Highland Games and Salmon

Gordon and I went to the Scottish Highland Games in Palmer Alaska. They had both a local competition and the international heavy weight competition. To put some things in perspective, they guys throw 33 pound hammers like they're nothing. We watched the local men throw first getting the hammer about 60 feet (Gordon's PR is around 80). Then we watched the local girls and they thew about 10-50 feet. Then in the afternoon on Saturday the international players threw. They threw 120 to 140 feet like it was nothing. It was impressive.

Highland games has a variety of competitions. They take place in a field and usually more than one competition is happening at a time. So you can watch a dude throw while a girl lobs and beginner makes a fool out of themselves. All at the same time. It makes things move faster for watchers and it quite funny. SO most competitions are to see how far or how accurate or how high you can throw a hammer, a weight, or a gigantic 20 foot 150 pound tree trunk called a caber. Did I mention this was all done in kilts?

Of course Gordon wears his kilt and beard in a manly fashion.

My personal favorite part is the playing of the pipes.

This dude is casually tossing one of those 20 ft 150 pound cabers. The goal is to accurately get it to flip in front of you.

Having a spot of tea.

We both got shirts. Sitka got stressed on the ride home to I attempted a quick thunder jacket using my shirt. It went well, even though he looked like he was stuck in the 90s with the knotted t-shirt.

I think Gordon enjoyed himself.

The view was loverly too with mountains as the back drop. Seemed fitting for the games.

I leaned a bit more about my clan. Turns out we had land in the far north too. 

Gordon refused to get on the bleachers in a kilt. Thought it would be immodest for some reason :) 

That spot of purple in the middle is the OLIPHANT clan.

The next week after our drive to Palmer for the games, Gordon went dip netting for red salmon. He didn't take any pics of fish camp or the boat or anything because apparently catching salmon takes a lot of work and taking pictures weren't a priority.

Gordon filleted the salmon in fish camp, so when he came back we vacuum sealed them and threw them in the freezer. Here are pics from that (once I'm involved in the process, note how suddenly there is time for pictures) 

Some people were still cleaning and filleting. 

Gordon helped catch 1,000 fish he says. We get 35 of those as our families allotment. The allotment is based on family size (25 per head of house and 10 for each dependent). Multiple families fished on the boat with Gordon, which is why he helped catch the 1,000 fish.