Jim Dabrowski

While various things kept getting in the way of completing Step N, I decided I can move ahead and work on some of the next steps while waiting for parts or whatever. Steps O & P involved putting what I call “greebles” on the hull of the ship. Here are some pics of the process. 

Here is what the ship looked like at the start of this process. 

This is how the captain’s cabin started. 

The ship has these cool-looking “demons”(?) decorations on the outside of the ship. These are made of cast metal and were glued on the both sides of the ship. 

Here is a close-up shot of the balusters (aka spindles) that are used to hold up the railings on the captain’s cabin. 

The standard instructions have me painting the entire hull by hand with a brush (actually, that’s part of step S, but don’t tell anyone). I didn’t want to do that, I don’t think bush painting looks all that good so I wanted to airbrush it. With the deck and other stuff already installed, I had to do a careful job of masking off all the openings so I didn’t get any paint on the inside. You can also see some of the other details added to the hull. 

I probably should have included this photo in the previous post about completing Step N. This shows my repair work re-attaching the right (starboard) wall of the captain’s cabin after I dropped and broke it. 

And here is what the ship looks like now. All painted black and some additional rails attached to the tops of the hull and ready for the next steps. 

I think today I’ll sand and maybe do some of the white highlight-painting to make it look like the finished captain’s cabin looks. All this painting is supposed to be part of Step S so I may just leave it for then.

Beginning with Step Q, I build cannons and lots of other details that will go on the deck. Hopefully those steps don’t take me 2+ months to complete. But hey, I have until Halloween 2025 to complete this so, plenty of time! (Famous last words, eh?)

See you next time! 

JIm 

Oh my god! I finally finished Step N! 

Step N was building the captain’s cabin that goes on the back of the ship. According to my build log, I started this step in September. Yikes. Ran into lots of issues. The build itself took a while, I also took a trip to Scotland you all may have read about, and I decided to do all the lighting that goes here on the back to light all this up, I also dropped it at on point and broke of one whole side of it so that had to be repaired, then my airbrush crapped out and it took a while for me to get that fixed/replaced. In short, one thing after another but it’s finally complete and I think it looks really cool! :) 

While all the above was happening I moved ahead and also finished steps O & P. Those will be shown and discussed in my next blog post. 

JIm

Today’s game feels a lot like the last two. The opponent is bottom of the league in this and that so the #Bears should be able to take advantage of that and win. As the last two weeks showed us, 🤷🏽‍♀️. I can see Bears winning or losing a close one or winning in a blowout.

I’m beginning to think having billionaires isn’t good for democracy.

Day 10

We did it! We completed hiking the West Highland Way! Today we traveled from Kinlochleven to Fort William, about 15 miles. This was actually our longest day of hiking the whole trip. We were a bit worried so we got up and got going a bit early. Turns out we maybe didn’t have to. We made good time and arrived at the end by about 4 pm. Though, which end remains the question. More on that in a bit.

Once again we had absolutely gorgeous weather. Sunny, warm, clear blue skies with hardly a cloud in them. I know, if I say clear skies, there shouldn’t be any clouds, I’m trying to be poetic here. It was just beautiful. Perfect day, again, for hiking. We talked to a number of people this week who said we had the best weather for walking the Way this entire season. Most of the time it’s been rainy, but not for us. We got real lucky. Today was perfect.

Started out with a pretty stiff hike up into the hills for a couple of miles. That was slow going, but slow and steady was our mantra. After that, we hit a crest and walked westward along it for quite a while. Beautiful views of Kinlochleven down into the valley behind us and then hills and valleys ahead.

After a while the way swung north and we began our descent into Fort William. Well, the descent went on for a number of miles, it was a nice overall walk through some pretty countryside. We even saw an old ruined farm house. Not sure how old it was or when it was last occupied. Eventually hit some forests and got to a board that was the half way point. It showed the whole way and where we were, way up at the top. It was cool to see how far we had come. Kept walking, and eventually hit the town.

