Brownhill Dolmen and Kilkenny

Sunday, after sleeping in a bit, we decamped and drove on through more lovely countryside, rolling green hills, beautiful fields, stone houses and fences, ancient buildings and features here and there...just the Ireland you'd imagine. At length we arrived at Carlow to see the Brownhill Dolmen (see illustration), with its 150 ton capstone, reputedly the largest in Europe. From there, we drove on to Kilkenny, to see the early 13th century castle and Kilkenny's High Street. Alas, both, IMHO, were forgettable. If you ever want to see a Norman castle done over to Victorian needs and tastes, then Kilkenny is for you. As for High Street, see illustrations.

We camped Sunday night near Kilkenny, a non-luxury but very nice place, 17 euros, a friendly owner who filled us in on a variety of matters. The drunks arrived about 2 AM again, but were not quite so repulsive as the previous evening.

Kilkenny, Ireland May 2, 2009

First, for the practical. More problems with shipping the Roadtrek. We did not measure it ourselves, but relied on the manufacturer's measurements. We received an email from the shipping broker telling us that it was actually much bigger—to the tune of $450. Part of the problem is that we didn't fold back the side mirrors. Would the shipper do it for us? Sorry, just pay or arrange for someone to meet them at the dock to re-measure together. Can't wait to get it in Germany and measure it for ourselves. They know they have you by the short hairs! We haven't had email for 2 days now—can't wait to see what the next problem is. Sweet Norm got a cashier's check for us and priority mailed it. Hope we can find some way to pay Norm and Marie back for all they've done for us.

Now, to the good news. Ireland is really quite wonderful. First 3 nights were at Avalon House, Dublin hostel. It was an intsy, bitsy room but spotlessly clean with linens and breakfast. All for only $70 a night. Ireland is frightfully expensive—we did one load of wash yesterday---$13. A Big Mac meal runs just at $13.50. It is supposed to be one of the most expensive areas in all Europe and I can readily believe it. We walked all over Dublin—I'm sure Mark will highlight everything.

I particularly loved going in the National Library reading room where Joyce, Yeats, and many others spent hours reading and working. It is all closed stacks but they have many reference books lining the walls—many that we had at Sentinel and in the same Dewey numbers, I might add. I spoke to one of the librarians about their using Dewey—he said that in the last ten years all new books were only being cataloged by by acquisition date and size. Since it is closed stacks they had done it to save shelf space. He hates it but space is money in big libraries.

I also loved Trinity Library. First the wonderful displays about the Book of Kells with films of early bookbinding methods and illuminated manuscript techniques; then the Book itself; then up to The Long Room—truly one of the most magnificent sites in the library world. Google image it as we couldn't take pictures. Dublin is a librarian's dream.

One further note of personal genealogical interest. Our family has very few records about my father's paternal side of the family—the McCoy's. All I knew growing up was that they were Scotch Irish and from Georgia. My grandfather was definitely born in America but I don't know about his father. From an earlier trip to Scotland I knew that McCoy was originally Mackay and from the northwest part of Scotland. They were one of the first clans the English relocated to Ireland as they were notoriously violent—killing for money and for sport. I had assumed that the name got changed when they came to America as so many were. Anyway while at the National Library I leafed through a book of Irish surnames and found McCoy. It said most were located in Limerick and Cork. Then yesterday when we were in Glendalough to see the famous monastary ruins from the 6th century, we drove past the McCoy Convenience Store. We stopped in and I spoke to one of the McCoy's wives. She didn't know much family history but said her husband's grandfather had died in his 90s and had lived all his life in that town. However, she didn't know of any other McCoy families in that area of southeast Ireland. Maybe we will run into some more as we travel through Cork tomorrow. Vicki.

