Lately Melissa and I have been planning a special anniversary trip. Our 25th falls this summer and we are using it as an excuse to do something we have been talking about since we met:<\/p>\n\n\n
A trip to Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n
Once upon a time, for my entire junior year, I left Wabash College and Crawfordsville, Indiana behind and made my way to the University of Aberdeen on the north coast of Scotland. It was the 1988\/89 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The other day I came across some letters home I wrote during that year. I guess I was pretty homesick at times and I still kind of marvel at how adventurous I was for a shy kid from Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n
I made the most of the year and in retrospect, I suppose it was quite transformational, being so far from home. And Scotland captured my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n
I’ve wanted to go back ever since I left. It is a deeply magical place.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I can hardly contain myself over the thought of returning and – this time – showing Melissa around.<\/p>\n\n\n
God willing, we will start in Edinburgh and then take a train to Aberdeen before renting a car and spending a couple of nights around Loch Ness. From there it will be west to Skye and then south to Oban and a chance to tour a couple of the western isles before heading to the port of Cairnryan to take a ferry to Belfast, Northern Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Just outside of Belfast is where our friends from Haiti days live – the Edlers – and we will have a couple of days with them before returning to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n
It is the trip of a lifetime and Melissa and I are dreaming and mapping and googling on a daily basis already.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lately Melissa and I have been planning a special anniversary trip. Our 25th falls this summer and we are using it as an excuse to do something we have been talking about since we met: A trip to Scotland. Once upon a time, for my entire junior year, I left Wabash College and Crawfordsville, Indiana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5611,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5610\/revisions\/5611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}