Winter Wonderland

Before we left for Ireland several people told me that they were here during a rare snowstorm. Clearly this is a story the locals tell the American tourists "Oh! It never snows here. This is a unique experience you are having on our snowless island!"

We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. At home we would have referred this as a "dusting". In Ireland, it's called crippling. The Dublin airport was closed. The streets were messy and the drivers inept. Bill had a bit of a white knuckle morning navigating the narrow streets on the wrong side of the road in a slippery slush. I, on the other hand, was in awe and fascination at how absolutely god damn gorgeous the landscape was. Seriously, it was brilliant! My pictures do not do it justice.




This one is my absolute favorites. We were driving on a not-quite-highway-ish road when all of a sudden we drove into a town (blink and you would miss it) where this group of kids was building a snowman on their tiny patch of grass on the side of the road. Their snowman was full of leaves and dirt. But when they saw me pass with the camera they all waved and hooted and jumped up and down for the picture. For that spit second we were all one with the joy of a first snowfall.

After several hours on the road we stopped in Adare for lunch and a rugby match on the telly. At each pub we pick up more bits and pieces of how to play. Now I know that you can kick the ball forward but you can only pass laterally and behind you. I love the inbound passes when the team picks up a player by the legs to catch the ball over the heads of the opponents.

Tonight we are in Dingle. I tried to photograph the scenery as we were driving into the peninsula because we were on the most twisty windy mountain roads while overlooking Dingle Bay - beautiful!! But the sun was already down and the pictures were too dark. Poor Bill had several more hours of driving than we anticipated but as you can probably tell, being a passenger was a great day.