The Final Five Days in Ireland

Monday, July 13

Today was a wicked busy day for work. I had Friday off and I'm taking tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday off. So I really had to concentrate and get a lot of stuff done so I can enjoy our last few days in Ireland and not have work hanging over my head. 

That meant I was up early and had a solid five hours before I let myself get some fresh air. Earlier in the trip, I missed an adventure to Ballycotton for the cliff walk with John and his family. But it was something I wanted to check out and thought it'd be a great midday break. So off I went. Plus there was a pottery studio I wanted to visit as well. 

Once I drove into Ballycotton, I knew it was going to be a really beautiful adventure. I was greeted with an unbelievable view of the ocean with gorgeous colors and active waves. 

I then meandered my way through town and ended up at the start of the cliff walk. I gave myself an hour, since I had to get back for the second half of my workday—and lots of calls—even though I could have walked for much, much longer! 

The cliff walk was beautiful and I didn't run into that many people. It was another really hot day, but I couldn't be anything other than grateful. The last time I did a cliff walk was in December of 2024 in Ardmore and I remember it being so cold and windy that I was afraid I was going to be blown away. So, I could easily deal with the heat and sun. 

In addition to the beautiful scenery, I was kept company by another audiobook: This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page.

Once back at the house, I got back into work mode for another five hours or so. And then it was time to pack us up from Catherine & Eddie's house and visit with all the family that dropped by to see us off. 

I can't believe how quickly all of this has gone by. It seems like we just got here! 

Tuesday, July 14

Today we (read: I) drove from Cobh to Ballina, with a stop in Ennis. I had plans of stopping at a couple of places along the way—Ross Errilly Friary and Ballintubber Abbey—but with 4+ hours of driving, not including the lunch stop in Ennis, I decided to bag that and just go straight to Ballina after lunch.

The drive from Cobh to Ennis was perfectly fine. Once in Ennis, we stopped at a restaurant I had saved because they were supposed to have a good toastie—they did. I wanted to stretch my legs, so we spent an hour looking around, and getting some fresh air. I'd been to Ennis way back in like 2009 with Amy, but none of it looked familiar. 

John and I had our only tense moment of the trip when we had about 20 minutes left of the drive. I went the wrong way out of Foxford and ended up taking the long way around to Ballina. We hit a detour, which added even more time onto an already long day in the car. Instead of following the signs for the detour, I followed the directions on my phone which took me down a very small country road that appeared to be going absolutely nowhere. And one that John was convinced would land us directly back into the detoured road we had just been re-routed around. I had all the faith in the world in my driving instincts and in the directions from my phone, even as the road was getting narrower and twistier. And then we came upon a ton of donkeys, which of course I had to pull over to photograph. As we drove away, John let me know that he was really close to losing his shit and suggested I turn around to get back onto the detoured route. He said it in a way that I knew there was no arguing with even though I really felt certain my way was going to land us where we wanted. We'll never know!

I did a 600-point turn (at least it felt like it with all that tension in the car), drove back up the very road we'd just come down and rejoined the route John wanted me to take. And not long after, we were in Ballina meeting up with our friend Trash (whose real name is Pauaric). 

I was happy to leave the car and walk or get in a taxi for our accidental pub crawl. And I was really happy to be in Ballina with Trash meeting his friends and seeing his favorite places to drink. We made it to five different pubs before calling it a night.

Wednesday, July 15

With a little bit of a fuzzy head, I walked to the car in last night's clothes (no judging, please) to get a toothbrush, an iPhone charger and some clothes to change into! The first thing I saw was this storefront, which I took as a Godwink from Olivia (who was a hairdresser!):

After a change of clothes, I walked around Ballina, picked up some bits and bobs for breakfast and then went back to the Airbnb to have breakfast with John. Packing up took like no time at all since we had practically nothing with us and we were on the road by 10:00 a.m. 

Ballina is not far from Mary & Alo's, but I had to decide if we were going to have an adventure or if we were going to just go back to the farm and get ourselves all pulled together (read: packed). I decided to do the responsible thing and just go back to the farm. 

Along the way we stopped to take photos of a bunch of abandoned buildings: 

Plus cows, sheep and a church:

We also drove through Easkey, which I've been to a few times because it's a well-known surf spot and they have a great pottery/gift shop. I snapped a few photos of a man biking to the butcher, obviously coming from a dirty job, and biking away. Plus a "traffic jam" in downtown Easkey. 

Leaving Easkey, we stopped by this "tourist attraction." You can read more about it here if you really feel compelled to.

During the drive, my phone was blowing up with not one, but four messages telling me I'd made the local paper! Remember when I talked about Gene being interviewed at the pub a couple of weeks ago and he had me talk to the reporter? Well, turns out she used one of the photos of me and Gene for the center spread image, and the little teaser ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE PAPER and talked about me in the article. 

So before going to Mary & Alo's, we stopped at the store and got ice cream cones and picked up two copies of the Leitrim Observer. While some of the details are off, it's a great article and I LOVE the photo the reporter took of me and Gene. 

Once back at Mary & Alo's, I had the not-so-fun task of getting us all packed since we leave tomorrow for Dublin. I also needed to be very strategic with what was going in suitcases we could pack and leave in the car, what could go in one small carry-on that we'd take into Casey's tomorrow PM, what would need to be carried on, blah blah blah. Luckily, John left me to it and I did a masterful job of getting us completely packed and organized. 

My reward for getting that monstrous task accomplished was calling into Harry and visiting with him for a while. I showed him the photo I had taken earlier in the day of Olivia's Hair Salon in Ballina and I could tell that it touched him too. Plus he said "it brings a tear to me eye." I'm so glad we got a chance to visit, even though it was sad for me to be in the house without Olivia there. 

Back on the farm, we had a delicious BBQ dinner outside because the weather is still freaking amazing! And John stayed behind to watch the England game with Mary & Alo while I got to the pub so I could soak up as much as possible there. 

There was a good crowd by the time I got there, but I got a seat up on the settle bed and wrote in my journal for a while. England lost their World Cup game and people in the pub were going off about it. Shortly after that, John, Mary & Alo came into the pub and we had a nice night visiting, drinking and listening to the music. 

Around 1:00 a.m., John and I left. There were lots of other people still hanging out, including Harry who showed up at 11:55 p.m. (I'll never get used to how late people show up at the pub!). And of course I was tempted to stay and keep visiting, but my sensible side prevailed and off we went.

Oh and one of the highlights of the day was an email I got from a random stranger who saw me in the Leitrim Observer, "I saw your picture in an article regarding Anderson's Thatch Pub on the Leitrim Observer website today. Firstly I want to say you are beautiful, and have a lovely smile." He went on to share a lot more, including a hint about helping facilitate a permanent move to Ireland: "I would like having an American girlfriend, or wife, and I like the Californian accent on a woman. I was wondering if maybe your 18 visits over the years were because you hoped to find a man here?" So that was a funny twist and a great addition to landing in the newspaper! 

Thursday, July 16

Today's task was to get to Dublin. My cousin Casey graciously offered up her apartment since she and her adorable family were leaving to go to the East Coast. I absolutely hate staying in airport hotels the night before a trip. I think it's such a depressing way to end an epic vacation, so getting to stay at Casey's—which isn't that far from the airport—was super convenient. 

Before heading off for Dublin, John and I drove in the opposite direction to Boyle in hopes of seeing my friend Malachy's exhibit for the Boyle Arts Festival. Unfortunately we were a day early and so we didn't get to see him or his art! It was a huge bummer, but I'll never regret making the effort. 

On the way back to say goodbye to Gene, we stumbled upon a cow on the loose in the middle of the country road. John had me pull over at the first house we came upon so he could report the cow who had escaped, and the woman who answered the door was incredibly grateful. This is one of the things I love about John—he'll go out of his way to help out a total stranger and think nothing of it. I've gotta be honest, if I had stumbled upon that cow, I would have kept on driving without letting anyone know of it assuming they'd eventually figure out a cow was missing. 

We had a quick goodbye with Gene, but that too got cut short because a few of his sheep escaped as well and our friend Nessa pulled into the Thatch to let Gene know at exactly the moment we watched them running into the middle of the road. There was no time for a sentimental goodbye with Gene, which is just as well, I suppose!

Our main adventure for the day was going to see one of John's favorite Irish musicians, Sean Keane, who just happened to be playing at a hotel one mile away from Casey's apartment. When we got to Ireland nearly four weeks ago, I looked up all the places Sean Keane was going to be playing. He was playing a lot of places all over Ireland, but none of them were going to line up with where we were going to be...until I saw that he was doing a summer residency at a place in Dublin called the Bonnington Hotel. When I realized it lined up so perfectly with the last night we were going to be in Ireland, I jumped at getting a couple of tickets and then didn't tell John until last night. He was thoroughly surprised and touched. 

My friend Teddy (real name Michael) met us for a couple of pints at the Bonnington before the show. While we were in the middle of talking, John got up because he saw Sean Keane go to the bar. So he went up to say hi, and I love that he did that. 

It's always great to see Teddy! For years and years, upon landing at Dublin Airport, I'd meet Teddy for a couple (or few) pints before heading west. Or he'd come to Gene's and we'd have some fun adventures together. But the past couple of times I've seen him, it's been at the tail end of the trip and usually for far less time than I'd like. I'm just glad we got to share a pint! He always makes me smile. 

The concert was intimate. We were basically in a hotel ballroom and there were maybe 60 - 70 people in attendance. I had sent a message to Sean Keane via Facebook earlier in the day asking if it'd be possible to get a photo with him after the show, but that went unanswered. But Sean was really gracious about sticking around to say hi to people. We were seated all the way in the back and he wasn't going to make his way to us, so I convinced John to go up and ask for a photo. They actually have mutual connections so striking up a conversation with him was not hard to do. And you can tell from the photo how happy John was. 

Friday, July 17

Well. All good things must come to an end. I haven't spent a second of this trip being sad that it's ending or that we have to go back to Santa Monica. I love it there and I love my home. And I feel nothing but gratitude for being able to be in Ireland for so long. 

It's actually unusual for me to not be depressed and sad leaving Ireland. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm sad, but it's a different kind of sad. I started to cry saying goodbye to Mary & Alo yesterday as we were leaving the farm. And I was sad saying goodbye to all of John's family. But the feeling of gratitude was more present than anything else. 

The morning started off with a walk to breakfast to meet up with one of my 3-Day friends who just happened to be in Ireland too! Trish and I bonded in 2023 when we were having surgeries at the same time. And she's been a very generous Cycle for Survival donor. She had reached out to me months ago to let me know she was coming to Ireland and while we said we'd try to meet up, I just didn't know if we'd be in the same place at the same time. 

When I realized we'd be in Dublin yesterday and the first part of today, I reached out to Trish. Yesterday was too hard to make happen since we were trying to squeeze in seeing Malachy and then had the concert—and Casey's about 40 minutes outside of the city center using public transportation. So our only option was to meet this morning before my flight. 

We met at a very nondescript, no-frill's cafe for breakfast and it was just lovely. I loved hearing about Trish's first few days in Ireland and what she had planned. And it was so nice to see her and not be on the 3-Day when you really don't get a lot of time, and certainly no 1:1 time with people. I told her about my trip to Dallas in November to see my favorite Irish band, Amble, and suggested she join me and our friend Gayla. I didn't realize that she lives FOUR HOURS outside of Dallas, but that didn't faze her one bit, and hours later she confirmed she'd gotten a ticket! I love knowing I'll see her again later this year. 

After breakfast it was back to Casey's to pack up and drive to the airport. With two large suitcases, two carry-on suitcases and two backpacks, I dropped John curbside where he navigated all of that luggage inside the airport while I returned the car. 

In all, I drove 4,661 kilometers (or 2,896 miles). Which is absolutely bonkers. That's farther than driving from Santa Monica to New York. (Insert brain exploding emjoi here). And instead of straight interstate and freeways, it was boreens with grass growing down the middle and reversing into hedges to let tractors by.

Our flights were uneventful, thankfully. The layover in Philadelphia gave us a chance to stretch our legs and hang out in the lounge to get a bite to eat. Katie collected us at LAX after a very long day of travel (where the traffic was absolute garbage). But when we got home, John fell into bed while I unpacked nearly everything, took a shower, and got into bed with a smile on my face and a heart filled with gratitude and magic memories of 29 glorious days in my home away from home.

10/10. Would recommed!