The Brownhill Dolmen, near Carlow; we like neolithic stuff

Kilkenny Castle; yawn

High Street in Kilkenny; but no Tex-Mex, no BBQ, no Lonestar, nor Pearl, nor
even Dr. Pepper

But the interior was pretty nice

Avoca, Glendalough, and Sallygap

Saturday we did the wash at the campground, 10 Euros ($13), and then drove out to Avoca, for lunch and to see Ireland's oldest still-running textile mill. It was impossible not to buy something you saw coming right off the loom. From Avoca we drove to Glendalough, a ruined monastery that dates from the 6th century. It reached its height in about the 13th century and then declined as the Normans took over and imposed their structures and people. A surprising amount of the old buildings are still around, including the round tower, and there are all the stories about St. Kevin.... We wanted to see a bit of the Wicklow Mountains, so, after Glengalough, we drove the Military Road as far as Sallygap, and then back down another valley. OK, they are not the Alps. They are not exactly the Appalachians, for that matter. I suppose they must get more attractive when the heather comes on. There is occasional conifer forest, matched by conifer clear-cuts and conifer slash. We proceeded on. We camped a second night at Red Cross. It was a memorable evening. About 2 in the morning, the drunks started arriving back at their encampments. One was right next to us, a few feet away, a lovely couple from Waterford (so the car decal said) who fought and fornicated in their full outside voices well beyond the wee hours. Bad sex is better than no sex, as they say. Anyhow, I shall never again think of Waterford in quite the same way. It was the May bank holiday, and “part of our culture, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” as was later explained to us.

At Avoca Mills, Ireland's oldest operating textile mill; all this yarn goes into This big machine, culminating in the fabric on top... The Glendalough Monastery in the distance Chapel and round tower at Glendalough Some of the Wicklow Mountains; we were not blown away Saturday we did the wash at the campground, 10 Euros ($13), and then drove out to Avoca, for lunch and to see Ireland's oldest still-running textile mill. It was impossible not to buy something you saw coming right off the loom. From Avoca we drove to Glendalough, a ruined monastery that dates from the 6th century. It reached its height in about the 13th century and then declined as the Normans took over and imposed their structures and people. A surprising amount of the old buildings are still around, including the round tower, and there are all the stories about St. Kevin.... We wanted to see a bit of the Wicklow Mountains, so, after Glengalough, we drove the Military Road as far as Sallygap, and then back down another valley. OK, they are not the Alps. They are not exactly the Appalachians, for that matter. I suppose they must get more attractive when the heather comes on. There is occasional conifer forest, matched by conifer clear-cuts and conifer slash. We proceeded on. We camped a second night at Red Cross. It was a memorable evening. About 2 in the morning, the drunks started arriving back at their encampments. One was right next to us, a few feet away, a lovely couple from Waterford (so the car decal said) who fought and fornicated in their full outside voices well beyond the wee hours. Bad sex is better than no sex, as they say. Anyhow, I shall never again think of Waterford in quite the same way. It was the May bank holiday, and “part of our culture, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” as was later explained to us.

Leaving Dublin, Heading South

In St. Stephen's Green

The Famine Sculpture, St. Stephen's Green

Ulysses on the sidewalk

Leinster House; the National Library is on one side, the National Museum on the other

Our latest car, a Kia Picanto

Friday, May 1, we packed up, lockered our gear, and checked out of the Avalon House. We strolled around the south side of the river, having become more and more familiar with the CBD in the past three days, shopped along Grafton St., and then walked around St. Stephen's Green. For most of the day we returned to Kildare St. and looked around the wonderful exhibits in the National Museum. The stone and bronze age items were of particular interest, as were those from the Celtic Christian and Viking eras. Several video presentations enhanced the extraordinary artifacts. From the museum, we passed back by Trinity for the VAT refund form on the previous day's purchases, and also Peterson's Pipe Store, crossed the Liffey, lunched on Marks and Spencer's specials, and then finished our Dublin experience with the purchase of a GPS device at PC World (we've been researching, shopping for this). More of this later.

We collected our six bags at Avalon House, schlepped them down the street a block, and then caught the 16A bus back to the airport to pick up our rental car at Irish Car Rentals. We had been hoping for another Subaru Forester (dream on...) or an upgrade of any sort, but, alas, were presented with a Kia Picanto. In size, it is the next thing up from a Smart Car. But it will do. The most challenging aspect of the matter is that it is a manual transmission model, so that, in addition to re-learning how to drive on the “proper” side and “proper” side traffic patterns, I also have to shift with my left hand. Fortunately, I am somewhat ambidextrous (I was fully ambidextrous as a child; another story...). Vicki has had to prompt me onto the left side a couple of times, and I have stalled the car a couple times, but, otherwise, we are coping.

