pagesofjulia

Just a note to say I’ll be gone for a bit! Husband and I leave tonight for Ireland! How exciting is that? Neither of us has ever been before; I’ve seen a little bit of England. We’ll be meeting one of my best friends, Barrett, in Dublin, and he’s done this several times, so hopefully we’re in good hands. Our plan is to head west from Dublin across the country to the west coast and then north, to see Belfast (for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic leaving from there! there is a festival). Top aspirations include finding great pubs & great beer; seeing some history (old pubs, old buildings, Newgrange); beautiful natural scenery; and soaking up some culture (traditional live music, please). Really I don’t know what all we’re doing; Barrett has done pretty much all the planning that’s been done and we’ll be doing a fair amount of playing it by ear (Husband’s preferred style). I’m ready for adventure!

So what am I reading? I have had a certain amount of angst about this. At this point I’m pretty sure I’ll be taking Doug Peacock’s Walk It Off, a memoir of his relationship with Edward Abbey, and Doug Magee’s Darkness All Around, a thriller kindly sent me by the author. Will definitely take Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, which (gasp) I have not read yet. And naturally those Ireland travel guides that I haven’t cracked yet but will at least skim if not study on the plane. That would be 50 Best Pubs Crawls in England, Scotland, Wales & Ireland, lent by my parents, and Lonely Planet’s Ireland 2012, lent by my library. I’m not sure if that’s going to do it, though, and I don’t want to take Houston Public Library’s copy of Aldo Leopold’s Sand Country Almanac because I don’t want anything to happen to it, plus it’s coffee-table size, awkward for travel. Hrm. I may have to grab things off my plentiful TBR shelves on the way out the door. The iPod can come with its audiobooks too of course. But I’d prefer to keep my ears open on this trip with friends. Oh, and Husband is bringing Fire Season.

And what does this mean for the world of pagesofjulia? Never fear: I have posts scheduled to come up almost daily, like normal, while I’m gone. (I’m taking the two Sundays off to get through the break.) But just be aware that I won’t be responding to your comments for a bit; I will be catching up April 9 and 10 when I’m home. Please come visit me here and comment! But be patient with me in getting back to you. I’ll be offline.

Finally, burglars, beware! We do have a housesitter. 🙂

Have a great week-plus and now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Filed under: miscellaneous | Tagged: personal, travel |