13 December 2007

Picture Time!

This past Saturday we decided we needed to escape the city and see some countryside so we headed north along the coast for about an hour. We stopped first in Cruden Bay, where little did we know (until just now!) we saw Cruden Bay Golf Club which has quite the reputation for being a fine course--last year ranked no. 52 in the world in one magazine. Frankly, I was freezing and was wondering how the men I saw playing were doing so!The course is set on this beach and river that flows into the ocean. We took a brief walk (and I emphasize brief) until the wind nearly blew us away! You might notice how low the sun looks on the horizon. The picture was taken just before noon. Here the sun stays low in the horizon. You always have a long shadow. It's very hard to see sometimes when the sun is glaring at you in the middle of the day, especially driving!
The bridge we crossed to get to the beach area.
Another great sign of "No dog fouling." Glad to see tax payers money hard at work! My favorite part is the, uh, steam/stench coming from the, uh, foul...
Maybe I'm just weird (well, most of you already know that's true!) but this sign strikes me as humorous. Guess it's the stick figure plummetting to his death with arms/legs flalyling. In all seriousness, Mark said he heard someone died near this area from falling off the cliff, so the signs are warranted.
We got in the car for a few more minutes and headed north to Slain's Castle (well, more like the parking lot about 1/4 mile from the castle). Apparently, Slain's Castle was the inspiration for Bram Stroker's Dracula and apparently is in the process of being turned into luxury apartments. After seeing the muddy road we'd have to walk to get there and being reminded of the stiff wind, we opted for the view through the camera lens.
Back in the car, headed north towards Peterhead. But first we stopped off in the little fishing village of Boddam (gotta love the name!). Here is the beautiful lighthouse that we barely got to enjoy because we were so enamored with a seagull (see below).
This seagull was dancing! No joke. Very strange. You can almost make out his foot being lifted in this photo. By the time I put my camera on the video record setting, he flew off :( But, feel free to go to You Tube to check out other people's videos of dancing seagulls. It's entertaining!
We once again headed north to Peterhead. We ended up in a dead end street with everyone Christmas shopping so we quickly vacated and decided there wasn't much to see. I had to use the loo and Mark was craving some coffee, so off to McD's!! It was a first for us since being here. It was a madhouse in there (lots of families and children running around...no play area, now I know why they do that in the States!) Mark also indulged in a "Festive Pie." I thought he had bought an Apple Pie and was going to steal a small bite, but was very turned off when I discovered he bought a Mincemeat and Custard Pie. He said it was good, but I'm still skeptical.
After our travels we spent a short time at home and headed back out to Kate and Brannan's again for game night along with James and Allison. The ladies made dinner, the men discussed theology (sounds like Thanksgiving again!) and then we played Dutch Blitz in couple teams. Mark and I nearly one, but at the end fell to the LOSER catagory. Oh well, maybe next time. Then it was on to a long Jenga competition. We made it to 33 stories only for me to have to yank any old one out because there were literally no more blocks to coax out. Oh well....LOSER again :)

2 comments:

Ronnica said...

That's quite the graphic sign about falling off the cliff. Yikes.

Mark and Rachel said...

Yes, it sure is! I will have to post a pic of what happens when you go near electricity. That one is quite graphic as well!