After a few practice turns in the rental car parking lot, we sallied forth onto the N50, around Dublin, found the N11 and then, at length, our campground at Red Cross, near the Wicklow mountains. This navigational feat was helped along by our navigator, Tom (Thom Thomas?), who speaks with a decidedly British accent, although he is multi-lingual and can do female impersonations as well. (We bought a TomTom One, with maps for 31 European nations.) Tom is a marvel and already our guide and best friend.

More Literature, Libraries, and a Few Other Things

Friday we pick up our car and head out beyond the pale (look it up!), beginning our drive around the island. We'll be tenting mostly, so internet is a bit unsure. But we'll at least check email as often as we can and blog when time and circumstances permit.

Outside the Trinity Library and the Book of Kells (no photography!)

I am not convinced Dublin is the right place for solar power...

Late lunch at O'Neill's; we're seeing our share of pubs, but Guiness is not a taste I have yet acquired

Outside the National Library and its Reading Room, an important Ulysses scene

Part of what little remains of Dublin Castle (1204)

Our lodgings, the Avalon House

Joyce and Pubs

Giacomo and me

The Joyce Center, where we spent most of Wednesday afternoon

Oliver St. John Gogarty's; Joyce would not have approved, but they treat him reverentially

Buskers in Temple Bar

At the Temple Bar Bar that night; these guys were good!

In Dublin

We arrived in Dublin early Tuesday morning. The flight, from Orlando to Cincinnati to NYC to Dublin was long but uneventful. I got to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I enjoyed; Vicki enjoyed the Nixon/Frost movie. We found our lodgings, the Avalon House (courtesy of Rebecca), rested a bit, and then set forth on our explorations. Dublin is beautiful, atmospheric, literary, imminently walkable. We're loving it!

St. Patrick's Interior Play of light Ha'Penny Bridge and the Liffey The dollar store; well, the $2.66 store; ...sticker shock We arrived in Dublin early Tuesday morning. The flight, from Orlando to Cincinnati to NYC to Dublin was long but uneventful. I got to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I enjoyed; Vicki enjoyed the Nixon/Frost movie. We found our lodgings, the Avalon House (courtesy of Rebecca), rested a bit, and then set forth on our explorations. Dublin is beautiful, atmospheric, literary, imminently walkable. We're loving it!

What Worked, What Didn't

As we embark on the next stage of our travels, I thought it might be useful to reflect on some of the things—equipment, travel strategies, experiences—that worked and also on some of those that didn't during our six months of independent travel in Asia and the Pacific. Our travels included considerable trekking and hiking, and thus some of the equipment we carried. Here, in no particular order, are some thoughts:

Our SteriPen—a UV water-purification system for backpacking—worked great, both in developing countries and on trails. These devices are not well known, and often caused a stir when we brought it out to use. But we swear by it and are carrying it to Europe. Relatively light-weight, too.

Buzz-Off clothing. We bought a couple outfits each, at some expense. In our view, Buzz-Off doesn't work beyond a few washings and does not justify the expense. The bugs light and bite. We covered up and used DEET.

Vasque boots. I bought a pair of medium weight hiking boots, admittedly more for fit and style. Vasque is a well-known name in backpacking and hiking. But these boots did nor hold up. A month in Nepal, on generally excellent trails, and they needed to be re-glued as well as re-sewn. The re-gluing and re-sewing were needed a couple months later in Queenstown. I won't buy any more Vasque boots. (I am currently wearing some older Raichles; the best hiking boots I ever owned were Merrill's. And I still have my original Colin Fletcher-recommended Pivetta Eiger one-piece Italian leather boots from 1971, re-soled twice and still functional (but very heavy)).

FootPrint guides to New Zealand worked. Excellent, informative, reliable. Also the AAA spiral guide to China. We'll be using the AAA spiral for Ireland too.

Chopsticks. In Chongqing and in Chengdu we saw spoons at every table setting, in addition to the chopsticks. Why not go the other 50% and include forks? I ask. The Chinese themselves estimate some 45 million trees are cut down annually for chopsticks.

My Tilley Lightweight Mesh hat: the gold standard of travel/adventure hats.

Wheeled luggage. Several sites or blogs we visited recommended against wheeled luggage, since it's not so useful off-pavement. Most of the time we carried the big pieces, however, it was just from the baggage claim to the taxi or bus; and then from the taxi or bus to the hotel or hostel. The times wheels would have been great far outnumbered the times they would not have worked. Our Osprey wheeled piece was great; we often wished we had two of them.

