldn't let me in though because I had open-toed shoes! So, we just walked around, went back to the apartment and cooked a pizza with garlic bread and a side of cereal and orange juice...we are being thrifty! We left Ireland for England!