Tom's Travels

I had one day between the end of my trip to Inverness and the beginning of my trip to Ireland so I spent a night in downtown London. I had a hotel across the street from Victoria Station and about a 1/2 mile from Buckingham Palace. I took a trolley to the Marylebone district where my Great-Grandmother, Annie Darwin, was born and grew up before immigrating to Canada with her parents. I was able to find the address where she was born (see photo of apartment with the red door) and even talked to a woman who lived in one of the apartments. They are now luxury condominiums. I took a few more photos in the area, had lunch and then walked back to the hotel, via Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace. I also took a double decker bus tour of old London, and boat tours on the Thames.

I flew to Inverness, Scotland to attend meetings of the International RUral Network. THis group meets every two or three years to study issues related to rural education, rural health and rural economic development. While there, I took a cruise on Loche Ness and Went geocaching with friends from Missouri. In the first phot, form left to right are, John Bryden out host form Scotland, Matt Fannin, My graduate Student at the University of Missouri, Louise Kinlen, a research partner from Ireland, me, Vickie RIghtmyre, a researcher in my center, and Bill Reimer, a colleague from Montreal. The next photo shows John Bryden as official host of the conference in traditional Gaelic attire.

The remainder of the photos were taken while we spend a day geocaching around Loch Ness. There are a series of caches, which take one completely around the Loch, about a 50 or 60 mile drive. We did a lot of hiking to find the caches which were all located in secluded areas.

My geocaching partners were Jim Scott and Vickie Rightmyre.