Last Day: Queen Maeve and Dublin

Our last day was completely astonishing, of course.

We got up early for a last breakfast in Cashel House and hit the road for a long and lovely sunny day rather like a road movie. We drove across Galway and up to Westport, Castlebar, then across County Mayo to Sligo, where by smelling it out (and Megan's strong Irish Instincts calling her) we found at last the path up to Maeve's Tumulus. We had a long, joyful and breathless hike up to the hilltop, where after an hour's walk we finally achieved the glory of standing upon the sacred cairn and looking out over Sligo's two bays, Strandhill, and the glorious blue Atlantic. We had our tears and our prayers. I sand "The Parting Glass" and "May the Road Rise Up to Meet You" and "Sing Alleluia", and we put our stones into the cairn. I brought a stone all the way from the beach at Indian Point for our ceremony. It was beautiful. Then we stood and just enjoyed the light sea wind, and watched a rain cloud blow up, and looked over Ireland and said goodbye for now. Sniff. But with a big grateful grin.

Then we drove across Roscommon, Longford, and Meath to Dublin Town, and by Megan's dead reckoning found the Best Western miraculously, along the Liffey River of many buses and off the rather intimidating O'Connell Street. We got a bit settled (I got stuck in the service elevator . . . a wee bit tired) then Dan Carollo (one of the composers for "Dark Horse", the fabulous Celtic guitar player!) and his lovely wife Susan arrived, and they showed us a bit of the town (the Post Office of Easter Uprising fame) as we went out for dinner (Baileys Ice Cream!) and traditional music at a bar called Goherty's. It was so much fun I could hardly stop grinning!~ Megan was sad that they sullied one of her favorite songs, that her mother used to sing to her, "Molly Malone", with jokes, but other than that it was magical :) What fun to see friends and colleagues from Seattle in Dublin!

And now I am going to try to sleep as my wake up call is 6:30 am and I have to fly to Amsterdam for some unknown reason tomorrow before flying to Seattle . . . grunk.

I really hate to go. It has been a perfect vacation. I will miss me Megan Merry McCormick a lot. We turned out once again to be fine travelling companions once we got all the sisterly stuff sorted, and she was very kind to let me do my favorite Long Drive in the Sun thing, bless her, with very few white knuckles. It has been since college since we have travelled together for a long period of time, and it was a treat. "Sheep!" - Megan

"Here comes the Dry Rain!" "You know why the Pope said no women praysts, you know? Cause they would talk too much in confessional." "I think I should be a Norman, then I could have two wives." - Padraigh Connelly the Inimitable