My little Asus 900 eee computer worked flawlessly. At 2 lbs, it is the perfect travel laptop. The SSD drive is small—only 20 gigs on the version I converted from Linux to Windows. But that's an issue only with pix, and we put them on an iPod, which functions just fine for the bigger storage.

Blogger was just fine for effortless, intuitive blogging.

Asian airlines, in China, India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, all were great, new, efficient, competent. Only the Twin Otters that Yeti flies to Lukla seemed sub-standard, and the airfield there dictates the kind of craft used. The airlines we flew—some 35-40 flights—never lost nor damaged our luggage, they were with one cancellation always on time or early departures and arrivals, and they fed us some very good food, normally with both Asian and Euro-American options. Oh yes, there was the matter of the airport closure in Thailand, for nearly 2 weeks, but that was hardly the airlines' fault.

A strategy that worked for us was to buy local flights locally. The half dozen flights we made in China would have cost far more if booked in the US. The Chinese have sites just like Expedia and its competitors.

Train travel in China and India turned out fine, but would have been difficult for us to book.

Our Circle Asia passes with United Airlines worked fine. We had done considerable reading and research on the merits of consolidator tickets versus the circle fares, and opted for the latter. They worked and were less risky and expensive.

Four sets of clothes—all quick-drying—were ample. Of course, we carried additional cold-weather garments for trekking. Three pairs of shoes also were adequate, one for hiking, one closed-toes Keens for comfort/warm weather, and a pair of flip-flops for the showers, beaches, and creek crossings.

Our camera, a Panasonic DMC-TZ5 Lumix, was great, an excellent compromise between weight and quality. Our only complaint is that it took so very few bad pictures to delete! Our Asia/Pacific pix occupy 35 gigs of staorage. To download, edit and post pix, we simply inserted the camera's SD card into the Asus computer.

For our kind of travel and communications, Skype was indispensable. We carried a cost-per-minute Mobal World Phone for emergency use, but never once used it. We're still carrying it though.

Vicki's Sony E-Book Reader was a major disappointment. Sony claims you can keep it charged through your computer, but, in fact, if you let it get too low, it requires an AC adaptor, which is not included in the regular purchase. Vicki's E-Book indeed got too low (in Nepal, India), and despite adaptors bought in Thailand and Australia, never re-charged. It was useless baggage for most of the 6 months. Sony subsequently replaced the unit for a $40 charge.

Beware electronics purchases in Bangkok. Once you get the wrapper off, you're likely to find it is a refurbished model that still doesn't work.

We did a number of one-day excursions and hired local guides. These were uniformly good and often got us to places we could not have gotten to ourselves. (See my post at the end of India, November, 2008, for our arrangements and guides in India).

On the Everest trek, we felt like we did it the right way, hiring only locally, both guide and porter, and not joining a larger tour. With the larger tours, we suspect, little of one's money gets to the locals. See my post at the end of the Everest trek.

Although we enjoyed it, we felt the Yangtze cruise was not worth the expense and time. You cruise by half the scenery at night. Duh. And it's not that spectacular.

Next time, we'll take a day cruise on Milford Sound rather than kayak. One sees relatively little of the fiord's 20 miles from a kayak.

The Kalalau trail on Kauai was a disappointment and a disgrace.

Of the tramps we did in New Zealand, the Abel Tasman was the best. The Rob Roy Glacier was the best day hike we have ever done anywhere. Among the NZ “Great Walks,” only the Milford absolutely requires advance reservations.

September in China is very hot and humid...the “Autumn Tiger.” And in the Gulf of Thailand, the monsoon lasts well into November.

In Cambodia, we saw only Siem Reap and Angor Wat, but loved it all.

From Australia on, we spent a good number of nights in “backpackers” and hostels. At least in that part of the world, hostels are no longer for the gap-year set. The “grey nomads,” including us, are now a substantial part of tourism and are as often to be found in hostels as younger people. We wish other parts of the world featured budget travel and tourism so prominently.

Local beer is always cheaper, and often better, than the imported stuff. It was often cheaper than bottled water. Local hard liquor is often cheaper, but not so good. Forget the wines until you get to Australia and particularly New Zealand.

