Author: slodancermode

A week or so after we returned from our remarkable trip to Ireland, Wales, England and Scotland last year, we posted our last blog about our final days in Scotland (Edinburgh), and closed it by saying, “Stay tuned for our afterthoughts on our whole trip. It’s fun to be able to share our adventures with you.”
Yes, it is VERY fun to share our adventures, and we so appreciate the comments we get as we cruise along…by auto, boat, plane or train. We also thank you for your patience since we never posted those afterthoughts, etc. I’m sure you’ve been biting your fingernails awaiting that final blog ….maybe not!  🙂
We are about to start another adventure (more in a few minutes), and we’ll continue to post blogs about it, but I thought I’d relay some excerpts from our 2023 that never got posted.

AFTERTHOUGHTS FROM IRELAND, WALES, ENGLAND & SCOTLAND
Rereading our unposted afterthoughts just now brought all those wondrous experiences back again, including the words we often used as we were driving around during this amazing and delightful adventure:
Beautiful! Stunning! Lush! Gorgeous! Fascinating! WOW! Such variety! Yum!  So green! Look at all the sheep, cows and Highland “coos!” Nourishing! Dramatic! Mystical! Astonishing! Sacred! Breathtaking! Spectacular! WOW! Such simple beauty! Astounding! Remarkable! There is beauty everywhere! More WOW’S!
It was also fun to put together the statistics:
Ireland & Northern Ireland – rental car 5213 miles
Wales to Devon – rental car                        644 miles
Devon/Cornwall – friends drove                 539 miles
Lake District to Edinburgh-rental car        1978 miles
Taxis (Dublin, Oban, Edinburgh)                116 miles
TOTAL DRIVING MILES:            8490 miles
Trains from Devon to Lake District             365 miles
Boat Trips – Ireland, England, Scotland        75 miles
Ferries: Dublin-Wales, Oban-Isle of Mull,
Mull-Iona, Mull-Lochalaine + Orkneys   175 miles
TOTAL TRIP:                                  9106 MILES!!
The hundreds of photographs we took (all with our iPhones!) captured the rolling countryside hills, mountains, rock formations, stone walls, bridges, buildings, magnificent churches, cathedrals, abbeys and castles (some in ruins yet often still in use, and all quite sacred).  And then there were the countless lakes, rivers, waterfalls & awesome views of the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea and the North Sea.
We learned a lot of history by visiting museums & going on walking tours and reading up on places before or during our touring. We also loved the art galleries, the variety of trees & flowers and the warm hospitality everywhere we went. It’s still hard to capture and describe how extraordinary it was, but we can still “feel it” in our bones, our hearts and our souls.
Feel free to scroll back through our blog posts, if even just to look at all the photos. It’s a wonderful reminder of how much beauty there is in the world!

NEW ADVENTURE STARTING VERY SOON!
On March 20, we fly to Boston and from there go to Amsterdam, where we’ll spend a few days before embarking on a 15-day Viking River Cruise down the Rhine, Main and Danube Rivers to Budapest. After a few days there, we’ll fly to Dubrovnik and spend 2 weeks along the coast of Croatia, which we keep hearing more & more about. We’ll take a ferry to Venice, spend 4 days there and then fly (via Helsinki) to Iceland for another 2 weeks. I’ve started calling this part the “Grand Finale” and Gary has schedule two guided photo tours here–one featuring glaciers and the other featuring waterfalls. We’ll stop again in Boston for a few days before heading back to California on May 26.  We’re also grateful that our new neighbors next door will house-sit while overseeing the remodeling of their house. Perfect!
We feel unbelievably blessed to continue taking these “trips of a lifetime,” in keeping with our motto, “HAVE A BLAST WHILE YOU LAST!” So that’s what we’re doing!
We look forward to sharing our adventures with you once again.
Bless you for traveling along with us!

20 May 2023 – Doolin, Ireland (County Clare)

We’re still taking in and remembering the amazing adventure we had going around America’s Great Loop in 2021-2022. Many of you “cruised along” with us throughout that year-long journey. Those posts are still available here, with the latest being first and (scrolling down) the earliest being last.

And now we invite you to join us on our next adventure: the month of May in Ireland, the month of June in Wales and England and the month of July in Scotland. Yippee! We are very excited and feel very blessed to be able to take these glorious trips.

By the way, we’re a bit behind in our posting because my laptop needed to be repaired in Dublin and then got shipped to Killarney, arriving just 2 days ago. And Gary is having computer problems as well, which won’t be remedied until we are in Belfast on May 31. It’s on his computer that we process and import photographs into our blog. So here (from my laptop) we’re giving you a brief preview and later we’ll follow up with details and some photographs. Thanks for your patience!

We’ll soon tour County Galway, County Mayo, County Sligo and County Donegal before we travel into Northern Ireland, spending 1 night in Londonderry (now called Derry) and then 3 nights in Belfast, ending up back in Dublin on June 2. Most of our stops are 2-3 nights and the distances are relatively short—less than 2 hours–so we’ll continue to do our best to stay in S.L.O. Dancer mode.

Gary still misses our wonderful 40’ power cruiser “S.L.O. Dancer” and the boating lifestyle, but our boat is for sale in Traverse City, MI and hopefully we’ll have a contract on it soon now that Lake Michigan has thawed and boating season has begun once again.

We are working our way clockwise around the Emerald Isle. So far we’ve been to Glendelaugh, Enniskerry, Leighlinbridge, Kilkenny, Waterford, Cobh, Cork and Killarney, and we are already having a glorious time. Now we’re in County Clare, where we took part in a delightful “medieval banquet” at Bunratty Castle and are staying in the charming town of Doolin.

In the meantime, just as we learned on the boat, we are pacing ourselves well during this new adventure and continue to take time to enjoy the history, beauty and wonder of Ireland. We’re allowing time for spontaneity and serendipity and plan to savor every moment as we continue this Dance called Life.

We’re not sure how often we’ll be able to post, but we hope you’ll travel along with us. And we promise photos in the blog posts that follow. Meanwhile, it was fun to look up “Famous Irish Blessings,” and here’s one of our favorites:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Blessings always!

Annie & Gary