Some pleasant walks

[mtbc]

We have been exploring Aberdeen's festival of light. It is over a few evenings which, judging by queues, doesn't seem to be quite enough. Among other things, there are giant glowing figures, and apparently a dance routine where we arrived around when it finished. One of the glowing figures suffered technical difficulties but we remained for long enough to see it restored to its former glory.

Yesterday evening, we walked back down to attend the maybe largest part of the festival, in Union Terrace Gardens, that we had previously postponed in view of the queue, which is probably at least an hour long. Before joining the queue, I picked up some takeaway Taco Bell, and ate as I waited. Here in the UK, the seven-layer burrito remains on the menu, a favourite of mine among their fare. Once we were finally admitted to the gardens, we found that the festival site included some nice clanking trees whose glowing orbs' brightness was related to the clanks, and a glowing fox and owl. I also noticed some drones high in the air above.

Queueing rather less, we have also visited woodland and the like. There may have been interesting animals but I am bad at spotting those, at best I managed the two small deer that crossed the trail right in front of us. Maryculter Woods is one of the closer such destinations. We were generally lucky in getting a parking space in what were mostly small, busy car parks. The weather in recent days has been most cooperative with such expeditions.

One nice thing about Aberdeen is that parking at the beach is easy and free so, yesterday afternoon, we returned and got to see plenty more dogs being exercised, some getting into the water, also the usual couple of people in wetsuits out swimming or surfing. Graffiti asks, is the water real? The woodland trails also see a fair few dogs being walked.

Comments

[thewayne]

Our town is too small for things like a light festival. I'm sure it would be neat, though.

My wife and I drove down to see a movie yesterday, and there was a pack of wild horses off the side of the road. It's not common to see the horses as opposed to deer/elk, but they wander through occasionally.

[mtbc]

Cool, I don't think I've seen wild horses like that.

Aberdeen's not that large really but large enough, at least, for many things.

[thewayne]

Remember I live in a VILLAGE.  Population 800!  The closest 'city' is only 30k.  I'm pretty confident without opening Wikipedia that Aberdeen is larger than that. :-)

[mtbc]

Yeah, I spent some years in a village that sometimes had a shop, it did have a small chapel and two-classroom school though. It's been strange for my wife to come to somewhere as small/rural as Aberdeen, given that she knows best places like Metro Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, etc. - I hadn't really thought about that she'd never lived even somewhere this small, let alone an actual village.

[thewayne]

Cloudcroft is a tourist destination and has skiing sometimes in the winter.  Very popular place to escape the heat in the summer from down the mountain.  Also popular for mountain biking in the summer.  We have one gas station/mini-mart, no traffic lights, numerous shops and a couple pretty good restaurants, and K-12 schools.  It's pretty lively.  And at least four churches that I know of.  We don't have a marijuana dispensary, I would love it if one came to town!!

[shadowkat]

Aw...you ruined the ambience with Taco Bell. Where's the fish and chips, and the scotch eggs? Or the pints? ;-)

Sounds lovely.

[mtbc]

It was, thank you. (-: Will definitely have to get some fish and chips again at some point, just wish they were a bit cheaper!