Placing the Puzzle Pieces

Saol fada chugat!*

Long life to you!

Well, last night we took the itinerary and sent off emails to the 8 B&Bs we're hoping to stay in. We heard back from 6. Not bad. An immediate return rate of 75%. Interestingly enough, we're hearing back from the single night folks. We heard from one of the double nighters, Greta Doyle in Killarney. She has no availability for our planned time there. That's understandable. Killarney is a good size town, quite popular with tourists and our stay there has us arriving on St. Patrick's Day. So... we poured through the books and found a place we have high hopes for. It's set right in the Gap of Dunloe... well, on the edge, with views from the house. Now, the Gap of Dunloe is one of my favorite spots in Ireland so this just might be a "meant to be" thing. Fingers are crossed that we hear back tomorrow from the O'Sullivans with a favorable response. And, fingers are crossed that we hear back from our Sligo contact and the contact near Waterford. The sooner we get this itinerary nailed down, the sooner we can move on to other tasks.

(Not sure what all those tasks are, but I know they're there!)

Alex is coming for the weekend tomorrow, so the planning will probably slow down for a few days. It will be great to have him here. We will miss him like crazy while we're gone. Our hope is that I can connect with some of his staff who have email and I can use email as one way to keep in touch. We're also taking John's phone (it's supposed to work fine from Ireland) and will call Alex every few days. I think we'll be better off to try to reach him in the early morning. Our usual 8:30 p.m. evening chats (well, sorta... Alex usually starts calling about 5:00 p.m. and calls several times before that 8:30 magic hour!) won't work because 8:30 in Indiana will be 1:30 a.m. in Ireland. My plan is to be well into dreamland by 1:30!

I'm still struggling with the whole idea of how to ensure that my pictures are safe during our travels, without purchasing a bazillion 1GB flash cards. I had my eye on a Delkin BurnAway on ebay, but lost track of the time and missed the end of that auction. I have my fingers crossed that the seller has more and will relist. Keep your fingers crossed, too.

Now... time for bed! Stay tuned!

Dawn

*Sail fod/ah cu/gut