PS...a year later; Vicki asks I add Dukoral as something that worked. The two cases of intestinal distress we had were more on the order of food poisoning; generally we had no traveler's diarrhea nor like symptoms, despite diverse places visited, etc; I'd have to say our other meds worked too (e.g., the altitutde sickness stuff and the anti-malarial stuff) at least to the extent we didn't get any of those maladies. FWIW.

Adios, Disney

We had some time at the Orlando airport to which I put to good use, getting better acquainted with Sleeping Beauty.

Vicki adds:

April 27, 2009 Leaving Orlando, FL

We are sitting in the airport, ready for world travel chapter 2. Being in the US has been wonderful but not stress free. The wonderful part has been seeing friends and family. My sister Marie and her husband Norm have opened their home to us for a month, and being able to spend a lot of time with her has meant a great deal to me. No one could have a better sister.

The stress has come from doing things for the first and only time. Having throughly messed up the first attempt at getting the camper on the ship in early April, we rescheduled and drove to Brunswick, GA last Thursday. Unfortunately, this shipper requires the propane tank not only to be empty but certified by a propane company as having been purged. Our agent neglected to mention this. No one in southeast Georgia could manage this until Friday. So we had to get a motel, extend the rental car, etc. So the Grey Wanderer was finally delivered Friday morning.

We will not really feel safe about it until May 5, when the ship is finally scheduled to sail. The reason for our continued nervousness is that the shipping directions say that nothing can be shipped in the van. However, the book we have and several blogs have said you can put in anything you want. So clearly in sight, we have two older bikes we bought in Orlando—they said nothing about those. However, under the ottomans and the power sofa we have stuffed books, clothes, linens, dishes, pots and pans, food, and all manner of things that we might need over the next 17 months. Mark built a false back for under the sofa and screwed the wood to the frame with special headed screws to ward off casual theft, but if the shipping company would actually decide to search the van and enforce their policy we would be in a mess. I hope all those bloggers are right!

So we are off to Ireland by way of Cincinnati and NYC. Our layover in Cincinnati is 31 minutes, so we are expecting for either us or our luggage to miss the next flight—but that will be Delta's problem. The price through Priceline was $525 for both of us for a one way ticket, so if we spend a night in an airport, so be it. We have done that before!

Farewell, Florida

Kissimmee architecture

Castle for sale; the nobility evidently is hurting; actually, there's a lot of stuff for sale here

Shell World's incredible flying shark

Thirty-eight counter stations (count 'em) at the Dollar Rent-a-Car site at Sanford International Airport; and one employee. I was going to award Dollar the "most interesting business practice award" for the day. But when we returned the car the next afternoon, the place was swamped. Sanford apparently is where all the charters come in, especially from the UK. The airport terminal is studded with "look left" and similar signs.

So our time in Florida is at an end. It has been good, picking up the Grey Wanderer, outfitting it, seeing the sights, visiting with family. Most everything good here has been due to the extraordinary-beyond-extraordinary hospitality of Vicki's sister Marie and her husband Norm, who have put us up for a month and put up with us. Their patience, tolerance, and generosity is beyond praise or gratitude.

Monday we are off again, to Dublin, for three weeks of backpacking in Ireland. We'll rent a car but tent mostly, rain permitting. Marie reminds us there's a reason the place is so green. After Ireland, we'll move on to Germany, pick up the Grey Wanderer in Bremerhaven, and then head north to Scandinavia. The road goes ever on.

Shipping News

The Good Ship Otello

Thursday we took the Grey Wanderer to the port in Brunswick, GA, and Friday, after having the propane tank purged, and certified purged (it was already empty), we delivered it to Atlantic Vehicle Processors, who, we hope, will get it aboard our ship, the Otello, by its May 5 sailing date. The propane matter was a surprise--we had already dutifully burned off all the gas ourselves--and cost us an extra day on the rental car and a motel in Darien, GA. Darien, FWIW, is the second oldest town in GA, founded in 1736 by James Oglethorpe himself, and it is also home to the only propane dealer (Branches') within miles of Brunswick who would purge and certify on short notice. We are indebted to the Branches. Nice folks. Interstate 95 was not so nice.

