Train to Backpacking

 Because we were in a 12 bed mixed dorm room in the hostel, we ended up waking up a little earlier than anticipated. Of course, the nap the day before, and the jet lag may have also played a role in things. It worked out being awake early, though, as we were able to walk through Trinity College, an area we missed the day before. So, we packed up, grabbed a continental breakfast of meats and cheeses, and headed to Trinity College in an out of the way path to the train station. 

Trinity College has some amazingly beautiful architecture. On campus, there is the Book of Kells experience, which we did not decide to see this visit. Again, this may be an option for a future visit. Still, we were able to wander the campus and found our way out the other side. On that side of campus, we found a park with a statue of Oscar Wilde, and of course I had to take photos. We then checked out the neighborhood a little as it was the art district with museums and such. 

It was then time to make a beeline for the train station so we could catch the first train on a Sunday morning down the coast to Rathdrum, where we would pick up a taxi to Glenmalure and start our hike along the Wicklow Way waymarked trail. The Wicklow Way is one of Irelands oldest long distance hiking trails, and hosts an ultramarathon each year. I figured this was one way to convince my husband to backpack with me in Ireland. We were only doing 4 days along the trail, starting in the middle and hiking back to Dublin, but I was certain it would be a great way to experience the country. 

For backpacking stories along the Wicklow Way, and later the Kerry Camino, please check out my backpacking blog at https://www.backpackermdness.blogspot.com. All backpacking related touring will be on that blog and regular touring of Ireland by car, bus, etc will be covered here. So, the next post will be our return to Dublin followed by our travel day to Killarney.

Dublin in a Day

 We landed on time at the Dublin airport after a night of little sleep and some good turbulence coming into landing. A quick pass through customs, and we were off to the luggage carousel to retrieve our backpacks.  In a groggy state, we grumble at each other as we fix our packs and try to figure out how to get downtown to our hostel. We decide on not the cheapest option due to being tired and pay 20 euros to take an express bus, for which we waited 10+ minutes. It drops us a few blocks from our hostel, and we hoof it over to the hostel, where we are allowed to store our bags until we can properly check in around 15:30. The gal at the desk gives us tons of options for things to see and places to go. We already had a list of things, but listened to her advice and at least went to Brother Hubbards for brunch. 

After we were fed, we wandered off towards our first appointment...the Guinness Storehouse Tour/Experience. We wandered across the Ha'penny Bridge over the river Liffy and headed to the far reaches of Dublin for our 13:00 appointment to learn about Guinness and have the taste of guinness that everyone said, "you need to do when in Ireland." 

Along the way, we wandered upon the Dublin Castle, which didn't quite look like a castle as much as a fort. So, we were a little confused. Due to time constraints, I simply took a photo, looked around the courtyard a little, and we moved on towards Guinness. As we used Google maps to help guide us towards our destination, we wandered past more places we would have loved to actually tour had we the time to do so.

One of the places I would have loved to have spent more time was Christ Church cathedral. It was large and connected to Dublinnia, which tells the history of the Vikings coming to Ireland. Unfortunately, visiting and touring this spot will have to be another trip. The cathedral was amazing from the outside. I can only imagine what it looked like inside, and the history would be amazing to learn as well.

From Christ Church Cathedral, we made our way to St Patrick's Cathedral. Why wouldn't one stop to check out this place with its gardens when in Dublin? Again, I would have loved to have toured the inside, but we were on a mission to get to Guinness in time for our tour. The park and gardens of this beautiful cathedral were beautiful to see as we wandered a little to take photos of the outside. 

After St Patrick's Cathedral, we made our way to the Guinness neighborhood, where we stopped at St James Church, where the Camino Society of Dublin have an office, and I purchased my passport for the Camino de Santiago. It is said that many Irish Pilgrims made their way from Ireland to Spain and on to Santiago de Compostela. There are many routes in Ireland that can be used to complete a total distance of 75km, and that will be used to be able to then go to the north of Spain, and hike to Santiago de Compostela from there to obtain the completion certificate of having completed the Camino de Santiago. With the passport, one just needs to obtain a certain number of stamps from certain places to show you have gone the distance. The St James Church, Pearse Lyons Distillery, and Guinness were 3 places I was able to obtain stamps easily along what is referred to as the Camino de Dublin. Later in our trip, we will complete the Kerry Camino, which was over 75km.

Finally, we made it to Guinness. We had a little time to spare, so we wandered towards the jaunting cabs, talked to the horses, and scoped out the outside of the guinness complex. Yes! It is a complex of buildings that take up a large portion of that area of Dublin. The line was already beginning to form, so we decided to get in line, and watch the people as they arrived. We didn't have to wait long.

