are we on vacation again?

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 ...

We spent the day in the town of Dingle on the Dingle Peninsula. It is a very cute bay town.  Lots of shopping, lots of restaurants and beautiful views!  We had lunch at Paudie's Bar.  The food was great and the atmosphere was even better.  From the outside it didn't look like much, but when we went in it was really huge.  There are multiple rooms and all kinds of stone work.  It's very clean, and like everyplace we've been so far, the people are great.  Even though it was Sunday and Mother's Day, they had lunch specials and we were all quite happy with everything we ordered.  From there we drove around Slea Head Drive.  It is very scenic, lots of sheep and cows, even a few horses, and some crazy - scary narrow windy roads.  I'm so glad it's not me driving ( thanks Bubba)!  Oh, and the time changed overnight last night, so now we are 5 from home instead of 4.  We're not really on any kind of a schedule, but it will come in handy...

Let's start with.... I've been awake for about 30 hours now.  Ok, I have napped a little, but that's about it.  We flew through ATL yesterday to Dublin, then waited 3 hours for my other brother to fly in from JFK.  It was exhausting!  Once Len arrived, we rented a car and drove and drove and drove all the way to Adare (Bubba and I honeymooned there almost 23 years ago!). We had lunch inside the heritage center, and it was actually very good and seemed to be frequented by both tourists and locals.  There were a few shops inside the center, and we were about to roam around a bit and surprise surprise, it started to rain.... I was going to say spring in Ireland, but I think it's really any season in Ireland.  We finished our drive to Killarney.  It was a total of about 6 hours including lunch.... A very long day.  We are using this as base camp for a few days, then back on the road again.  We'll drive north and then circle around and back down t...

We started the day at our favorite Mexican restaurant in the area, Agave Azule.  We weren't in much of a hurry, so our day pretty much started with lunch... Sometimes it's nice not to be in a rush.  The restaurant is literally down the street from Universal, so we headed there as soon as we were finished.  When we started this adventure, we didn't know it was the start of "bike week" in Daytona, and March is notorious for spring break college students.  That being said, it was very crowded.  70 minute waits, 90 minute waits..... Yuck!  We went on Shrek, and that was it.  For Mardi Gras, Universal had a street set up as a tribute to New Orleans.  It had stands of Cajun foods ans even bennettes (bad spelling), yummy sugar coated donoughts.  At the end of the street they had a band stand set up.  The band that day was from Memphis and was called Big Mack Daddy.... Awesome!  Their first set was just 3 songs, but when they came back agai...

Off to Florida again.  I really wanted to be warm for a couple of days, but with my luck as it is, it's supposed to be in the 40's here tonight.  Hopefully tomorrow will be warmer, but we are going to Universal regardless.  It's Mardi Gras down here, so there will be a parade, music and of course beads... Hopefully it will be fun.  We stayed at a different hotel to save money, it's nice but too far away, about 40 minutes. We're in Lake Mary, a Candlewood Suites.  Again, nice but too far away.  Ok, I'm sleepy. I forgot... We had supper at Bubbalou's Bodacious Bar-Be-Que.  I had a pulled chicken sandwich with coleslaw and fries (the coleslaw is excellent) and Bubba had the left side of the menu :)

Today was a day at the beach.  We went to Coco Cay, which is one of the islands owned by Royal Caribbean.  It is a great beach day, but there isn't really anything else to do, so if you don't like the beach, it wouldn't be your cup of tea.  We hung out at Barefoot Beach, which is very quiet, not very crowded and extremely shallow. Bubba and I walked and walked and walked, and the deepest spot was up to my knees and some spots were only ankle deep.  We saw a couple of hermit crabs living in conch shells - they are not happy when you pick them up.  We saw a few small fish and even a sting ray.  Bubba saw a flock of birds hanging on a sand bar and decided we should go make them fly... Yay, what a good idea.... I got pooped on, in my hair and all down my pink cover up... Yay, thanks Bubba!  Tomorrow is off to Nassau, and we have nothing planned, so we'll see what the day brings :)