City Beautiful and Eden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam-ondi-Ahman

We survived massive delays, tornadoes, and a bleeried-eyed 3 am drive through the backroads of Missouri without streetlights (more roadkill on that trip than I've seen in the past decade put together) to make it to Nicole's Dad's wedding, but make it we did (did I mention the torrential downpours?) They got married in Gallatin, Missouri (notable for trying to prevent the Mormons from democracy). There was one motel in the town, but no cell phone reception, except for my Brother-in-law's iPhone, a fact he attributed to his being the oldest and, therefore, the "Alpha Male." The church building had the largest LDS chapel we've ever seen, a stark contrast to the tinniness of the town. (For context, the reception was held in a biker bar, becuase it was the nicest-only- resturant in town.*)

Convienent to Gallatin is Adam-ondi-Ahman so we took a look. Photography credits go to my niece, Sienna. Not too shabby for a four-year-old.

From there we drove through Missouri, snipped the tip of Iowa, and took a left in Illinios to bring us to Nauvoo. Our clothes miraculously transformed to pioneer era garb, of course:
I took a picture of a monument near what President Hinckley renamed "The Trail of Hope." It used to be "The Trail of Tears"** This reads "The names of those who died before their journey's end." My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's name is listed.

I attended the Nauvoo Temple (re)dedication while I was serving my mission in Ireland. It was nice to see it in person, especially as my phone was able to capture a visual metaphor of the light from the heavens shining upon it.

Overall it was a meaningful trip. I had just finished "Rough Stone Rolling" so that added some poingant historical context. I was able to use the Land and Records Office to find the homesteads of 5 families of my ancestors. And spending time with family was really fun too. Especially cause I'm the cool Uncle who teaches the kids to swim AND go underwater (we got up to about 2.4 seconds with the older kids...)

* Context: It had motorcylce handle bars as the handles for the doors, the women's room was labeled "Babes," and they had photos of the same in leather on motorcycles above the bar.

** Well he did work in Advertising...

Rock of Cashel

The last major site we visited was the Rock of Cashel. It's one of the biggest and oldest castles in Ireland. It's also a church (or was) complete with a cemetery around back that the locals still use.Here's the front of one of the chapels:
I don't know what was in this tomb-like thing, but it's certainly not there anymore!
Not too many of the ceilings were intact, but we found a side passage that connected to this chamber:
They were doing some structural reinforcement the day we visited, but overall, the castle was still an impressive site. In this shot you can see the cathedral, castle, and cemetery elements.

Ross Castle

Tired though we were, we managed to work one more site into our Ring of Kerry/Killarney visit. These are from "Ross Castle" which is picturesque situated by a lake surrounded my mountains.

Another cannon shot. (You can see any of these bigger if you click on them).

Killarney, Ring of Kerry, Torc Waterfall

We took Clare's Glen off our itinerary, but I was pleased to find that the path to the Torc Waterfall was similarly beautiful and lush. Even the "dead" trees were green and growing.
The waterfall itself is even more impressive in person.

Stuff like this ideallic footpath along the river was everywhere in Ireland, but here's a representative sample:

THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY (Cliffs of Moher)

Hang onto your hats, this post'll have a lot of pictures (we took 360 at the cliffs, so you're getting the short version)

Most of these shots can speak for themselves:
We walked past the security fences and the views we got were so worth it. However there were some risks e.g.:



You'd think someone would've helped me up instead of just snapping pictures... c'est la vie.



This next one is still the path along the edge of the Cliffs, despite looking like a Star Trek planet (or Southern Utah, same diff).


Of course, if you're in a rare geological phenomenon with loads of shale what do you do? Build an alter! (someone else actually built this one, but still...)

Here's an example of a spectacular site you can't see unless you go along the winding path:
At the end of our 5+ km hike we were rewards we this abandoned tower
And we had it all to ourselves until another couple came to take our picture!
Below the projecting promontory that housed the tower, we found a path down between two rocks that lead to some pretty great views at the edge of the islands stretching into the Atlantic. Nicole calls this one the "Lightning Rock"
We rested and ate and played a bit and then prepared for the trip back!
Fortunately, Nicole found a four-legged friend to hitch a ride back. Unfortunately, we couldn't find our apple and so he wouldn't take us :(

In the end we were tired, thirsty, and very, very sunburnt. It was more than worth it.

Intermission: FOOD

Before we get back to showing you lovely pictures of our stay in Ireland, a word about food.

As I told Nicole before we got here, no one comes to Ireland for the cuisine. Normally, when we're on vacation (or "on holiday" as they call it here) we like trying new and exciting dishes. Thus, when offered a "Full Irish Breakfast," despite my protestations, Nicole said yes. It comes with an egg and hashbrowns (which aren't too bad), rashers (a cross between bacon and ham), sausage (real ones, not what American's think of as breakfast sausages), baked beans, half a mini-tomato, and black pudding and white pudding (I won't tell you what that is, but it's completely solid). It's not lovely. And it's really greasy.
It also includes tea*

After that, it wasn't hard to convince Nicole that the real delicacies here were 1 European Chocolate and 2 the amazing flavors of crisps (American: potato chips), quite enjoyable were "roasted chicken" and "tomato basil and aromatic flavours." That last one was seriously, like a symphony in your mouth.
Also, my person favorite and the item that I most looked forward to having again after 8 years without, curry chips! (American: steak fries)

Trust me, they're better than they look. LOTS better. I think we've ordered them like 11 times now.

None of this is terribly healthy, good thing we're doing lots of walking!

*So, speaking of tea, we've had a range of hotel and bed and breakfast places. Some were really cheap and had most of the typical amenities stripped away (like no free local calls, no shampoo in the rooms, etc). However, every single room had a tea/coffee maker, mugs, tea bags and milk/sugar, etc. Priorities, I suppose. Good thing we had that Tea Party in Boston to kick the habit.

To Galway!

Here's a shot from the "highway" (two lanes, a wincy shoulder and 100 km/hr speed limit) between Derry and Galway. We neglected to take the "scenic route" this time, who knows what we missed?Galway's on the sea and had lost of tourists.
Also, apparently Darcy from Pride and Prejudice has a roundabout named after him here:
It takes a big man to live in a pink house. And a bigger man to laugh at that man...
I have no idea what this hotel was about:
All in all, Galway was pretty uneventful. Lots of university students. We also had our best and worst food here, but that deserves it's own post.

Dunluce Castle

Someone (we think it was a travel brochure) informed us that this was the most romantic castle in all of Ireland. Still, it was a little out of our way AND we had already spent an exhaustingly long day seeing a lot of beautiful things and driving and stuff... But besides it be allegedly the most romantic, we also heard that half of it fell into the ocean, so we decided to drive out and seeWe arrived a little after it closed. Our camera battery was dead, so these pictures are from the internet.
We made up stories about why it was the most romantic. Most of the stories included an element about the castle falling into the see and some tragic lost love.
If you'd prefer wikipedia to that kind of fancy, you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunluce_Castle. This next picture shows part of the grounds we were able to explore because it wasn't "inside" (which was locked for the night). We got to see most of it.
Before we went up the stairs to the underside of the arched bridge in this picture above, Nicole found an opening in the rock on the right that lead to a cave. There was a HUGE cavern underneath the far end of the castle! It was difficult to get to, but it was well worth it. We decided that this was why this was the most romantic castle:
This picture from online is a great representation of it. They had it labeled as "Mermaid's Cave."