Fifth Ireland Post: Our First Ruins
Gina commented on the wonderful pictures that have been showing up in posts, and credit needs to be given. Buds chose a new camera before this trip, and he has been working hard both to take gorgeous photos, but also to clean up the photos post-production. Any photos that are a little haphazard, or that only give you a general idea of what’s going on…those are my photos. For me, photos are a piece of creating the memory that supports the story I’ll write with the photo.
For Buds, the photos are stories in themselves, as well as art. I’m grateful we have pictures of both types to create our family memories.
Another compliment to Buds, he’s been putting in very long days to get Irish Tourist time with the children and me, while also putting in nearly full days with Juice. That means he gets up in the morning with The Buster at 6 or 6:30, works for a couple hours until we leave for an outing, then comes back and works into the evening to have time with his teammates who are 5 or 6 hours behind in the states. Hopefully it’s working well for everyone, but I’m really glad he’ll get to sleep in on Saturday morning.
Back to our adventures:
On this outing, we were headed for our first ruins. The town of Killmalock is only half an hour from where we are staying, so it was an easy drive.
We toured the ruins of the Dominican Priory, and it was amazing. When I tell you that we were touching stones that were put into place BEFORE 1320…yes, the 14th Century…how does the mind even contemplate that?!
We were the only ones there, and we all loved it. It’s difficult to explain how amazing it was.
From there we “toured” the town museum, which is one room with a diorama of the town showing where the different artifacts and ruins can be viewed.
From there we walked to the ruins we had seen from the Priory, which were enclosed with the cemetery. Also interesting, but somehow missing the power and presence of the Priory.
Next up: Buds and Ginnie write a joint post about what this trip has taught them about preparations for the Trip Around the World, and what interesting things they’ve noticed about Irish life in general.
