A beautiful journey

Today's adventure was on the road from Clonegall to Castlecomer. I let Google lead the way and indeed it did a masterful job. What I hadn't expected was that the drive would be through such beautiful territory. The fall colours are not as vibrant as Canada's but there are plenty of changes in the foliage to mark the season. Along one particularly long and winding road, the view through a few clearings was over a flat stretch of the midlands far below me. The sun was shining but I only caught glimpses of the view. There was no place to pull over and take it all in. I allowed myself a fleeting side eye peek and had to store it in the memory bank.

Along the way I turned down the opportunity to visit the graves of Walt Disney's ancestors. I'm sure it would have been, um, extraordinarily similar to visitng the graves of anyone's ancestors. Perhaps one day I'll be consumed with regret, but that day was not today. If I find out the headstones have Mickey Mouse ears I might regret not stopping.

I found the Castlecomer library easily enough. Parallel parking to access the library was a tad trickier. Although driving a manual transmission is not an issue, it does add an extra element of "don't stall now" to parallel parking.

The very helpful librarian brought me the most useful books on local history and I was permitted to photographs as many pages as I wanted to. And I did. The atmosphere was anything but quiet as the local knitting club had assembled in the library. No shushing was possible - their volume was certainly tuned to max. 

I think I found everything I could in the couple of hours I spent there before heading out for lunch and the planned visit in the afternoon. Deciding whether to leave the car and walk, or move it closer to my afternoon destination was made easy by the fact that it was pretty chilly. I moved it and found a space a few feet from the front door I'd knock at a little later.

Catherine Comerford was a true delight. She was very welcoming and certainly knows her local history. She didn't have great breakthrough information for me, but knew someone who might know someone else and made a call. The original source she was thinking of didn't work out, but two more potentials came out of that phone call. I left my contact information and hope to hear something some day soon. 

I purposely left part of my head out of the photo because today was not a good hair day. I'm in desperate need of a trim. I certainly hope that Angela is available soon after I get home.

Anyway, I left Castlecomer wishing that Google didn't start with "head east." How am I supposed to know which way is East? I don't even know which direction I'm facing at home. For once, I headed in the right direction! Yay for me.

I followed the same route home and got here in time for a ham sandwich before heading to Egan's Pub. There I met a Kehoe/Keogh family that just might be distantly related to mine. We'll probably never know but they were very friendly Canadians from Toronto. Later we were joined by some of their local relatives and had a great time.

This was the second day I travelled on a new route and I didn't get lost. By now they are doing triple toe loops in hell on that nicely frozen rink. I wonder, do they have a Zamboni?

Back at the cottage now, it's getting late and the old eyelids are drooping once again. A friend is going to join me for lunch tomorrow and I'll pop over to see Mary Harte once more. She's promised to sing another traditional folk song for me. 

Prospects for returning on Sunday are getting iffy. There are 4 unsold seats and 4 people on standby. First to check-in when the 24-hour reminder appears, will get the first seat. I'm not a nail-biter but this could make me wish I were. I really won't know until after I've returned the rental car and appeared at the gate. 

That's today in a nutshell. Who knows what tomorrow has in store.