Here is where things got slightly confusing. The way used to end right there at the start of town. There’s a sign and everything and we got pics there. Then, several years ago city leaders moved the “official” end down a mile or more into the center of this really cute old downtown business district with all sorts of shops and stuff. I can see why they did that. There they built a statue of a guy sitting on a bench with one of his boots off and they dubbed it the new official end. So we go pics there too. So either way, we walked the whole way!

We both are really glad we did this. In some ways it’s actually pretty reassuring that we CAN do something like this. 8 consecutive days of hiking for a total of 96 miles is not nothing. We’re pretty happy with ourselves. Time to start thinking of our next grand adventure. Grand Canyon rim to rim? Maybe. But first two full days of traveling home. Spending all day tomorrow (Thursday) training from Fort William to Glasgow, then switch trains and continue on to London. Spend the night again then catch a non-stop flight home to Phoenix. That will be all day Friday. I don’t think I’ll write about those travels, hopefully they’re really boring and give us a chance to just rest for a couple of days.

Thanks all for reading. Take care.

JIm

Day 9

Our penultimate hike. Left the Kingshouse Hotel a bit later than usual, about 9, since today was another shortish walk of about 9 miles. So no hurry. I have to say, yet another glorious day weather-wise. Sun-shiny, a bit breezy, partly cloudy, mid 40s, a beautiful day for walking. Started out pretty easy, but soon began the climb that led to the “devil’s staircase”. As we suspected, it really wasn’t all that bad. A nice steady climb, punctuated with pauses to look about us at the valleys below and the hills above. Absolutely stunning views. Once we reached the top, met up with that Dutch couple we’ve been seeing and Sebastian took our picture for us. Turned out real nice.

From there it was pretty much all down hill to Kinlochlevin. It was cool to see the trail miles ahead winding its way down the hillside. Eventually came into a nice forested area and then ran across the pipes used to feed water from a loch up above to a hydroelectric plant just outside of town. There were six parallel pipes running down the hillside, each at least three feet in diameter. They got to the plant and then fed back into the river from whence they came. Pretty impressive engineering.

That was right on the outskirts of town and when we got there it was a bit early so we stopped off at a pub for a drink and again ran into our Dutch friends. I feel bad right now, his name is Sebastian and I can’t for the life of me quite recall her name. It was very Dutch, I thought I had it, but now am not so sure. Darn it. I’ll have to ask her tomorrow. Anyway, we sat together and chatted for about an hour. It was really nice to share our various life experiences living in two different countries, but still ending up in the same place at the same time.

From there pretty normal evening. Check in, clean up, go have dinner, then relax and write a blog post. Tomorrow is our last day of hiking. 15 or so miles up to Fort William. Gonna be a long day especially after these last few short days. That’s ok, we can do it!

See you all tomorrow.

JIm

Day 8

I have to begin by saying, haggis is good. Last night at dinner I had some haggis balls (ok, croquettes) and they were really good. Spicy, soft, very tasty, highly recommend. I went with the appetizer sized portion rather than the whole meal just in case, but did enjoy them. Those of you out there reading this, try haggis next time you get the chance.

Today we walked from Bridge of Orchy to Kingshouse. This was our first day of down from the highlands and into the moors and bogs (what is the difference?) and of course today we had wind and rain. I mean, if you’re going to walk around the Scottish moors, you have to have wind and rain, don’t you? It was actually pretty nice. I already posted the pictures and they don’t really show much, but that was really all there was, even if it was pretty in its own way. The overall scene was quite majestic. Rolling hills, clouds around the summits of the Munros. (The really tall hills here are called Munros, the slightly less tall ones are called Corbetts. I can’t tell the difference so I’ve just been calling them hills. They also all have Scottish names to them most of which I can’t pronounce.) It was all really quite nice.

The walk itself was pretty uneventful. Lots of time to walk, talk, and take in the scenery. Arrived at Kingshouse pretty early and had another relaxing afternoon. Tomorrow should also be a pretty short day walking up to Kinlochleven, only about 9 miles but does include the famous “devil’s staircase” which takes us up to the highest point of our entire walk. Though I’ve heard it really isn’t all that bad. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. That’s it, take care and see you all tomorrow!

JIm