I had many plans to do some pre-narrative about the trip, and have themes and different narrative tracks, and they are likely to turn out to be done when I get back. The weeks leading up to the trip were unexpectedly busier than I expected, between the sewer and other matters that took me away from writing. No, they weren’t just me procrastinating. Yes, that happened, too.
I had wanted to do a whole set-up of the “dramatis personae” (that’s snooty English major talk for “the characters in the drama”), which were going to be longer and have set-ups for the larger story, but, that was a fail.
Instead, a reader’s digest overview:
Traveling in this group are me, (you know me, I hope, if you don’t, then one of my associates ratted the password out to you, and I really hope you are not a robber, and I also, also hope that you’re no good with the Google.) my sister, (she looks like me, but is taller) and my dad (who has never been out of the country before, and who is a retired fellow with a fair number of eccentricities. )
There is also a person who shall be mentioned from time to time, who is technically not one of the “dramatis personae” because he’s not a character, but, he is, in the end, the impetus for the trip, a Mr. Brinsley Barnes, who is my 6th? 7th? great grandfather (I could’ve put any number, and you’d never know that I couldn’t remember exactly which “great” it is as I’m writing this late at night in Ireland, and you don’t really care which one it is, the point of the number is to tell you that it was a long time ago. Early 18th century, 1713ish to be vaguely exact. Okay, it’s the 6th great. My OCD wouldn’t let me not look it up, and I remembered where I could find the information on this computer. )
Back on track, it’s after 1 am in Ireland, and I’ve got to get an early start tomorrow. We’re heading to the Dingle Peninsula. That’s a bit of a teaser for you.
The actual trip part of the story usually starts with a visit to the airport. This story is not different in any way. We went to the airport. At very painful o’clock in the morning. A time made more painful by getting very much less than 4 hours of sleep. There were good intentions, but poor execution.
After leaving Denver, we arrived in Newark. We had a long layover. We didn’t do much, and there’s a story behind that I might tell later. At any rate, all of this is to explain the first photo, which is a pigeon, who somehow got into the airport, and was flying around and landed near us. It didn’t fly like a bird in panic mode, and walked around without an iota of fear, not one concern about the strange human who followed it and flashed a light at it after making a noise that sounded like “cheese” to the humans watching it. I think it actually has made its home there, and survives off the bounty of food waste in the concourse.
The pigeon was the first picture I took on the trip. I am not sure if that is really sad, or really interesting.
Time passed painfully slowly, and though it was an “overnight” trip, I was only able to get a few moments of sleep. We arrived at 7:30 AM Ireland time, which was midnight Colorado time. We had a tour company to pick us up from the airport, but, they were expecting to simply take us to the airport, and leave us with nothing to do. We had other plans. Our plan was to be as active as possible after arriving, to survive jet lag. The only question was: How were we going to manage that feat? What were we going to do to keep us awake until bedtime?
The answer…
Will wait until the next post.
It really would be a better ending if I left it there, but, I feel guilty that you were expecting Ireland pictures and got a stupid pigeon.
A teaser then:
