50 pounds exactly

The day has finally arrived. My flight leaves at 12:30 and I have only one bag to check. ONE BAG to last me four months! And it weighs exactly 50 pounds. Of course when I was trying to make finishing touches on packing last night the electricity in our house went out. Oh- not the whole house... just in the areas that I needed to see, like my bedroom, bathroom, hallway, etc. WOW my grandparents just got here to take us to the air port! Well everyone... I'll miss you!!!

Attack of the Midgets!!!

I have about two weeks before I leave for London, and preparations are getting intense.

In trying to prepare today I learned a little bit of British lingo on accident. I was going through some stuff about the Isle of Skye in Scotland. I'm planning on going there one of the weekends that I'm in London... probably the end of September if I'm going on a 3 day tour. They take you through the Loch Ness to search for Nessie! Haha! How can you go to Scotland and not search for Nessie?

I'm excited, and I was going through all of this different stuff online. While I was reading this Q&A thing about places to get vegetarian meals up there, I did a double take when I saw the response of the guy getting the advice,

"Cheers for all your advice,

Have just watched a news item on the mountain biking in Fort Willam and has warned of midges.

How bad are they at the moment and any advice on avoiding the beasties.

Cheers again"

Umm... so I happen to have dyslexia sometimes and so I was like whoa midgets? First I'm like, "Yikes, racist!" Then I get to thinking... are there wild ravenous cave-dwelling midgets up there that attack weary and unsuspecting travelers?

Someone responded with,

"Midges are easily avoided...stay indoors."

I'm like AAAH! So much for searching for Nessie! Midgets are going to jump out of the weeds and kill me!

"Perhaps we've just been lucky but we've not found the midges all that troublesome in Skye over the past 4

years that we've been visiting in August.

But some observations...

If you do venture out midges probably won't be a problem in bright sunshine, if it's windy or if you keep moving.

The problem is when you sit outside for more than a few minutes early morning or early evening or any time when it is dull-ish (especially at dusk) and when the air is still, warmish and dampish.

I know it's a commercial site that just wants to sell stuff but I've been watching the midgeforcasting site below for about 6 weeks and have noticed that Skye appears to be consistently better for midges than Fort William."

OK now these things are starting to sound like mythical creatures... Magical Midgets? Finally I read this comment:

"To give you some idea:

A couple of years ago, I went into my local outdoor gear shop and asked for a bottle of their best insect repellant.

The guy produced a bottle of 'expedition grade' gunk and said "this is designed for use in the Amazon - where are you going?"

When I said Scotland, he said "oh, that's not strong enough - you need this - expedition plus!"

To be honest though, by September, if you are not camping by still water, they shouldn't be more than a mild nuisance."

British term #1: midges = insects like gnats or mosquitos. Not midgets.

Whew.... trippy....

Well... glad to know I wont be attacked by mythical little people while I'm over there.