are we on vacation again?

First off, this was the first time we managed to make it for the actual "peak" bloom.  That being said, the trees were absolutely beautiful, but OMG there were so many people! There was barely a spot anywhere to call your own.  We had to wait to move into prime locations to take any photos.  We took the metro to "metro center" station and walked from there.  It was mid eighty's, so it was very warm and the sun was out, so it was a beautiful day.  We walked around half the basin, but the throngs of people was just too overwhelming.  We decided to give up and went to lunch instead.  There were lines everywhere! We saw this place called Ollie's Trolleys.... The lines there were crazy too, but we stayed.  It's a self serve, order at the counter, pick it up, and bring it to your table.  It was good, Bubba had a burger and I had a bar b que chicken sandwich.  The sign said they were family owned and in the same spot for the past 30 years. ...

10 days seems to go by so fast when you're on vacation and way too slow when you're at work.  On our way down from the North, we stopped at a Neolithic mound in the country side.  It seems these are dotted through out the area.  It's not very often that you get to spend time inside a building that was constructed over 5000 years ago.  What were these people like? Why did they build these spaces? Did they worship the sun? The engineering is just spectacular considering the tools they would have had when these things were built (or maybe they were aliens?!?). Anyway, from there we found our hotel (Ibis) and ate and went to bed.  The hotel is ok... I've stayed with this chain around the world, and they have always been nice, this one -- not so much.  It's a little grungy, I can't say dirty, just not really clean.  And the food we had at the restaurant was incredibly slow and kind of tasted like something you would get at a stadium.  The manager tried...

Wednesday we started our drive towards the North.  Again it was really long.  The scenery is beautiful everywhere.  We saw lots of sheep and cows and even a few horses and donkeys.  Even though it is still nippy, the grass is incredibly green every where.  We finally made it to Balina.  Len has a friend who lives a town away, so there was a reason for this stop.  We met his friend who he has known for over 50 years, then they went to eat and the three of us roamed around the very tiny town.  We had drinks at a pub called Dillon's in hope of finding some live music, but to no avail. It's off season still and the music is only on the weekends.  Thursday we drove to where Len's friend, Fr. Steve, works.  It's a nice retreat house and very busy.  They have programs almost everyday.  We didn't stay long, and continued our long drive north.   We made it to Portrush finally around supper time.  We ate at a place called the B...

Today we spent the day at the Killarney National Park.  What a beautiful place! I really wish it were a little bit warmer, but I'm always cold, so nothing unusual that I thought it was nippy.  We started at Muckross House and were talked into taking a Jaunting Cart Tour.  It was a nice ride on a horse drawn carriage, the horse's name was Torey.  We were brought to the Torc Waterfall which was about a 10 minute walk from where the carriage let us off.  It was very pretty, and my friend Tracey would have loved all the moss everywhere.  I tried to text her a picture of it, but for some reason we haven't been able to send a single picture text yet.  The regular texts are working, but add a photo and out comes the red "not delivered" notice.  It's very frustrating!  That was €10 each plus €5 for a tip (for the horse, the driver said).  We were dropped back at the house, which you can only see on a tour, so for another €7.50 each we took the t...

We drove the Ring of Kerry yesterday.  It is a beautiful drive, but I think I liked the Dingle Peninsula better.  The weather stayed relatively nice, the sun stayed out, but man was it windy.  One stop we could hardly open the doors the wind was so strong.  I can't imagine what these roads are like in the summer when there are crowds of people and cars on the roads.  The road is very narrow and very windy, and not many pull offs to get out of the way of lorries or tractors.  It was quite frightening at times, and again I'm thankful I'm not the driver.  We went to the Sellig Experience, which was interesting and makes me want to come back to see the island.  Basically it is an island where a colony of monks built a monastery on the top of a very inhospitable rock island.  They carved out stairs in all sides of the island and built beehive huts at the top.  I think they said there were over 600 steps.. That's a lot of work!  We drove ...