The planning proceeds. I downloaded four apps for passports and was appalled to see how much they're gonna cost. $70 each for the kids and $85 each for the adults. You'd think they were trying to keep people home!
We're planning tentatively to arrive "incountry" (an adjective used during the Vietnam War) on about June 6, and rent a car. We'll bop around the country for a few days, and arrive at WAPI on the 10th. I'm pretty certain that we'll be taking several day trips during that period, particularly since I know you won't want the kids around full time. If I can convince Peggy that driving on the other side isn't difficult she can take the kids off for a couple of day trips so I can help deplete the country's Guinness supply.
We're also going to stay on for as much as a week after WAPI is over. I particularly want to spend some more time in Donegal, as I have a friend whose family castle is there. I'd never heard of it, but if you google Doe Castle you will find a lot of sites. Several of them mention the initials GVH "let into" one wall; interestingly, they seem to stand for General Vaughn Hart. My friend's name is George Vaughn Hart and I can't remember whether he's the III or the IV. The title in the family devolved onto his brother Donny, who died a few years ago without heirs, and I think George now bears the title. Will have to ask him. He said if I dropped his name in the area we'd get a wonderful reception. I'm interested in finding out if the G on the castle wall actually stands for General. Never would have occurred to me to use a title as part of a monogram.
Nice thing about Ireland is that you can get anywhere you want in just a few hours when traveling by car. Took longer when I went by bike, but Sasha's still on training wheels.
I hope to take a lot more pictures than I took on the last trip, and I certainly am not going to leave any film in my luggage for the airline to lose on the trip home. In fact, I have a new digital camera that puts the images directly onto a CD. Cheap and you can carry a whole lot of pictures in a shirt pocket. At the highest resolution I get around 75 pictures on a disc. At medium resolution it jumps up to over 400.
I told Peggy I wanted to go back and get a recharge from the Blarney Stone, and she went off to a meeting muttering something about coal and a new castle. Wonder if she meant Newcastle Brown.
TEd
