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Published: September 12th 2011
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With a Celtic Cross on the way to Dublin
Rosanna, Tamara, Bob, and Will about to climb up the tower As this might be our last chance to visit Linda’s sister in Northern Ireland before we returned to the States, we decided to spend our one week summer vacation with her family. It was to be a quick trip; not stopping in England either going or coming back other than necessary.
12 August 1995 Saturday. We left Overijse early and crossed the channel from Calais to Dover. From Dover we continued around on the M25 the south of London and west on the M4 to Wales. We arrived at the ferry terminal in Fishguard by late afternoon.
As I was driving onto the ferry I heard my brakes squeal metal on metal. That meant my brakes were gone. There wasn’t much I could do, but I knew what to expect when I disembarked. We arrived in Rosslare early evening and despite the noise I plowed north, all 250 miles, to Ballymoney, Northern Ireland, trying not to use my brakes if I didn’t have to. We arrived at Shirley’s at about 11 pm.
13 August 1995 Sunday. We attended her church in the morning, and then relaxed for the rest of the day.
14 – 16 August 1995
Posing with the military guards in Portrush
Cameron, Jeremy, Will, Tamara, Rosanna, and Gillian Monday through Wednesday. On Monday I determined that there was no Chrysler garages (I had a 1988 Grand Caravan) in Northern Ireland, so I took the van to a local garage where they assessed the damage and identified the required parts. I called my Chrysler garage in Overijse. They agreed to express mail the parts, which would take until the Wednesday to get to Ballymoney.
As everyone, five in Shirley’s family and five in ours, couldn’t fit in her car, we were pretty much tied down to her home and village. The village is pretty small so almost everything was accessible by walking. However, being a small village, there isn't very much to see or do. So Shirley drove the kids into an amusement center in Coleraine. Linda and I stayed behind. I read books. On Wednesday the parts arrived. The garage spent the day doing the repairs. so I had new brakes and a reliable form of transportation. We looked forward to doing some heavy duty traveling to make up for our days of relaxing.
18 August 1995 Thursday. As the day was warm and beautiful we drove to Portrush for most of the day to enjoy
the beach. We stopped to visit the castle at Dunluce and the Giants Causeway on the way home.
19 August 1995 Friday. We drove to Londonderry and Sligo, Donegal, Ireland, where we had lunch. We continued to the Belleek Pottery factory just back inside the border of Northern Ireland, where we took the tour and bought some beautiful Irish porcelain vases and cream and sugar bowls. We returned to Balleymoney that night.
20 August 1995 Saturday. We said our good byes to Shirley and her kids and started on our way home. We would see them next in 1998 when they visited us in Viriginia. We drove south to the megalithic tombs just north of Dundalk, and took the tour of the massive mounds where Celtic kings were buried. We stopped to see a Celtic Cross and the site where the Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between King James and King William in a dispute over the English throne. We drove through Dublin to Dun Laoghaire (pronounced done leery) where we caught the noon ferry to Holyhead and then continued across northern Wales and the Midlands, and around London, where we stayed in a quaint
hotel in an eastern suburb near the motorway.
21 August 1995 Sunday. We continued around London on the M25 and took the M2 to Canterbury for a quick stop for some last minute shopping at BHS and Debenhams, and then onto Dover. Just at the top of the hill before descending into Dover is a Tesco where we restock our supply of English groceries. We stopped here on almost every trip. We then caught the ferry from Dover to Calais, and from there it was a two hour drive home.
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