Weekend Update thru February 4

First, short message about watching the Bears, not Da Bears. We returned from solo weekend in time to attend the Irish Band night at the local pub before going to Carrie's associates house 4 doors down for the Super Bowl party. They are from Corvallis, too, and had invited other Oregon people in addition to some of the Irish associates. None of the latter attended probably because of the hour (game didn't start until 11pm), but also fog rolled into the area during the day and travel was edgy at best.

Was tough to sit through the game especially after such a promising beginning. One of the unfortunate issues was that we had to watch a British broadcast who used Don Johnson, of Miami Vice fame, as a color commentator and two ex-NFL guys. To say the least they were bad, which didn't make suffering through the game any easier. Wonder what Lovey really thinks of Rex now.

In the end, they did have an interesting run.

As for our weekend, we were able to take the train into Dublin and a tram to Avis in South Dublin, while only having to walk 4 blocks (Carrie took us to train on her way to work).

Rental insurance is a big issue here as credit card issuers don't cover CDW as everywhere else and if you have driven in Ireland or even just ridden here, you know why. I was able to get a somewhat reasonable rate on base level stick shift with a special all inclusive rate.

Having ridden with Carrie for almost a month, I felt I was ready for the left side driving issue. Right out of the box, I pulled a right, left look exiting Avis and almost got plastered by a SUV. We headed directly for the water, which meant I made no turns for a long way. After couple of scrapes with the curb in some early towns, the rest of the weekend driving was mostly uneventful including some one lane roads. Had a few wrong turns, but otherwise it went well.

We headed to Dun Laoghaire, which is a major ferry port on the south edge of Dublin. Passed through some pretty major upscale residential areas and few of the embassies in the process. Some really beautiful "mansions". Drove the coast road, not a highway, down to Bray, where we headed inland to Enniskerry and the Powerscourt Gardens. They are part of a large estate that burned in the mid 70's, leaving mostly just the stone structure standing. It is being restored with patience, but the gardens have been maintained. Of course they are not in our climate zone, so none of the seeds would work in our area. They had incorporated some specialty shops within some of the reclaimed space and seemed to be getting a lot of activity on a beautiful sunny Friday.

Sorry I can't remember all the details, but suffice to say it was a beautiful sight. We moved on back roads in the Wicklow mountain range. I mentioned previously about planning to visit Wickford, Wexford and Waterford, but it was Wicklow and I ended up driving a Nissan, though had a choice of a Ford Fiesta. The next stop on a military road through the mountains was Glencree, which had a surprise enclave not in the tour books. A Peace and Reconciliation enclave exists in this village in an old stone structure that they have been slowly restoring. The P&R part refers to bringing together youth from both sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland to attempt peace and reconciliation. They live very modestly in the area. Was quite an interesting find to include two of the Peace Poles that are manufactured in Maple City outside of Traverse City. As many know, we spend a lot of our time in the car exploring, sometimes blindly, and this time we had an interesting find.

Our "tour guide", Rick Steve's Ireland, had proved to been a good use, with few surprises or let downs. We had a bit of a fright, when we thought it had fallen out of the car at one of our stops. Found it under a pile on the back floor, when we were able to stop and get out to look.

We continued on the military road through Sallys Gap, a barren, peat boggy area that is Ireland's mountain region. After short run, decided to head back to the coast and on to Wexford, where we spent the night. This is when we were without Rick for awhile and I covered every street in this little town trying to find something decent to stay in. Finally found a B&B of some size right at the entrance to the town where I turned left instead of right where it was.

One thing we have found travelling on weekends in high traffic towns, is that for good eating, you need a "booking". Only took two stops this time before we got to eat, but ended up a bit too upscale. Again, everything is too expensive. Ended up with a Linguine dinner, cheapest on the menu, a beer and wine for $65 and the room was another $100. Sure glad the market is up.

Though we thought we had planned out our trip, we are constantly changing plans. We asked the young woman at the B&B where she would go and she hyped Kilkenny. So we decided not to go further South. Moved on towards Kilkenny, stopping at New Ross, where the Kennedy Trust had financed the building of a "famine" ship and had it moored on the river. Was quite interesting to see how 2-400 starved Irish lived for their voyage to the US and how the boat is constructed. The original ship that this was modeled from had a Captain who had a medical background and he had unmatched success at getting his charges to their destination alive.

The woman running this exhibit, recommended strongly that we go back South to Waterford as though the crystal factory was not open, its store was. So off we went in the opposite direction of Kilkenny.

