We’re embarking on a major family trip starting this coming week.
First, we’ll go to the Oregon coast to gather with friends from our college days. A group of us have periodically met at the family beach house of one member, a place that played a major role in our college life, including Michelle’s and my courting, way back in the last century. This gathering will be our first in 9 years. Last time we held a reunion, we celebrated Aly’s 16th birthday there.
But that’s just a pleasant prelude to the main event: the Zeiger family next heads to Ireland!
Aly in Ireland, at the “Quiet Man Bridge” 2014 (Photo: Sasha Barnes).
Long-time readers may recall that Aly spent time in Ireland in 2014 while she attended college (see “I Would Bring You Ireland”). In that post, I spoke of my hope that we would one day visit Ireland as a family, with Aly as our guide.
Occasionally, wishes do come true.
Aly and a classmate toured Ireland on their own before the class began. They planned a reunion trip, and invited us along. However, when it became clear that tickets could be had very inexpensively (we’re spending more to fly from Juneau to Seattle than it will cost us to fly from Seattle to Ireland!) other former classmates got involved. Our final tour crew consists of four former classmates, three of their mothers and one father (yours truly) and one of the classmate’s 13-month old daughter.
This group of nine will tour Ireland by car for three weeks. The girls have set the agenda, we’re just going with the flow, taking it one day at a time. We’re visiting Newgrange, at least (see No Webcast of Winter Solstice Sunrise at Newgrange this Year?) and The Giant’s Causeway, and of course, Glenn com Cille, where they attended classes on the last visit.
We’ll be gone about a month, sadly at one of Haines’s most beautiful seasons, but it’s a trip of a lifetime. I’ve never been off the North American continent before, and I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland. Michelle visited much of Europe as a child, but never made it to Ireland.
Aly at the Drombeg Stone Circle, Co. Cork, Ireland, 2014 (Photo: Sasha Barnes).
We’ll round out the trip with a short visit to family in Washington state, then get home before Halloween.
In the meantime, the homestead has been duly “winterized” against the coming cold weather. The cat’s farmed out, neighbors will keep an eye on the property. Sales on the Website Store page that come from the homestead will be suspended for the duration. And, since we’re doing this without computers and limited phone connectivity, no updates to this blog until we return!
We hate to leave home, but we should do all right, as long as we can make it back safely. We intend to do exactly that.
I almost got weepy when I read your plans. It all sounds so wonderful.(Don’t leave your wallet or keys in your back pocket when you’re in a crowded place, and be sure you always have a copy of your hotel address in a secure place.) Have a great trip!!!
Yeeesss, Mooother. We promise. Love you, excited to see you at the end of the trip!
I’m sure you’re here to see the sights and not to meet up with readers of your blog that you don’t know. Blogging creates these one-sided relationships where I feel I know you fairly well but realise I’m a virtual stranger to you (only known from a few comments).
Hope you enjoy your time on my island.
Ekij, you’re in Ireland? Somehow I thought you were in England. I only saw this after returning, now I feel like I might have missed an opportunity. Let me know where you are (through the Webpage’s email link, if you’d prefer more discretion than is provided here) and I can guess if we might have been able to cross paths or not. Our itinerary was too tight and limited, inevitably, but we covered a fair part of the country, we might have been able to meet!