While in Darien, we took full advantage of the opportunity to get back in touch with our inner Southerners, eating BBQ, grits (yes!), swatting mosquitoes, drinking sweet tea, and shopping at the Piggly Wiggly. We spent several college years in Tallahassee, which is, or was then, part of Georgia, except in name. Well, some of it, culturally, was part of Alabama; Dothan, Alabama, to be precise. Coastal GA is a particularly interesting place, and, hopefully, someday we will return for more lengthy explorations. It is also the Sherouse ancestral home, this side of the Pond, Johann and Maria Scheraus having settled in Ebeneezer, a few miles up-river from Savannah, in 1741. Savannah, I know from a c. 2003 visit, is a particularly interesting and well-put-together place.

Shipping and especially shipping a vehicle is a strange new world for us amateurs. We are still discovering new entities and agencies to deal with: freight forwarders, brokers, vehicle processors, marine insurers (there is a fascinating article in the Wikipedia), port authorities, port police, TWIC cards, escorts, customs, and so on. We have not even heard of the ship except for its name, the Otello (appropriately literary), nor the merchant lines we are shipping on. Alas, we do not expect to be invited to the Captain's dinner. Hopefully, all this will work out, and the receiving agent, in Bremerhaven, will let us have our RV back, once we have produced the appropriate documentation (which we surrendered to the vehicle processor, who will over-night it to the forwarding agent...) and paid the appropriate fees, in Deutsche Marks, amount as yet unknown. Then there is German customs. And I have not even contemplated TSA. Is all the diesel fuel in 2 ounce containers in a 1 quart bag? Did I take my shoes off at the vehicle processors'? I am sure we will look back upon all this as an essential prerequisite to a wonderful European excursion.

The Otello, I have discerned, is a BIG ship, a vehicle-hauler, 60,000 tons displacement, bigger than any WWII warship except the Japanese super-battleships Musashi and Yamato. I am impressed. It does not have the 18" guns, however.

Once the Grey Wanderer is safely aboard the Otello, and underway, we will be watching vesseltracker.com for news of the ship's whereabouts and its ETA in Bremerhaven. You too can watch by subscribing (free) to vesseltracker.com. There is a website for everything, and for everything there is a website.

Except propane dealers near Brunswick, GA.

Florida Family Fun

Marie, Rachel, Me and Rebecca at Planet Rodent

Carole attempting a particularly difficult putt at Congo River, as Vicki and Lexi look on

Rachel, scorekeeper, and Rebecca await their turns

Rachel and Lexi feed the gators

Sister Carole and niece Lexi drove up to Orlando to see us and get the cousins, Lexi, Rebecca, and Rachel together. Saturday afternoon we did putt-putt in Kissimmee. Vicki was champion of the Sherouse Open. Despite watching almost all of the Masters with Norm the previous weekend, I finished next to last. But it was fun to get us all together. Thank you, Carole.

Vicki adds:

April 20, 2009, Orlando

Rachel has bequethed to me her old computer which is replacing my old computer which was Rebecca's from 2004. I am very happy as 512k of memory and a 30 gig harddrive doesn't cut it anymore. This is my first post from my "new" machine. What ever happened to the days when the parents got the new stuff and the kids got the hand-me-downs?

This week both Rachel and Rebecca have come to my sister Marie's home to spend 4 days with us. Also Mark's sister and our neice, Alexis, drove up from Ft. Lauderdale yesterday. We have had a great time, but everyone is leaving tomorrow. Marie and Norm are true saints to allow this Sherouse invasion.

We have had a difficult time getting the van shipped to Europe as some of you know who are reading Mark's blog. Our camper title finally came yesterday so we plan to drive to Brunswick, GA this Thursday to begin again the shipping process. We have had to change our original travel itinerary due to the Schengen visa issues. Most of the European Union countries have a visa agreement that allows US residents to travel for 90 days out of 180. We had read that it wasn't really enforced and we had thought we might qualify for a long stay visa since I have a cousin in Belgium. Wrong on all counts. US residents are not eligible for long stays and they are enforcing the visa stay with fines up to $1500 a person and denial of reentry for 7 years. Great Britain allows 6 months and the countries such as Croatia and Turkey don't participate yet. So our new plan is to ship the camper to Germany, arriving May 20. We leave here April 27 for Dublin and will rent a car and tent camp for 3 weeks then fly to Hamburg, Germany to get the camper. We then have about 8 weeks to see northern Germany, Scandanavia, and perhaps a trip to St. Petersburg. We will be in Paris on July 29 to pick up Rebecca, then do some touring in France until we meet Rachel in Rouen on Aug. 2. The girls and their partners are getting a Paris apartment and we will be camping for a week in the Bois de Boulougne. About Aug. 11 we all head off in different directions with Mark and I headed for England having spent almost 90 days in Europe.

