Greetings from the West Coast of Clare

We had sunshine for most of Friday, and it was fine when we didn't because we saw two rainbows after brief showers. We started our day with eggs, toast, and various other items for breakfast at the Muskerry Arms, then we drove the five minutes to Blarney Castle, whose uppermost reaches require climbing precarious spiral staircases. I chickened out on kissing the Blarney Stone (I don't see how anyone under 5' tall can reach it without being put on a rope), but the castle ruins themselves, garderobes and all, plus the extensive gardens are spectacular...including megaliths, ancient trees, waterfalls, poison plants, and color-changing ivy on the curtain walls. We grabbed a picnic lunch in town and ate it on the way to Grange Stone Circle, with the biggest diameter of any circle in Ireland. Some stones have trees with roots growing around them and there were a couple of pagans performing a ritual in the center. 

From there we drove to King John's Castle in Limerick, which has extensive history exhibits on the ground floor, a courtyard with historical games from horseshoes to seesaws and displays of smithcraft, masonry, and musical instruments, and the remains of the castle (destroyed after extensive siege warfare from the archeological excavations underground to the towers with beautiful views of the River Shannon. After much climbing medieval staircases to see what's left of the rooms there, we headed to Lahinch, where we dropped off our things at the hotel and walked to the beach just in time for sunset. The tide was out, so we also got to see mussels, clams, and limpets, plus seagulls looking for them and several people walking friendly dogs. We picked up fish and chips for those who eat fish and a veggie burger for me at a local place and watched a special about the late great Maggie Smith we found on TV. 

Greetings from Blarney

Again I could only manage to upload one photo, but we have had a glorious day among rocks and ruins, starting with the Rock of Dunamase a.k.a. Dunamase Castle, a town dating to the 800s which has been crumbling since 1650 yet remains an imposing, impressive ruin. From there we went to Holycross, a restored Cistercian abbey from the 1100s with a relic of the True Cross. Then we went to the famous Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary with its 12th-century tower, 13th-century Gothic cathedral ruins, and sheep. We stopped at the Cashel Woollen Store to buy Aran sweaters -- I have wanted one for years and was never sure of my size, so I finally got to try them on. 

After grabbing lunch at a nearby travel plaza, we drove to St. Patrick's Well, which has the remains of a ancient church and stone cross as well as the spring-fed water. We spent a lot of time after that in the rain at Cahir Castle, built in the 1100s, besieged by Essex for Elizabeth I, restored in the 1840s, and largely intact now, even the prison cells -- you've probably seen it in a movie or TV show, it's appeared in everything from The Tudors to Excalibur (and has a sword in the stone). A large flock of geese, ducks, and swans tried to persuade us to feed them, though the crows and rooks were not impressed. Now we're in Blarney, where we just ate dinner at the Muskerry Arms.

Greetings from Kildare

On terrible hotel wifi so can't really post photos, but I am in Ireland so everything is great! After spending most of yesterday traveling east from Seattle, we flew overnight from Dulles to Dublin (taking off an hour and a half late because of a catering issue, but it was a much bigger plane than originally planned, so we could spread out across entire center rows and get some sleep). 

We met Cheryl at the airport and drove from Dublin to Kildare, where we spent the afternoon seeing Brigid sites -- Brigid's Well, the Kildare Heritage Centre with its VR Legends of Kildare (which knows Brigid was a goddess before she was a saint), St. Brigid's Cathedral, tower, and cemetery, the Carmelite Friary Church, and St. Brigid's Parish Church. It was drizzly and cool.

We just ate dinner at Soul Burger, one of the restaurants at the Kildare House Hotel, which has plenty of vegetarian and vegan options and we needed something light after eating at weird hours on planes for a day and a half. Tomorrow we're on to Blarney and various other castles, plus hoping for more views of farms and more sheep obstructions in the road like we had today!

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At Dulles after a flight from SeaTac en route to Dublin with Paul (meeting Cheryl). More soon!

Greetings from Juanita Bay

Had a very busy day getting ready to travel (and I'm not sure I'll be able to post tomorrow night -- depends on how timely our arrival is for our stopover). The only major excitement today was our smoke detector going off persistently in the morning, which I hate as much as the cats do; the maintenance guy took it apart and found cobwebs in it, which is not my fault since it's screwed into the vaulted ceiling much higher than I can reach even on a chair. 

We walked to the park early in the afternoon so we could Skype with my father-in-law before it got too late in Pennsylvania; he has moved from the two rooms he and my mother-in-law shared into one room, but he seems pretty happy with the layout, since he can fit both his computer and his TV on the same wall opposite his chairs. From yesterday, here are some photos from Juanita Beach Park's boardwalks, including migrating flocks of birds and autumn color.

