We decided to stay closer to the airport on Saturday night since Susan and Tim had a very early flight in the morning. Saturday morning we drove up to the town of Quin, not far from Shannon. Tim's last name is Quinn (the protestant version is with only 1 'n' apparently) so he wanted to check it out. They did have a really nice abbey ruin there, that was actually in pretty good shape. Unfortunately, it was in too good of shape to climb on, but there were lots of rooms and stairwells to explore. Before we left the town, we found an inexpensive B&B to stay for the night. Then we headed down to Bunratty Castle, one of the few castles in Ireland that isn't a ruin. Someone bought it in the 50's and restored it and now you can tour it, along with the adjoining folk park. It was actually quite a nice castle and the folk park had lots of restored old houses and buildings. For dinner, we had reservations in the Corn Barn of the folk park for their 'Irish Nights' festivities. We were greeted inside the door with an Irish Cream aperitif which we thought was a fine way to start the evening. They had a traditional Irish meal (Irish stew of course) with Irish music and dancing for entertainment. During the meal they picked Tim out of the crowd, along with 3 other guys who were all pushing 70, to go up on stage and dance with the Irish dancers. Luckily, they served plenty of wine with the meal to help loosen Tim up a bit. And lucky for Tim I got some good pictures!
It was a long flight home and it became even longer when my flight from Chicago to Dallas got turned around because the cabin wouldn't pressurize. I did get on a flight that night, but I only made it as far as Dallas. At least they put me up in a Hyatt in Dallas. Since I was still on Irish time I had a hard time sleeping so I turned on the TV and saw the story about the Greek airliner that crashed because the cabin lost pressure. That really made me feel good. It's no wonder I got no sleep that night. The next day, Monday, I finally made it to Albuquerque and then drove 8 hours to Loveland, where I had left Abbey and the RV. I was thinking to myself, 'It's good to be home. Well, back in the US at least.' For now, I guess home is where my RV is.
Quin Abbey
Bunratty Folk Park
Dancin' Tim