We plan to go north to Scotland first, then Wales and spend about 90 days with the Brits until about mid November. We really didn't want to be that far north in November but Schengen gives us no choice. Then we will recross the Channel, hugging the coast of France heading for northern Spain. In early December we will store the camper for a month and fly back to Florida for visits with family for Christmas. Early January we fly back to Spain, then Portugal, southern France, Italy, etc. We will need to be in Croatia by about March 15 to meet the visa deadline. Now we have 90 days for several Eastern European countries and Turkey. We are allowed back in EU about mid June to visit Austria, Switzerland, southern Germany and more of France. Have to leave in mid September, either back to the States or maybe fly to China or somewhere.

The whole thing is a lot more complicated than we had hoped but at least it is still doable. The road goes ever on but is taking some convoluted turnings.

D-Day; or, When in Rome...

Castello del Cinderella

Sleeping Beauty re-enactress; or maybe it was Mary Poppins

Rodent re-enactors; actually the Mouse and his symbols were hardly in evidence

Detail of column in Castello del Cinderella

Grand Mosaic in the Castello

Our favorite scene..."It's a Small World," the penultimate hall, where everything goes White and they all sing in English (we call it the Aryan Hall), at the very, very end: an afterthought-ful Native American...

I am very proud of these artsy-fartsy pix

Ditto; double ditto

For reasons almost beyond explaining, we have visited Disneyworld perhaps a dozen times. It all started at Disneyland in August, 1970, the same night the Youth International Party party paid a visit and then the Anaheim police paid a visit, in full riot gear. (Look it up). We were there, but as young tourists and not as yippies. The park closed early, but I probably did not mind. In retrospect, I see now it was not an auspicious beginning.

Our first visit to the Florida version was in 1971, not long after it opened. A bunch of us then-20-somethings piled into a car and drove from Miami to Kissimmee for the day. Being native Floridians and having family in Florida may explain many of our subsequent visits. Having children provides further explanation. Disney is continually unveiling new rides and attractions. Nostalgia must have something to do with it. More recently, a fascination on my part with simulacra and social criticism has more to do with it. Baudrillard (or was it Derrida?) said that DisneyLand/World was the only real thing in America. Everything else is an imitation, but in DisneyRealm they are at least deliberate and reflective and calculating and therefore authentic about it. ("The absence of any reference whatever to Foucault demonstrates the all-pervasiveness of his thought."). Etc.

So there we were again, last Wednesday. I must admit this was the first time I actually enjoyed visiting the place. Maybe I am getting old, even maturing; or just tired; or maybe my brain cells are expiring more rapidly now. Or maybe it was having all the Sherouses aboard (Rebecca and Rachel). We nearly always visit the Magic Kingdom. I don't think we visited any sites we have not visited many times before. Still I enjoyed it, even to the last of the fireworks and monorail and tram rides back to the ("Donald") parking lot.

It was a beautiful day with a moderate crowd. The day also was helped along by some background literature, namely The Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom, which Marie provided; she joined us later for dinner (it was her birthday). Each site, ride, exhibit, whatever, was addressed in this little book, a bit of its history, intent, and technology. Rebecca read the relevant extracts as we waited in lines. Text really helps. It almost became a humanities experience for me...but not quite. Maybe next time.

Missed the Boat

We seriously misunderestimated the time required for an inter-state title change, and so did not get the Grey Wanderer on the boat March 31 for its trip to Southampton (via Bremerhaven). So, now we're aiming for an April 22 ship date, staying with Marie and Norm in St. Cloud, as planned, through April 23 or so. The good news is we will have the camper, and transportation without mooching, through mid-April. There is so much to see and do here in Mordor, I mean, central Florida. The other good news is that we will arrive some weeks before the camper does and will spend those weeks in Ireland as backpackers. Meanwhile, we continue outfitting the Wanderer, planning, coordinating, shopping, returning, shopping, returning (the Myth of the Eternal Return is a Truth) etc.