Planes, Trains and Orthotics: A Middle-Age Woman's Guide to Travel

 Being on an organized tour is not for the faint of heart. In four short days, we have covered so many miles and seen so many beautiful things. When I think about this vacation in the future however, the word “relaxing” will not come to mind. Our storytelling tour guide must have been an amiable drill sergeant in another life because she runs our platoon like a fine oiled machine.  The phrase “on and gone” has a new meaning to us all: “Be on the bus at the designated time because we are leaving.”  For the most part we have 42 people who are either guilt ridden Catholics like myself or our girl Sheila has us all scared to death that the bus will leave without us.  And that is why I haven’t written in a few days. I haven’t been able to “put pen to paper” at night because I can barely get my teeth brushed due to exhaustion and I’m afraid to type in the bus for fear of getting sick—even while wearing my Sea Bands!  Instead of writing about what we saw while getting on and off the bus, I th

We “garls” have had a wonderful time these last three days getting to see the sights and sounds of the fair city of Dublin.  Rick Steves and the folks at Fitbit would have been proud of the number of steps we took in our quest to see all things Dublin including Trinity Church, the Book of Kells, Christchurch and St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Guinness Storehouse. But our time together was not all about fun and learning—we had work to do and movies to make! Eight months ago, Pat, a 40 year, recently retired English teacher began her own YouTube channel, “Book Chat with Pat.” The channel with more than 1800 followers, covers a panoply of literary topics, including the works of many famous Irish authors.  Pat hoped to film a set of “shorts,” videos of less than a minute, highlighting as many of these well-known authors as possible.  The problem was that the idea was a great concept, but the details had been, shall we say, less than fleshed out.   Although bleary-eyed, on the morning we a

 Besides the anticipation of journeying to and arriving in Ireland, there was a bit of excitement along the way—and it started while in the plane. We were just minutes from landing when a fight broke out in the back of the plane.  A woman behind us started yelling, “Your child has been kicking my chair for the last six hours.”  The parent’s response, “Well that’s not my problem,” was not an acceptable to the woman, who then proclaimed, “Well, it’s not my problem, he’s your child!” The scuffling went back and forth a few times until we heard, “Mind your own business!”  Apparently, someone nearby tried to unsuccessfully intervene. We don’t know this for a fact as we couldn’t turn around due to the newly acquired “kricks “ in our necks from lack of sleep as well as our sardine-like positions in seats 27 A,B, and C.  None of us could understand why anyone would pick a fight at the end of a journey but maybe, between the kicking and feeling like a canned fish, she had had enough. The other

I  once read that friends are like four-leaf clovers: hard to find and lucky to have.  For more than 50 years, I have been blessed to have two “four-leaf clovers” in my life and tomorrow, we are headed to Ireland together. My friend Pat insists that we met in kindergarten. Truth be told, except for the classroom’s play rotary phone and our frequently  grumpy  teacher, I have few memories of that  time , nearly 60 years ago.  The good news is that I do remember her just a few years later in fourth grade…or was it third? My friend June, however, I do remember the exact moment I met her. We were beginning our first year in junior high school and we were both in the same homeroom.  As our  young, somewhat dashing  70’s  attired  homeroom teacher   ( I t was 1972 , after all ) required us to sit in alphabetical order. As June’s last name began with a “B and mine with a “C,” I sat right behind her.  I am also  absolutely certain  that the three of us did graduate from high school together in