England and Ireland. The Final Chapter. Irleand, Part 5: The Cliffs of Moher and Ennis

Ah! Nearly a year after my vacation, and I'm finally getting around to blogging the last chapter. The memories are still fresh and delightful, so I hope that you will enjoy them.

After a breakfast of oatmeal and Bailey's (oh, my, how I love that!), we left the little village of Dingle in our cute, cute little car and headed north.

We crossed the River Shannon on a Ferry. My first car ferry. Pretty cool. It's a good system, and it saved us quite a bit of driving time. It was fun, too!

Here comes the ferry boat!

We stopped in Kilrush for lunch and a bit of roots-searching--Trish found an ancestral address still standing!

I liked the pub with its pub decor.

After lunch we headed straight for the Cliffs of Moher! (Many of these photos were taken by Annette)

One of us thought the cows grazing on the cliffs were just as interesting and beautiful as the views and geology. These cows had some of the best views on the planet!

I had told Annette that I had read stories about people who lie on their stomachs and look straight down at the water, thousands of feet below the sheer cliff top. It was a mistake to tell her! She did it! I immediately had a visceral Mama reaction. Adreniline shot through me and made my knees buckle. I could not look, let alone take a picture of her. Your imaginings will probably be just as vivid.

(Skip the next pic, Mom!)

Here is one guy in the spirit:

Sign? What sign?

The cliffs and the views are spectacular, don't you agree? Definitely a must-see when you go to Ireland.

We drove from the cliffs to the nearby village of Ennis, where we spent our last two nights. The Grey Gables B&B was my least-favorite of all the B&Bs we stayed in but it was perfectly charming. There were only little things and attention to detail lacking.

The first evening, we had dinner in a pub. The music was simply a trio: guitar, accordion, and fiddle. And there was a picture of James Joyce, so it was good! An old man sat with us at our table. I watched him sip his drink for a long, long time. Up to his lips again and again, looking like he was sipping it again and again, but the level of the liquid never went down! What kind of Irishman was he, anyway?!

Letting the level of the liquid go down.

After a good night's sleep, Annette and I left Trish in Corofin at the Clare Heritage and Genealogical Research Centre so she could do some more genealogical research. Annette and I continued on, driving through the Burren to the Aillwee Cave.

The Burren is a beautiful area, with rare flora and fauna within its unusual geology:

The Aillwee Cave, that was spectacular! It was not something we had planned on doing. It was a spur-of-the moment find, and what a great one!  As you can read on Wikipedia, the cave was discovered in 1944 by a farmer whose dog chased a rabbit into the cave. He told no-one about the cave until he overheard some academics, in the area in 1973 researching caves, talking about their mission in a local pub. He divulged the location, and the cave has since been excavated and thoroughly commercialized. (This is something different in Ireland than in the US: natural, archeological, and cultural treasures, often on private land, are commercialized in a very haphazard way and often not preserved in a systematic way--or in any way, really).

Anyway, Annette and I paid the requisite Euros to take the tour. It was very cool, literally and figuratively. The formations were quite young and small, but still good examples of stalactites and stalagmites. A highlight for me was when the young tour guide turned off all the lights inside. It is the only time I've experience true total darkness. What an amazing experience!

Enjoying a 99 Flake after exploring the cave.

At the end of the day we had a delightful dinner and trad music at Brogan's. The music was played by a big bunch of folks with all sorts of instruments. So much fun! We enjoyed a delicious dinner--salmon again for me; the Irlsh salmon is fab--and our last Guinness.

I have missed Irish Guinness.

If music be the food of love, play on!

Wonderful stuff.

Moses! Moses!

In honor of Easter weekend's traditional broadcast of The Ten Commandments (1956), here are some of my favorite clips:

In My Little Town

I was so excited when my friend C. asked me to go to see Paul Simon in my little town, at our wonderful Santa Barbara Bowl. Yes, THE legendary Paul Simon.

What a terrific show!  The opener was The Secret Sisters, a sister duo from Somewhere-or-Other, Alabama. They played acoustic guitar and sang amazing harmonies on old-timey country songs, plus some of their own. They had very sweet voices. It was a pleasure to hear them!

Mr. Simon took the stage without delay with his 8-man back-up band.  What a fun, fun show!  He played songs from his entire repertoire, from "The Sound of Silence" and "The Only Living Boy in New York" to his '70s music, like "Kodachrome," "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and "Mother and Child Reunion," on to the Graceland era, "Graceland" and "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," through to songs from his newest album called So Beautiful or So What, along with covers, including songs by Junior Walker, Chet Atkins and the Beatles!  The arrangements were creative, and familiar songs were performed in new ways. I like his new stuff, too.  Here is the setlist.

I was amazed at the number of guitars that he used. Every number, a different guitar would be brought to him. His band was really talented. It was a lot of fun to watch each of them. 

