Tuesday – Brief Report and Odds and Ends

Being brief today.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures.

We walked in the morning. Cloudy but dry. There’s one electric car charging station in Dingle (that I’ve seen). I’ve never seen it being used. Photo worthy? Hardly. Remember the day when you didn’t take photos because film and developing was so expensive?

We took a ride. We stopped in Ballyferriter (Baile an Fheirtéaraigh in Irish) and visited the small church there (St. Vincent’s) to light some candles.

We drove down a new minor road and visited Wine Strand. Strand means beach. Duh! I suppose you knew that. We had friends that we met through Bill & Mianne who used to rent a house at Wine Strand — Paul (RIP) and Joan. We had some good times with them over the years of our visits. What are those standing stones up on the hill? We don’t know. We couldn’t get up to them because of barbed wire fences. The camera lens telephoto lens got closer than us. If we were ever at this spot before, it was a long time ago.

We had a pint each in Curren’s Pub back in Dingle and chatted up some ladies from Tralee (formerly from NYC). A good time was had by all. Maybe it was the beer.

Dinner was at home. Those are not Mr. Kennedy’s sausages but rather the supermarket variety. Mr. Kennedy was closed Sunday through Wednesday. How dare he!

ODDS & ENDS

Weather: Our weather has been good. Not much rain, lots of cloud, some beautiful sunny days. The highest temperature we have experienced so far has been about 62º F. That’s about the best you can hope for in Ireland. In counties Kerry (where we are), Clare, and Cork (westernmost Ireland), mid-April to mid-May is known as the Scaraveen. Basically, “expect anything”.

The Irish Riviera (in Massachusetts): Our friend Mianne (who comments frequently on the blog) sent us an interesting article. You can view in here. She lives in Scituate (the heart of the Irish Riviera) for half the year (with the other half in Scottsdale). She and Billy visited us here the year we had a house in Ventry, the next town west from Dingle.

Our car Eion (Owen) has been great. As you might recall, it’s a Toyota C-HR Hybrid. It has an automatic transmission, something you pay dearly for in a rental car in Europe. We’ll have been in Dingle three weeks come Friday and, so far, I have bought gas once ($51). Gas is about $7/gallon. I brought my own GPS since it costs a ridiculous $12/day to get one from Avis. The GPS (SatNav to Europeans) has a female voice. Her name is Fiona. She doesn’t get much work as I know my way around here on the Dingle Peninsula, but she’ll be invaluable on the road trip to Ballina and Donegal later in the trip.

I guess that wasn’t that brief. See you tomorrow.

3 thoughts on “Tuesday – Brief Report and Odds and Ends

  1. I remember you, Joe, taking pictures with a Polaroid camera when they were state of the art. After taking a pic, we’d all have to sit around and wait for you to brush the pics with liquid (a developer, I guess) and then wait for it to dry. That was a long time ago!

    Love the odds and ends. We’re going through our own Scaraveen here in NH as well. For the past few weeks, we’ve had nothing but cold weather, clouds, rain (often very heavy), hail storms and thunder and lightning.

    That was a very interesting article that Mianne sent you. Fascinating history of the South Shore. I’d never heard of sea mossing before.

  2. It’s great after all these years you all still find interesting places to see. I love all the old churches and stained glass and landscape pics. Ireland is indeed a special place.

  3. Ireland is truly magical and beautiful. Thanks so much for “taking us” on your journey, Joe. I’ve really enjoyed the daily dose of Ireland! So much so, that we will be heading to a bar in Fountain Hills later this afternoon that serves Smithwicks. We will toast you both…

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