Staying Cool

The temperatures have gone back up. Also, the humidity is back to its normal high level now. And the combination in enough to keep us older retired folks inside in the air conditioned house.

I've been keeping busy working on Lynda's digital photos from the trip to Ireland. I have them almost ready for her to choose which ones she would like to send off to be printed. I've also been cooking some new dishes lately (along with some of the regular ones). I say two or three recipes on the Food Network that sounded (and looked) interesting. And Lynda saw one in the newspaper. We have liked the ones that I've tried.

Keeping in Touch

Today we had a good program at "Prime Time Seniors". And, the meal was great too. The nephew of one of our church members spoke to us. He spoke about making a radical change in his life.

After the meeting, Lynda and I went to Memphis to do a little shopping and to visit Lauri and Jeff. We had a good visit and a Heuy's hamburger.
The photo to the right is from a few years back.

When I checked my email when we returned home there was a note that I had a message via my Opera community from a former student. Roger was in one of the chemistry classes that I taught at Permian High School in 1966. And I believe he was also in one that I taught in 1967. No, Roger was not a poor student, in fact he was a very good student and the 1967 class was a second year chemistry. Anyway I hope to hear more from Roger and keep in touch with him.

Mid July

This morning I went out to Ridge Ripe Farms and picked some tomatoes. Paul and Corinne Eldridge have run the operation for the last several years. They begin the season with fresh strawberries, then in early June have fresh tomatoes. After a few weeks of offering picked tomatoes, they open the fields for folks to "pick-your-own".

There was an abundance of tomatoes. Once you begin picking, it is hard to resist the urge to taking just one more.

The Eldridges also had some fresh basil for the taking. I took some and when I got home I put on a pot of tomato basil soup. It turned out very well and along with some cheese toast and iced tea made a good lunch.

July, 2007

Today is my birthday. We are in Mena, Arkansas at a motel. We drove over this morning to visit with relatives who have a place at Rich Mountain. So far we have had a good visit with L.K.'s aunt and uncle, cousins and their friends.

Her cousin Eric has a birthday on Monday and the family celebrated his birthday this evening. We ate a delicious steak dinner.

Shannon

My fellow travelers are hounding me to move on. So I'll try later.

Well we got through the security without too much confusion. Lynda's necklace did set the alarm off. Strange that she had worn the same necklace on the way over and no problem.

I'm posting some more photos from our drive on Thursday, May 30th.

We are at Shannon Airport waiting for our flight. It has been delayed but we hope to still make our connections to DFW.

On May 29th, we spent the night in Spiddal at the Taur Beag B&B. Many of the signs in this area are in Gaelic rather than English so you have to study the map even more so before you start out anywhere.
We enjoyed a very nice breakfast that Siobhan, .the hostess, fixed. Then we headed our for a drive about the Connemara area. The route passed through several "landscapes". We had the bogs where peat or turf is harvested for fuel. There were also coastal areas with views of the different bays. Of course, we did see many sheep grazing or lazing in the stone-fence enclosed fields. We also drove through forest areas and for several kilometers we drove along the Sky Road along a mountain trail.
For lunch we had an in-the-car picnic at Kylemore Abbey. It was cold and raining so we opted not to tour the gardens at the Abbey. Since we had visited Powerscourt, Muckross, and Bantry gardens we didn't feel bad about skipping the gardens. Later we stopped at Clifden for tea and cake. I made a quick visit to the library there in order to check email. Had a message from Martha and from Bess.

Doolin

We got to Doolin on Saturday. I thought that we had reservations for three nights here, but it turned out we did not. I'll write more about that later. A young woman who worked at the petrol station called several places and found us a place at FernHill Farm. It is cold in the rooms, but the woman is very night.

We didn't listen to any music here because it begins so late and we tire ourselves out durning the day. We may here a bit tonight.

We have visited several of the places we visited before and some that were new to us.
Tomorrow we will drive on up to Galway and then over to Spiddal for two nights. We fly home on June 1.

Killarney

We are packing up to leave Killarney for Doolin. We ave have a very nice time here. Went to different places using this as our home base. The driving isn't too bad since Ray is doing it all.
I enjoy the small places more so than Dublin. But Dublin was interesting. I guess that it would be better if one learned the bus system and used it instead of walking. Although we did use taxis more than ever before. That says something about age!

The phot shows that we are eating ok. This is at the Torc waterfall