Toby Kieth Releases a New Song for America's Birthday!

My wife sent me a pointer to this song today:

We have survived for 245 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed!

Happy Birthday America!!

Rototilling the Garden

Well, the ground finally dried out and our favorate rental place actually had a rear-tine rototiller for us to rent.

We rented this rototiller. Here my son is turning over the garden.

Next, we can rake it out and plant. First, some radishes, then beans and peas. We need to transplant the seeds we started in the house several months ago. That is a project for another day.

Tomarrow, we will rototill part of the south pasture where vehicles have packed the ground down. Then, we will plant some bermuda grass. I am wondering whether 25 pounds of seed is enough.

Observations on Ireland

One thing I have noticed in the short time we have been here in Ireland. I have seen more people smoking in just two days than I saw since the beginning of the year in Texas! I know, that sounds kind of shocking...

Thinking back, I remember when I was young, the American Legion Hall was always filled with a haze of cigarette smoke. Especially, the bar downstairs. Now, I live in Marlboro Country and seeing someone smoking is no longer common.

Well, I guess that is to be expected. At least four of the men who portrayed the Marlboro Man have died to smoking-related diseases. The last of the Marlboro Men, Darrell Winfield, died in 2015.

Green Isle Hotel and Environs

We decided that the "hotel" we stayed in was a non-starter for us, so we started by checking out. Then we went to find some breakfast. We turned to Google Maps again to find a new hotel to stay at. Google Maps came through in spades!! We found a great hotel with low rates close to Dublin! We booked it.

We grabbed a bus down to the Liffy River. The Liffy is a navigable river that runs through the center of Dublin. Once we got there, we got on the number 69 bus to the village of Clondalkin and the Green Isle Hotel and Conference Center. The 69 bus dropped us off at the bus stop right in front of the hotel!

We walked in and were greeted by their old "security guard."

We checked into an American-style hotel room with two queen-size beds. We also get a free "full Irish breakfast" every morning! They also have all of the usual amenities you would expect aat an American hotel. The best part? The rate is cheaper than where we stayed last night!!

If you follow this blog, you know we love to walk. After we got organized, we proceeded to walk to Clondalkin. This village is a suburb of Dublin, with the typical housing developments. Irish subdivisions are quite different from American subdivisions. Instead of single-family homes on small lots, the Irish build rows townhouses with "postage stamp" sized lots. This one is typical:

There is an older part of the village. Here is a view up one of the older streets:

For dinner, we stopped at the Tree Top Restaurant. This is a restaurant located directly above the Laurels Pub. The Laurels is a huge pub, with bars and seating on at least three levels! From the top level, you climb a circular staircase up to the Tree Top.Here is my family walking past one of the levels of the Laurels Pub.

The food was great! We ordered Sprite to drink. Only diet Sprite is available. Ireland has a tax on sugar; thus most soda is sugar-free!

After dinner, we walked around town a little, before walking back to the hotel.

Frankfort and on to Dublin

United Airlines flew us to Frankfort. As we should have expected, my wife's wheel chair was late. 😠 Once her broken wheel chair arrived, we were escorted to another building where we had to wait for half an hour and then go through TSA-style luggage inspection, yet again. We arrived just in time for an overpriced airport lunch while we waited for our connecting flight.

Of course, our Lufthansa flight to Dublin was exactly on time, both leaving Frankfort and arriving at Dublin.

Upon arriving in Dublin, we were escorted to the bus depot. United's baggage customer service office was in another terminal and we were not given a chance to head over there.

At the bus depot, we purchased a family bus pass and deposited some money on it. Our MasterCard works well so far. We took the 747 bus to downtown Dublin. The family pass is good on the buses and the tram.

Before we left home, we had placed a reservation at the Gate Hotel through Expedia. When we tried to check in at the hotel, we found out that for some unknown reason, Expedia had canceled our reservation two days after we placed it. 😠 Now, here we are in a strange city with no room for the night. It will be a long time before we use Expedia again!! 👎

Google Maps came through for us. Using that application, we quickly found another hotel, called them and reserved a room. It was an "air B&B" type arrangement. It was actually a small apartment about a block away from the rental office. Unfortunately, although the building had an elevator, it was out of service and we had to use the stairs.

After we got settled in, it was getting late so we turned to Google Maps again for a place to eat. Google Maps came through for us again, pointing us at a pub a few blocks away — Murray's Bar and Grill.

We could here the music as we walked up to it. There were some tables outside, but this was the smoking zone. Smoking was not permitted inside. When we walked into Murray's, we saw the bar – with an amazing number of beers on tap.

To the right were the dining tables on two levels. The hostess seated us at a table on the upper level. We ordered the Irish Stew and the Guinness Stew, along with a glass of Guinness for each of us. They serve beer in one Imperial pint glasses!! An Imperial pint is larger than an American pint. Beer is cheap here – only about $5 for a pint. The food, by the way, was excellent!

We were surrounded by local, regular customers. The spotted us as tourists right off the bat, but welcomed us heartily any way! They tried to teach us some of the traditional songs, but Gaelic, the language of Ireland was pick up quickly.

On the far side of the tables was the stage and dance floor. When we arrived, an Irish band was finishing up their set. They were replaced by a group of traditional Irish dancers. At first,it was two guys.

After the two guys danced for a while, a woman joined them. Boy, could she high-kick! 😲 Of course, I could never quite catch it with my camera.

to say the least, we had a great time! 😊

Off on Another Adventure!!

This time we are flying. :( We took a United Airlines flight out of Dallas-Fort Worth. We left 30 minutes late. That should have been a warning — major foul-ups ahead!! Our flight plan was a mess: DFW to Chicago to Newark to Dublin.

Well, the did get us to Chicago. My wife's wheel chair was broken — parts the adjuster for the right leg rest were missing. Now the leg rest would not lock in any position. Good thing it is my wife's left knee that does not work right.

We boarded our flight for Newark and taxied out to the runway when the next glitch hit — we were sent back to the gate and advised to seek other flight arrangements. Major hint that our flight to Newark was just cancelled out from under us.

We went to United's Customer Service, along with almost everyone else on the flight. Of course, there were only three agents on duty and, shortly after we all lined up, one agent went off-shift! Eventually, another agent arrived... Since our flight was essentially cancelled (They still had not admitted it), we were rerouted to Frankfort and then to Dublin.

When they gave us our boarding pass, the United representative informed us that the flight was already boarding. We had to run from customer (dis)service to the gate – luckily it was close. We got on our flight and sailed into the night.

Colorado - Land of Outragous Hotel Prices

We are on vacation, coming home from NASFIC - a science fiction convention held during years when WorldCon is held overseas. As we drove south on Interstate 15,we began to look for somewhere to stop for the night. We look for motels in the price range of $50 to $75. In Colorado, we could not find anything in that range - every motel was over $100! Fast food was outrageous, too. At KFC, the "$5 Fill-Up" was $7.99!! At TacoBell, the $5 crave box was $10!! Dotto with other fast food outlets. Are the hotel owners and fast food franchisees just greedy and playing "rip off the tourist"?

Oh, Joy! ---Puppies!

This morning, my wife's service dog blessed us with eight (Count 'em - Eight!) brand new fuzzy little puppies! They are a cross of Austrian Shepard, Great Pyrenees and Akabash. The mother is 84 pounds and the father weighs in at 120. These will not grow up to be small dogs!

These dogs were bred to protect herds of goats and sheep from predators. They are smart, curious, adventuresome and extremely strong. They prefer to be outdoors, except in extreme heat.