Day 08 Today was a travel day, moving from Galway Bay area, to Cobh. Galway Bay was our base for setting out and seeing some of the sights we wanted to see. Leaving Galway Bay, we went up to see the Cliffs of Moher, before turning and heading for Cobh. Today was mostly driving, which is why there are not as many pictures. We saw cows, sheep, horses and donkeys as well as stone walls, of various degrees of upkeep. In Cobh, we are going to begin searching for the Keating connection to Ireland, where we know some things, but want to fill in the gaps if we can. Using the Water’s Edge Hotel as our base while here. Dinner at the hotel, finish the blog entries and get caught up with today’s activities. It shall ... read more

Day 06 Today was a sight seeing day. We are going to the little town of Cong. The name, Cong, comes from Conga, which describes an isthmus, or a piece of land between two bodies of water. There are lakes on both sides of this area, hence the name. In the movie, Quite Man, the town is called Insfree. The economy of this little village is based on tourists coming to see the place where the movie happened. It has been almost 70 years since the movie was made, and it is still drawing tourists. The story line of the movie is a good one, and the movie was fun to watch. We want to watch it again when we get home, now that we have seen the town. Electricity was not present when the filming ... read more

Day 04 We left our cozy B&B for the Slieve League Cliffs. You pass though a gate, which you much open and close like on a farm, because there is livestock grazing freely on the green grass. Gorgeous views on the way up, and on the way down from the Cliffs. We saw someone’s peat drying, some little lambs, and very pretty scenes. On the way to Sligo, we stopped in Donegal to see the city, and pop into some shops to see what the local economy was like. Most of the day was driving and seeing more of the Wild Atlantic Way route. Some roads today were busier than the roads we have been on so far, but still not too crowded and very scenic with farms, homes, small towns and lots of sheep, some ... read more

Day 2 We left our lovely Claremont Arms Hotel, after enjoying a free breakfast. The WiFi was also free, and was not throttled, I saw a full 70MB download, and 50MB upload speeds. But enough geek-speek, we are here to see Ireland, and do family research on some ancestors. Mike’s wife Gail has ancestors in Northern Ireland, around Coalisland, Ardboe, Clonoe and other little towns along a very scenic and lovely path to Londonderry. We stopped as several places, talked with some locals about old cemeteries and parishes where they could have been baptized, married or buried. Unfortunately, many of the written records were destroyed in fires during the periods of unrest, when Dublin and areas around were burned. We were able to find all the cemeteries, but not all the people we thought might have ... read more

After a brief hotel breakfast in Jacksonville, Texas, we rode to Rusk, to get aboard the train to Palestine. This is not a regular scheduled ride for people to travel between the two cities, but a scenic tour of the Piney Woods of East Texas. During Dogwood blooming season, or changing of the leaves, it would be more scenic, but today, everything was gray, overcast, but a very nice trip without the potential postcard views. In 1970, the Rusk depot was built to resemble a 1920's style depot. In the late 1800's, the Texas Prison System built a short run of track, which was the start of the current Texas State Railroad track, to access the hardwood timber, which was used to make charcoal for the prison iron smelting operation. They made the iron for the ... read more