As we entered the 6+ floor building, we found our way into a welcoming hall with the gift shop on our left and history and information boards about Guinness on our right. We listened to a little welcome presentation that reviewed the rules of the place and a little of the layout before being released to wander along our self guided tour of Guinness. 

We wandered around learning about the brewing process, walking through hops forests, and past waterfalls that fell in shapes of Guinness pint glasses and the iconic Guinness harp. As we toured, we walked in circles up and up with our final destination being the Gravity Bar at the top of the building, which was said to give the best views of Dublin. 

My husband and I have been to the Coors Tour here in Golden, CO a bunch of times since moving here, and so the brewing process was not new to us. We also are somewhat of beer snobs, so we are familiar with Guinness and the stout style. We had to say that the spectacle of the Guinness tour was pretty fantastic compared to Coors; however, we never felt part of the beer/brewing process as we never were seeing the true production line like we do at Coors. At Coors, you get to see the copper kettles, the malting area, the idea area, and all the steps of the process in creating Coors. At Guinness, they simply had signs and videos telling you about it and its purpose in relation to the taste and appearance of Guinness. By the end, we felt that Guinness and Coors could work together to create some amazing brewery experiences.  This was discussed amongst ourselves as we took in the views from the gravity bar and drank our complimentary Guinness. The views really were pretty amazing.

Once we were done with our Guinness, we both were pretty wiped out, and decided we had just enough time to quickly walk back to the hostel, get properly checked in, take a quick nap, change clothes, and head to our Whiskey Museum tour at 17:00. At this point, we had basically been awake for a little over 24 hours with maybe a small nap on the plane across the Atlantic. So, off we headed realizing there was definitely a more direct route we could have taken than the weaving in and out of places that we took to get to Guinness.

After our nap and refresh, we headed out on the town for the evening. We had limited time in Dublin, so we were trying to do as much as possible in the day. The Whiskey Museum was not far from the Abbey Court Hostel, where we were staying, and we were able to check out some sights along the way. One of these sites was the Molly Malloy statue, which it is said that if you rub her breast you will experience good fortune. Looking at the bronze statue, you could tell many had done just that, and because my husband would not let me photograph him rubbing her breast, I had to settle with a stranger doing it. 

We got to the Whiskey Museum with enough time to check out the gift shop and wait a little for our tour to start. Like the guinness tour, this tour also had us climbing in an upward fashion to learn about whiskey. What is it with the Irish and their tours climbing stairs? Anyway, we learned about Uisce Beatha (ishka baha - pronunciation), the water of life...AKA whiskey, and its history in Ireland from creation through prohibition and beyond. It was an interesting tour with talking photographs (a thing I later found to be popular in Ireland) of the various distilleries that survived to this day. At the end, we enjoyed tasting 3 Irish whiskeys and hearing about the 4th one that the premium tour got to taste, which happened to be the one I bought for St. Patrick's Day this year; so we didn't feel like we were missing out. We didn't do the premium tour, which basically consisted of a 4th taste and a souvenir glass because we knew the glass would probably not make it home. 

With whiskey knowledge in our heads, we headed to dinner at The Church. This is a place my husband had found and decided he wanted to take me for my birthday dinner. My birthday wasn't for another week, but he wanted to make sure to take me to a nice place for dinner. It was a pub/restaurant that had been created within an old church in Dublin. We were seated above the main floor of the restaurant, and had a great view of the stage where there was music and Irish dancers. We asked the waitress to suggest a whiskey despite having just come from the Whiskey Museum, and she pointed us to the Jameson Black Barrel. It was delicious. The food was good, dessert was great, and the atmosphere was wonderful. We both hit the restrooms before departing. 

These bathrooms were located in the basement area of the restaurant, which housed another part of the restaurant/pub/bar. The front desk gal at the hostel told us we needed to check out the restrooms, and she was not wrong. It was like one big restroom with just the back wall having a sign designating one side as ladies and the other side as gents. When I came out of my stall, I could look straight into the men's restroom, and they could look into the ladies room. It made us laugh. No! There were not men standing at urinals or women with their skirts hiked up playing with their pantyhose or anything like that, but it still made us chuckle. The gal from the hostel was right in telling us to check them out. 

Now that our bellies were full, we wandered back towards the hostel with a plan to wander through the Temple Bar area. We had briefly checked it out during daylight hours, but it was recommended in the plethora of YouTube videos we watched to check it out at night. It was definitely busier than it was during the daylight. We thought we would just pop into a pub and grab a drink, but the pubs along the Temple Bar area were bursting at the seams. So, we took video and photos and continued towards our hostel. Maybe another trip to Ireland we will find ourselves grabbing drinks in the Temple bar area. Tonight, we were reading for bed as we had to get up early enough to catch a train the next morning.

