Teresa McNeil MacLean

Rock Creek

Sat, 31 May 2008 18:46:53 -0700

Annual McNeil Family Campout each June; as I’m writing this now, we’ll be going there soon. I’m working on a drawing, in the midst of a day hike, at Long Lake, two years ago.

Photo: Marvin McNeil

Rock Creek

Fri, 30 May 2008 18:10:05 -0700

Ten-year-old me, hiking in Little Lakes Valley.

Photo: Marvin McNeil

Santa Ynez

Mon, 19 May 2008 11:41:44 -0700

What a strange month. The weekend we went to Disneyland for Music in the Parks as Santa Ynez Valley Jazz Band parents, it was over 100 degrees. The weeks before and after that it was colder than Seattle or Edinburgh! And sitting for hours inside working on this website, freezing, then going out in the sun to walk with the dog to the post office under blue blue sky and puffy clouds sailing by - was an odd transition too. Once outside, neither the dog nor I wanted to go back into the interior dark, so we walked out by the fields instead, on a long loop back instead of the short one through the neighborhood.

Yosemite

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:46:15 -0700

Our 25th Wedding Anniversary! Dinner at the Ahwahnee. Saw where an avalanche rumbled snow down on top of the trail below Half Dome. Glad we weren’t right there, that day. Hiked to the top of Yosemite Falls through snow, then couldn’t find the look-out point. I didn’t especially want to be closer to the edge anyway, and the vertiginous view down was plenty gorgeous from where we stood. Hiking down, wind slapped us with ice water from the falls.

Scotland

Tue, 1 Aug 2006 18:29:46 -0700

Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival reminded me of UC Santa Cruz (or the summers our daughter was at Circus Camp). Then, Kilmarten Glen, Carnassarie Castle, Auchnabrech’s pictish carvings, Dunadd, where our ancestral Dalriadic kings were crowned, Oban, where Doug’s grandfather was born, then the ferry to Barra with Kisimul Castle out in the bay, historic home of the MacNeils (though we’ve since found out our ancestor who came here in 1739 may have come from Islay) where I hiked up Ben Heaval into a cloud, then the ferry rides up and over to Skye...When we 3 had been in Scotland 2 days, we already knew we’d have to return there. We loved the entire trip; my poor little guitar was not so fortunate: it was lost somewhere in the historic bowels of Heathrow, probably on some waylaid baggage cart, and was returned to me in pieces weeks later. Amazingly glued back together, it plays pretty much like a guitar again, and now its cracks just remind me of a terrific trip whenever I play it.