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By Michael Downing Angus We limped into Oban as a result of the flat tire merit badge we earned making our way from Glasgow up along Loch Lomond. Our tow truck driver was awesome, though. At first, we barely understood him but then, pretty quickly, we were able to dial in. He was going back…

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By Michael Downing A Treacherous Road The road that runs alongside the west bank of Loch Lomond up into the Highlands–called the A82–logs ~170 accidents each year. That’s one every two days. In April 2023, a woman and her dog were killed in a collision with a bus and five people were hurt in a…

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By Michael Downing Glasgow We only had about four hours for Glasgow. Headed from Manchester to Oban, we took the Glasgow exit and found a parking garage. Not much time, but we’ll find the good stuff. Glasgow was beautiful. We popped out of the mall at the top of the hill where we parked and…

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By Michael Downing Liverpool We hopped the train from Manchester to Liverpool and found ourselves trundling along toward where the mouth of the River Mersey meets the Irish Sea. Liverpool’s population as of 2019 was 496,784, making it just a bit smaller than Manchester. It is the fifth largest city in the UK, and part…

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By Michael Downing After nine amazing days in London, we took an Uber back to Heathrow, rented a Nissan Juke, and began our trek to Shakespeare’s birthplace: Stratford-Upon-Avon. Stratford is a beautiful little town. We took pictures with Shakespeare’s statue in the middle of the square, visited Shakespeare’s birthplace, and popped into a cool little…

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By Michael Downing On Finally Becoming an Artist I have never considered myself an artist. It wasn’t until about ten years ago when Jackie finally convinced me that for not being an artist, I sure do create a lot of art. My art is practical, though. It involves taking the individual components of a house and…

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