The drive anywhere here is of course a new adventure and surprisingly continually changing surround. The Waterford store was interesting, but they don't keep seconds. All imperfections are destroyed. They did highlight items that are not available in the US and they sell everything they make in the store in addition to some other lines of crystal. One interesting exhibit for my golfing friends is the Ryder Cup exhibit. Not only replicas of trophies, but lots of paraphernalia, like jackets, golf bags and pictures. Nan did purchase a small vase, but not what she might have wanted if money was no object.

Since we were now somewhat South, County Cork was only 2 hours further South, so off we went. Our destination was Kinsale south of Cork. There is a fort there that the British occupied until the 30's. It originally was built at the mouth of the harbor to protect the harbor. Eventually they used it for housing of troops stationed in the area.

Kinsale was a "Saugatuck" type community. On February 3, they were sailing in the harbor and bay area. Temp with sun was probably in the upper 30's. This we believe was the area where the fishing trawler had gone down in the past month. We walked the streets and shops.

Before we had left Wexford that morning, we had made a reservation at a guest house in Kilkenny, which was another 2 hours North. We still wanted to visit Cobh on the East side of Cork harbor and a bit of a drive from Kinsale. We hoped to find a quaint place for dinner as it is the port where many of the ships left with immigrants to other countries. When we arrived, only many pubs (booze only), couple of really upscale restaurants and one Hong Kong restaurant. So, China buddies, we chose Hong Kong. Though it wasn't what we had been wanting, the service was fast and the food excellent. One aside for those wine connoisseurs, Chile wine is their low priced constant on the menus.

On to Kilkenny for the night, where we came in on a different road from our directions and proceeded to drive right by the guest house twice. Part of the confusion was a building of a similar name next door to the guest house that kept throwing me off. These were the best accommodations outside of Maynooth, that we have had on our ventures. Coincidentally they supplied a continental breakfast in the room. I was quite thirsty after the long drives, so I ventured out to find couple of beers and something for Nan. Turned out the reason the young woman thought so much of Kilkenny was the night life. The young people were everywhere on the street dressed unbelievably again because of the cold. We had frost in Wexford and the next already that night. Girls were in short skirts and bare shoulders. Guess maybe they had the alcohol to keep them warm.

Needless to say, the walk through the downtown streets was quite interesting, especially since the off license store had closed between the time I had drove by and walked to it. Did find something in the Irish chain store called Dunnes, which had a separate department for booze and long lines of young people stocking up for a long night. It was already 9:30.

The next day we toured the Kilkenny Castle, which again had been left by the owners to fall to ruin. Again the Irish government was attempting to restore and maintain. Was quite a structure on the banks of a river. We walked the streets for a bit visiting a couple of shops that were opened, most weren't. One store of interest was a book store off the main drag where I found several copies of Michael Moore's new book on Bush.

As an aside, many Irish have made positive remarks to us about Americans and negative remarks to us about our President. Surprise!

Back in the car for more back road exploring. On to Bennettsbridge and Thomastown. At Bennettsbridge, the attraction was the Nicolas Mosse pottery operation. They did have seconds, but discounted them all of 10% and many were obvioulsy seconds. Actually ended up buying a linen table cloth for the patio. In addition to very interesting scenery and landscape, the small towns are each different and interesting in and of themselves. Perhaps one of the highlights here was the scene of a huge flat bed truck carrying a large Cat bull dozer laying into the side of a house on a sharp curve of a narrow road in Thomastown. Not sure how they were going to extricate it, but they were working hard at it. The streets in this town were so narrow, they had turned them into one way.

On to Castlecomer, North of Kilkenny (you guys need a map?), by way of back roads again. We continually run in to long stretches of stone walls in the middle of what appears to be nowhere and crumbling stone structures that obviously date back many hundreds of years. The objective for Castlecomer was a craft house, which of course turned out to be closed, even though the sign on the door said "OPEN". The drive was fun, though I miss my driving gloves.

We mapped out our return to Maynooth and hoped to find a pub along the way that was serving all day. Unfortunately, every town seemed to only have a pub without food. Eventually we ended up South of Newbridge. When we entered the pub, where it was obvious that food was being served along with the broadcasting of soccer games, the management ushered us through a door into a restaurant adjacent for families. Though we were quite disappointed in the loss of atmosphere, the food was good. Sorry if I mention food a lot, but its me.

As for pictures of this adventure, I am going to have to work on that and try to create my own sight that I can link similar to Carrie's. Since it is now a bit late here, I'll save this for tomorrow night.

Hope all our friends and family in Michigan are surviving the cold. Take a spill in the snow for us.

Good Night

Joe