Planning the Itinerary

Patrick first suggested that we go to Ireland in early January. He told me that he wanted to take me as a "thank you" for many things. Needless to say, I was thrilled.

I immediately contacted a wonderful lady named Gina Richards, who is a travel agent. I met Gina two years ago under some very difficult circumstances. Gina is the aunt of Officer Rob Targosz, the first Gilbert Police Officer killed in the line of duty. I had known Rob ever since he took an NAU graduate class that I had taught. Over the past two years, I have seen Rob's wife, his father, and his Aunt Gina at several events to honor Rob. Gina helped us plan a self-guided tour through CIE Tours.

We had one fairly large mishap that I laughed about but I know it gave Gina fits. Our travel documents came to her office several weeks ago. She immediately let me know that they had arrived, checked them over, and then sent them to us, along with the tracking number. For some unbelievable reason, the package would arrive in Phoenix, get sent to Chicago, come back to Phoenix, go back to Chicago....... Gina finally was able to have a lady who worked for the U.S. Post Office in Illinois pull the package and fix what ever was wrong with the coding!!! Thank you, Gina.

In the meantime, she gave me a website to go on to find Bed and Breakfasts to stay in while in Ireland. What fun that was!! The website is tandctrade.com. There are over 1200 places to stay and it was great fun looking over the site. We were able to make contact directly with the owners and set up our stay. Each email that I sent to the owners was replied to very quickly. Each person was so nice and so friendly. That is something I remember vividly from our trip 30 years ago. Everyone was so great and so willing to give directions, talk, or whatever.

We will be renting a car in Dublin when we arrive on Saturday about noon. We will drive south to Waterford for Saturday night. We will be staying at Dunroven (website is dunroven-ireland.com). On Sunday we will be staying in Blarney. I couldn't resist spending one night in this town!! The B & B is called Curracbui and the website is curracbui.com. On St. Patrick's Day we will be staying in Limerick. We are staying in a hotel in Limerick instead of a Bed and Breakfast. I wanted to be close to the downtown area for that night. Tuesday we will be staying in Galway in a B & B named Clochard. The website for this is clochardgalway.com. Wednesday takes us to County Mayo where my Great Grandmother, Ellen Nephsay Roughan was from. We will visit Knock, but will stay in the coastal city of Westport in a B & B called Glenderan (glenderan.com). Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we will be in Dublin. From what I could tell from the website, most of the B & B's are not in the middle of the city. So we will stay in a hotel right near St. Stephen's Green.

On Sunday, it is back to Arizona and back to school!! It will be a much needed reprieve to navigate the final nine weeks of the school year!!!!