The concert was energetic and lively. It was a wonderful show. They played for more than two hours!  Not bad for a 70-year-old geezer, huh?

Here are some photos from up in Section E:

Many, many thanks to my friend C!!!

I don't want to piss off the Copyright gods, so I'll be a good girl and not upload the video I took. Next time you see me, ask me to see it.  I will leave you with this, though.  He performed at Ground Zero on the 9/11 anniversary last month.

Weekend in Paradise

You know what I love about Santa Barbara?

I love that you can have a gnarly mountain hike in the back-country one day and a relaxing time, soaking in the rays at the beach, the next day!  It was a spectacularly beautiful weekend!

Here are pictures from the trailhead of my hike yesterday. It was down, down, down about 2.5 miles, and then --ulp!-- up, up, up again.  Good hike. My buns feel it today!

We hiked down the north side, away from the ocean.

View of Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Channel and the Channel Islands.

View of the Dick Smith Wilderness

And today, beach day! It was fun to see some marine mammals. Here is a video of them. The first bit is of some dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). They were very active and splashy.  I think they were having a feeding frenzy. I wish I had had my regular camera with me. But I took video on my iPhone anyway. You can't see them very well, but I really enjoyed watching them!  You'll be able to recognize the species in the second bit.  And you can see the cruise ship that is parked nearby! Yay cruise ships!

Foster the Weekend

Wow! Annette and I had a super weekend last weekend in Orange County!

It all started with Annette's desire to see one of her current favorite bands, Foster the People. They were selling out everywhere, but this venue was under the radar, a fundraiser for their "Do Good" tour, so we were able to get tickets easy!

Since the concert was on a Monday night, I thought we should try to see a baseball game on Sunday, and wouldn't you know that the the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim were scheduled to play the New York Yankees on Sunday afternoon!  Yippee!

And gee, since we're going to be there Sunday, and neither Annette nor I had to work on Saturday, why not go to Knott's Berry Farm?  Cool!


Knott's Berry Farm is a fun amusement park. It wasn't at all crowded until about 2pm. Hardly any lines till then!

And we got a good deal on admission.

"Tickets are $56 each," said the gate clerk.

"I saw a price of $47 on-line," said I.

"That's the internet price. But we have a special going: Park admission and an all-you-can eat lunch for $44."

"We'll take it."

We had just eaten lunch before arriving at the park, darn it, but we did end up going to the lunch buffet for a snack. You saw my boysenberry pie on Facebook!

Knott's has good rides, but my 40-something-year-old tummy didn't like some of them. Still, we both had fun!  I liked Montezooma's Revenge the best!

My camera was DOA--darn that I am terrible at watching the battery indicator--so all these photos are courtesy of Annette.  She didn't bring her camera into Knott's, though.

That night and the next we got to enjoy Disneyland's fireworks from our hotel window!

It was a heart!

Our hotel was within walking distance of Angel Stadium! I didn't even plan it! I had used Priceline.com so I didn't choose the hotel, only the general area. We enjoyed the short walk, and it was a beautiful day for baseball!  I chose seats that were AWESOME!  Great view of the first-base line, and we were in the shade!  Yay!

The game was a good one. Annette hadn't seen a baseball game in forever, and she wasn't sure she'd like it. But the game had a lot of action, including 3 homers (two of them Angel homers, complete with fireworks). The Yankees won 6-5.

Annette is now a baseball fan!  Whooo-hoooo!

It was the 10th anniversary of 9/11. They gave us flags. It was a great day to celebrate being American!

42,500+ fans enjoyed the game. There were suprisingly a lot of Yankees fans there!

And on Monday, the main attraction.  We didn't do much during the day that day, just a little mall shopping and lunch. We got to the Galaxy Theater at about 6:00.  We had a lot of waiting....in line till about 7:30 (doors opened late), then standing room only, through two stinker opening bands.

The first opener, Polaris at Noon, was awful. Unintelligible mud. The second band had lost their drum kit, so the drummer banged away on luggage. They never said their name. Too embarrassed, maybe?

We had to wait a loooong time in the pit. We were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the hot room with dozens of other sweaty people, who were amazingly patient, until nearly 10:30, when Foster the People finally took the stage. And then, our sore feet were just a memory....

What a fun performance!  They had a great stage show, and I enjoy their music.  I think they'll make it big.

Mark Foster

Cubby Fink

Mark Pontius

Here are a couple videos. The first one is Annette's favorite song of theirs.  The venue in the video is similar to the Galaxy. Imagine us 3-4 people back from the stage, and you are there with us!  (sorry for the lame commercials; I used the official video and they always try to make a buck)



This one is the song that has zoomed up the charts, hitting #1 on the alternative chart.  It was the #2 most-downloaded song the week before we saw them. Catchy, huh?  Enjoy!



I was happy to go. Now, after spanning nearly 35 years of music in concerts a couple weeks apart, I wonder why I don't go to concerts more often.  I think I will!