And we are off...or are we?

One never sleeps great before air travel, or maybe I should clarify that I don't sleep well before traveling. So, I went to bed late, slept a little. Then stewed and fussed for about an hour before I finally decided to check our flight status at 05:00.

"Flight Cancelled"

What? Excuse me? Ummmm...I have plans and bookings in Ireland...nudge, nudge...honey, you awake?

Groggily, my husband responds. I tell him our flight is cancelled, and ask if he got notified. He checks his phone to see he received a text at 02:30 about the cancellation due to mechanical issues. United is working on rebooking us. We start looking up flights, and find one for 10:00, an hour earlier than planned. 

My husband tries to do it through the Internet vs talking to an actual human being, until he's frustrated, and I convince him to just call. He gets through to an Air Canada agent, who transfers him to a United agent because that's who the flight was booked through. We are able to get booked on the 10:00 departure, and my nephew artfully got us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. 

We check our backpacks and head through security without problem. At our gate, we breathe easy and wait to board. No problems there, and we are up in the air on time to Toronto. 

Over the Great Lakes and down into Toronto. We get off the plane, and start a long walk to the rest of the airport wondering what it will look like for customs. There are kiosks to register at with a couple of airport employees assisting travellers. We are asked where we came from and where we are heading...Denver to Dublin. They scan our boarding passes and our passports and scoot is through and across to the international terminal. 

Now, I'm thinking this terminal is going to be large because supposedly Toronto is one of the largest airports. We explore it to figure out what we want to eat and to kill the 6 hour layover. It took maybe 45 minutes to see everywhere we had access to go. So, we grabbed a quick bite, wandered through the Duty Free shop just because, grabbed some Tim Horton's, and eventually found a seat to wait out the remainder of our time. 

Since we were heading out on an overnight (red eye) to Dublin, we figured we should grab dinner before departure. Nowhere in the airport served Guinness, so my husband was unable to get a taster as close to our Dublin Guinness experience as he had hoped. A couple hours later, we boarded the plane and were off for Dublin, excited and tired.

What started out in chaos, calmed and worked out, allowing us to make the original timed flight from Toronto to Dublin. Let the vacation begin!

Another adventure... international this time, but without Jasper.

Soon, I'll be heading to the airport to fly to Ireland! I'm super excited, but crazy anxious. I don't fly well...and I don't leave Jasper easily. It has been almost a year in the making, and since December that plans have actually been formulating. As I said, I don't leave Jasper easily, nor do I leave him with just anyone. So, my sister volunteered herself and her eldest to take care of Jasper. I'm nervous, but grateful. 

The vacation time is 16 days, but 3ish days are spent traveling to and from Ireland. We fly into Dublin, arriving about 8am after leaving Denver about 11am the previous day. It's a long day of travel with a red eye flight to complete the journey. I hope my husband survives it. 

The first day is packed with walking Dublin trying to hit the Dublin Castle, St Patrick's Cathedral, Guinness Storehouse, Christ Church, St James Church, The Whiskey Museum, Temple Bar area, and so much more. Then, we spend 4 days backpacking Inn to Inn along the Wicklow Way, Ireland's oldest long trail (I'll be posting those adventures on my backpacking blog..."Kasey Takes a Hike" or backpackermadness.blogspot.com). We return to Dublin for a night before taking a train to Killarney with my friend & goddaughter. Killarney will then be the hub for the next 3 days, where we will hopefully make it out to Cork & the Blarney Castle/stone, tour the ring of Kerry, horseback ride, visit Killarney National Park, and possibly hike the pilgrimage route up Mt Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula. After being tourists, we will be dropped off in Tralee by my friend and goddaughter, where we will start the Kerry Camino. The Kerry Camino is a portion of The Dingle Way. They have a set of passport stamps along the way that a person collects. Once they have completed the route from Tralee to Dingle & gotten all their stamps (8 total, I think), they receive a certificate of completion. I love completion certificates of trails I have backpacked, so of course I had to do this adventure. From Dingle, we make our way to the Kerry airport, where we rent a car. We then drive the Cliffs of Moher to Galway, where we have an extra day to checkout Connemara National Park before returning to Dublin for the night before departure home. 

There is so much to see & do during the next few days/weeks. I'm excited, overwhelmed, and hopeful all goes well. The weather looks like rain often, but maybe my hiking patch of sunshine will be with us on the backpacking portions as well as the horseback riding. We will see. Stay tuned for photos and stories of our adventures in Ireland.