Greetings from Kirkland

The first day of fall was lovely here, partly cloudy and not too warm. We did chores in the morning while watching some football and the start of the Orioles game, then we ate lunch and went to the PNW Witches' Market in Juanita Beach Park. The Mabon event was bigger than the Lammas festival, probably partly because the weather was much better, though this one also had a lot more card readers and other mystics. After we wandered through the tents and performances, we walked the lake boardwalk, then drove around Juanita Bay to see the turtles, frogs, and herons.

 

We stopped at Safeway and did some more travel-related chores in the late afternoon while watching the end of the Ravens-Cowboys game. Then we ate dinner and watched the rest of the episodes of Moonflower Murders before the series finale of Snowpiercer, which was kind of a letdown, like the whole season -- it's not that the deaths were unexpected, but so many of them were rushed and anticlimactic, and we didn't get any of the big confrontations we deserved after four seasons but had a mediocre new villain thrown at us instead; still, I'm still glad the final season aired.

Greetings from Everett

We got a late start on Saturday -- I'm still feeling jetlagged, and we still have piles of chores to get done -- but it was a gorgeous day, and in the afternoon we went to Everett, which is always a pretty drive through farms and wine country. We visited Funko HQ, always a very fun place (and the Star Wars and Marvel sections are reopened), to get Daniel a Funko of himself with his dogs for his birthday. 

Then we stopped at Safeway to pick up flowers and a chocolate mousse cake and went to Cahaya's parents' house where Cahaya cooked dinner for all of us with his help (three dishes involving butternut squash, all of which were excellent). It's also always fun hanging out with the five dogs! Now we're watching the first episode of Moonflower Murders, the sequel to the enjoyable Magpie Murders.

Greetings with Cats

I slept somewhat late on Friday but I am still feeling very jetlagged tonight, despite not having too strenuous a day -- I mean, I did three big loads of laundry, we went to the bank, we walked to the beach, but none of that explains why I'm so sleepy. I am, at least, unpacked and the church brochures and obituaries have been scanned. 

 Kristen and I watched the third epsode of this season of Rings of Power together and Cheryl and I watched the sixth episode, plus the premiere of Agatha All Along. Paul and I also caught up on Snowpiercer and Only Murders in the Building. Visiting with family and in-laws yesterday:

Greetings from Home

We're home from the Home of the Famous Hot Weiner (and Utz Potato Chips and Snyder's of Hanover), having had breakfast with Paul's brothers and family, visited his father for an hour, stopped for lunch with Daniel and my parents on the way to Dulles, a couple of hours hanging out at the airport with Daniel, and a fairly uneventful flight with a pretty sunset and the Virginia Cavaliers men's soccer team at the gate next to ours. I'm exhausted and Paul is sneezing, which makes me nervous. More tomorrow. 

Greetings from Hanover

We said goodbye to Paul's mother on Wednesday. The funeral service was officiated by the senior pastor at St. Matthew's and the visitation pastor, a longtime friend of my father-in-law, and included a reading that I suggested (Proverbs 31, which is quite common at Jewish women's funerals but apparently less so at Lutheran ones), plus remembrances by Paul and his brother Jon. There was a short service at the cemetery, then a reception and luncheon back at the church. 

We went back to our hotel rooms for a while to change our clothes and let Paul's father take a nap, then we met up again at his senior living community and discovered that unfortunately we couldn't make a Roku work with the wifi in the facility. Eventually we went out to dinner at Blue Koi, which did a great job accommodating a party of 10. We took a short walk near the hotel and now we're hanging out with our kids, with whom we just saw the end of the Mets-Nationals game.

Greetings from the Mason-Dixon Line

We got to see lots of family on Tuesday, which under other circumstances would have been lovely. Daniel couldn't get a flight into BWI, so flew into Dulles nearly two hours from where we're staying; my parents retrieved him from the DC Metro and drove him to Frederick, where we met them at the Silver Diner after driving through familiar northwest Maryland. My parents took us out for brunch before we headed back to Hanover, where Paul's brothers and nephews had taken Clair to lunch. 

Apart from a stop in Walmart for some cables to try to set up a Roku for him, we spent the afternoon with Clair, David and Jon, Jon's wife Brooke and twin sons, plus Daniel, mostly sitting in the courtyard of Clair's senior living community chatting and catching up on things. Adam drove in from Ohio, arriving in the late afternoon, after which we went to Lu Hibachi Buffet, where we've eaten many times with most of these family members in Hanover. We drove by farms, forests, and Mount St. Mary's: