Wheeler Visit

In May we had a wonderful visit from Jane and Millie Wheeler (our very good McAlester friends) and Sam Bowman (our new good OKC friend). They stayed long enough to do most of our regular tours as well as to tour a little on their own, rambling around Tralee, going to church with me (Church of Ireland) and to a Catholic Mass at St.John's in Town Centre. We had some good weather and some ...well,some Irish weather, but we always had a good time. Here are a few of the pictures.We did go to Fenit and Ardfert, but it was really windy and I don't think we have any pictures except this one eating Sunday lunch in the Tankard near Fenit- which was really nice. (All of the pictures of this day are by Jane).

That same Sunday  we were invited to a First Communion Party for Yann. This was an interesting Irish experience for our guests and lots of fun and good food and drink. The first picture is Dana perfecting the lemon tart he took for his contribution.

Lucca with new dart gun.                                                                                  MFE and Yann

A group showing the scope of the party!

 Both of these are Yann and Dana having a good time!

We got a pretty nice day for the long tour to Glenbeigh, Cahersiveen, and Valentia Island.

First, in Cahersiveen, we saw Ballycarbery Castle.

 Dana says this next one is one he took from atop the castle as Millie got ready to crawl under the barbed wire to get in to the castle grounds. (Not true - she was acutally reading the sign about the castle!)

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Then we did some climbing around the ring fort.

Below is a shot inside the huge Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church in Cahersiveen Town Centre - not sure we've had a picture of this on here before.

 Next we took the tour of Valentia Island. These pictures include a few of the Slate Quarry in action and one of the Mary Grotto high above the quarry.

 This is the view from the little beach on the island and a couple of the beautiful flowers along the way.

Another day was spent on the "Killarney Day". We went to Ross Castle, though only Dana and Sam actually took the tour. Here we are approaching the castle, and Jane and I in the waiting room (which is actually very interesting with lots of historical info).

We also went to Muckross House and Gardens, Torc Falls, and Ladies View (the Ladies View picture is the lead picture of this blog posting).

 I really like this one of Millie and me at Ladies View. I love (and she probably got tired of) introducing her with "she and my mother were our Girl Scout leaders when we were little girls"!

Dana really needed a tree hugger, and Jane seemed willing and eager to comply!

The culminating event of the week was a trip to Dingle. We went on Friday, over the Conor Pass,so here are pictures of Sam at the lake above the Falls and putting his rock on top of the "I made it"pile (I'll let you decide if he really carried that big rock up there!)

 We ate lunch at Murphy's Pub as usual, then they toured the town while Millie and I graciously "broke in" our B&B rooms. We then had a real McAlester experience - we met up (as planned) with Wesley, Emmy, Ronnie, and Janis - all fellow MHS grads (well maybe a tad younger than Jane and I) for dinner and a little pub music. This was really fun and amazing to have us all together in Ireland. Saturday we went on the Slea Head Drive in two cars. It was a beautiful day and lots of fun.

Then we left them in Dingle and we headed back to Tralee for the Wheeler/Wheeler/Bowman group to pack up and be driven to Shannon the next day. A really fun visit!