Border Checkpoints and Tombstone, AZ

 At this point, my path crosses with my father again. This time, he is not suffering from heart issues/chest pain. He and his wife have returned to get his car from Tucumcari and he has driven himself to Los Cruces. So, we meet for breakfast before both going our separate ways, planning to meet up again later. A road trip is never complete without a trip to Cracker Barrel, so that’s where we met for breakfast. Another great stop before continuing into what could be the more dangerous part of the trip for this yankee northerner. 

I toured around Las Cruces before heading further west along the border. There are a lot of pretty cool places I didn’t know about in the Las Cruces area. I’m going to need to return and explore some more.

From the town center, I ventured out to find some curiosities and oddities, but found so much more. There was a whole area to explore related to dinosaur tracks. I walked a little along the path, but then decided I needed to get going, if I was going to make another spot I had planned, plus I was planning on the backroads across as much as possible. 

As I traversed the back roads of New Mexico, I saw many metal art stands and one junction even had a ton of metal statues that of course I needed to stop and take photos. From aliens to Ronald McDonald there were so many different statues. I loved it. 

After the metal statues, I continued to venture into the back country of southern New Mexico. I wandered upon a ghost town, where it was expensive and long to tour it. They had a campground and tons of “stuff” all over the place. I think it would be a very interesting tour, but did not have the time for it all. So, it will hopefully be revisited in the future. One ghost town I did get to visit along the Geronimo byway was pretty neat. 

With the back country exploration complete, I once again headed west. This time I figured I would head south to Tombstone. Cutting off all these other stops gave me extra time, thus allowing me to hit Tombstone. 

It was an interesting trip towards the southern border and tombstone. I guess I didn’t realize how close to the Mexico border Tombstone lies. As I headed south, there were signs warning of the border patrol checkpoint. That seemed weird to a northerner like me. We don’t have border patrol check points 40 miles south of the northern border. So, why would I have them that far away from the border in the south? Well, guess what…they do exist that far north of the southern border. I passed through my first checkpoint of the trip. I slow down, roll down my window, and am prepared with my passport, drivers license, and possibly anything else they might need. The border patrol person asks, “are you American?” I reply, “yes.” He waves me through. I’m flabbergasted. The northern border when I cross it asks way more questions than that. I know this is just a check point, but still…

Another 10 miles, and I’m in Tombstone. What an interesting little town. Definitely there for the tourism. I knew I had to go to a bar and have a whiskey. So, that was the first part, after parking. After 1 shot of whiskey, I wandered town finding myself in the Bird Cage learning about the history of the brothel. I toured the place hoping to find spirits. Unfortunately, I did not find any. After the bird cage, I hit another bar drinking spirits and hoping to maybe see some spirits. When nothing turned up, I headed back to my car and back north for the night. 

Crossing back through the check point, I was concerned I would be stopped for the smell of alcohol on my breath. Again, they simply waved me through. I didn’t even have to slow down, roll down my window, or answer any questions. Again, I was absolutely floored. Could I not be bringing illegals into the US in the back of my car? WOW! Such a weird experience. It made me feel a little cocky at the same time.

 

Parting ways with Jasper and closing in on the southern border

 This morning we found a place to charge the Ioniq5, which my husband had driven from Colorado to meet in San Antonio. While Jasper & I were charging the car, my husband found a park nearby to go run. We met up there after the Ioniq was charged, and got to take a very nice 3-4mile walk. Who knew such a beautiful place existed in the middle of nowhere Texas? 

After our walk/run, we found a dog friendly brewpub nearby for lunch. It was a beautiful day to sit outside and enjoy some burgers and beers. There was a large yard for dogs to interact, if they could do so in a friendly manner. We are never sure how interactive Jasper is feeling, so he hangs out with us for safety. The food was good, but it was time to part ways again. I needed to get further west to ensure I would be to San Diego in time for Legoland with my goddaughter.

  

 

I moved quickly through Texas getting views of the rugged mountains to the south while also seeing the steel wall that has been built along the border. It fascinated me and yet frightened me at the same time. Recent stories of kidnappings along the Texas/Mexico border had this solo female anxious about stopping anywhere but the end destination of Las Cruces, NM. Passing through El Paso, TX and seeing Ciudad Juarez just across the highway was interesting…they looked the same. I didn’t see a big wall dividing the 2 cities like I had seen along the highway prior to this point. It was dark, though, and I really just wanted to get to a city where I have visited previously. I took the decorations in the lobby of the hotel as a good sign that I would have luck on my side for the remainder of my trip.