Ireland

My Mother keeps reminding me that I need to get back to blogging and catch everyone up on all of the things that the Cluffs did in the summer of 2010. She is right, of course. Catch up blogging is not nearly as fun for me as "in the moment" blogging, but I guess I have to start somewhere, right? So, my last post was about me and Meagan heading off to Mexico in July. I was pretty nervous about the food, the language, the culture and anything else I could think to be nervous about. The above picture is of Allie heading off at the same time on a trip to Ireland with Richard and Richard's father, Bill. It doesn't look like she had any worries about her trip.

This is Richard's Dad also known as Grandpa Bill. He worked for Delta Airlines for a lot of years and now he is the first person to say "where to" when someone in the family suggests taking a trip. Allie had wanted to go to Ireland for awhile and Bill was more than happy to encourage her idea. After Bill and Allie decided they were going for sure, Richard decided he wasn't going to miss out on the fun and so he accompanied them.

Allie took hundreds of pictures of Ireland while they were there. Way too many to post even a fraction of them. All of the pictures turned out beautiful and I am jealous that I wasn't able to go on this trip with them. They even had a 7 hour layover in New York on the way to Ireland and enjoyed seeing some of the Big Apple. Why didn't I go on this trip? Well, they were flying standby and Meg and I bought full fare tickets and when it looked the best to fly standby to Ireland was the exact same time that Meg and I had bought tickets for Mexico. Oh well, we all had a wonderful time.


Here, Allie is a little worried because while she is posing in front of these beautiful flowers a bee is beginning to show her a lot of attention. I would be worried too.

The scenery in Ireland was beautiful. The weather was nice and cool, the fog rolled in just like they thought it would and Bill, Richard and Allie had lots of fun sight seeing, being goofy and just having fun together. Allie was even excited that it was cold enough to wear a scarf. Imagine wearing a scarf in July. Unheard of!

This is the small, humble shack that Grandpa Bill rented for them to stay in while they were in Ireland. Not bad, huh? They even drove around in this cute, little, red rental car while they were there. Ireland can be driven from one end to the other in about 6 hours, so they had plenty of time to see many of the beautiful sights.

Isn't this gorgeous? According to them it was very green and there were old, stone fences everywhere and sheep in the fields. It was like stepping back in time.

They didn't see lions and tigers and bears, but they did see castles and lots of interesting people. I think the whole trip sounds very relaxing. I just might be a little jealous. If you want to see all of the pictures Allie took, make an appointment to come over and maybe you can talk her into giving you the full slide show. As Allie would say, "don't hate us cause you ain't us!" Thanks Grandpa Bill for working so many years at Delta and putting up with all of the frazzled travelers that you had to put up with to allow us all to enjoy great traveling perks.