Ireland: Glendalough & Giant's Causeway

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ireland lately. Some folks might dream about sunny beaches or fast-moving waterways to get away from it all in their minds. But that doesn’t really work for me. My "happy place" is cool, almost cold, windswept and lush green Ireland. No, I’m not Irish, but after visiting (How many times? Lost track) I have a sensory fondness for the land.


Glendalough in County Wicklow is a spiritual place. It’s peaceful, graceful, and compelling. The forests surrounding it are thick and abundant, while the grounds that St. Kevin walked are green and glorious.


One can lose themselves in the mist and the rain – figuratively speaking. Ghosts of the past will always be beside you to make sure you’re not lost literally.


The Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland is such a conundrum of folklore that you forget you’re even looking at a natural wonder. Did the Irish warrior Finn McCool build the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner? Or was it simply an area subject to intense volcanic activity some 50 million years ago?


The Causeway will forever be known to me as “the place where I fell”, but beyond that, it is part of my “happy place”. To see the basalt columns in person, you forget that you are even on earth. They’re striking, foreboding, and ominously beautiful (and awfully slippery when wet).


Yes, I took the pictures in this post. I’m pretty proud of having visited these places and enjoy showing off their glory.

Bicycles

Are they a romantic notion or just a mode of transportation?


On my European trips, when I see a bicycle perched artfully against a building or light pole, I take a picture. I don’t have a great creative eye, but I try to emulate what I’ve seen on postcards or in books. But why take a picture of a bike?


When the guy who rode the bike in the picture got up in the morning, did he think “Damn, I wish I had a car?” Or did he think, “I’m a free spirit and luckily I don’t have the shackles of a car?”


Riding over all those cobble stones in Europe has GOT to be a bitch. But I guess it’s better than having to find a parking spot for a car.


I don’t really have anything insightful, purposeful, or even glib to say about bikes. Other than, don’t you like my neat-o pictures? The top one was taken in Bacharach, Germany on the Rhine. And the bottom collection is from Amsterdam. (sigh) Wish I was there now…riding a bike…

William & Kate: Yee Haw!

Yeah, this was from their Cananda trip earlier this year, but I'm a bit behind the times. I thought it soooo cute to see the Royals in cowboy hats and jeans. I think Kate is SMOKIN' in her dungarees and Wills just looks as cute as a ranch hand sipping whiskey in a field of heffers and studs. Ride 'em Mr. Brokeback Mountain!