potatoes three ways

Ahh....the beautiful Cliffs of Moher... a sunny day in Ireland....apparently a rare treat.....especially at the cliffs.  We enjoyed the Cliffs -

                                        'tis a rare sunny and beautiful day in Ireland!

                                              Peggy, Caroline & Marge

then went to Doolen for lunch. One problem with off season travel is that lots of things are closed! But somehow against all odds we managed to find a restaurant serving lunch.  And what an interesting lunch it was.....the lunch included mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes with the skins on and not to be outdone - boiled potatoes with the skins off! The server asks, "Would you like gravy?" "yes, of course" He replies "very good" as he ladles it over the meat! The meal ended with our first Irish Coffee of the day. Doolean resides by the sea and what a beautiful little seaside town it is!

                                Need to know what street you're on? Good Luck with That!

From Doolen it was on to Limerick. It took quite awhile to reach that destination because we took a side trip to Durty Nellies for a ..... you guessed it.... Irish Coffee! And it was a delight - full of fresh cream. Made it to Limerick and found out why Mary and Margaret weren't too impressed. We took a quick spin around town and then headed back to our nest in Adare. Took a  bit of a break at the carriage house and had.....lets see what did we have? Another Irish Coffee! In all honesty Marge had a boilermaker. We are taking a wee little break and then we are going out to hear some Irish Music and dance a fine jig!

an after note: we danced a fine jig at the pub last night with our 3 new friends: Sam, Magella and John. John is a single man and we thinks he has the hots for Marge!!! More to follow tomorrow....

cead mile failte!

That's Irish for A Hundred Thousand Welcomes!!!

We made it to the land of the little people.

We were so excited about the trip that we began our pub journey in the airport at Chicago!

                                                Enjoying cocktails at the TOCO restaurant

 After Marge befriended the manager, who btw is from Florida and is a Mizzou graduate, he gave us a dessert to share.

                                                    Our two servers who put us over the edge.

We were all over served and loved every single minute of it! On to the plane for wicked overnight flight. Got to Dublin and then had to drive to Adare - we were bone tired. Poor Peggy had to drive and she did a good job on the interstate. When we got off onto a side road sister got a little carried away reading sign that she ventured into the other lane - only for moment....and that's all it took! The headlights were coming at us! She quickly got into the correct lane before any damage was done to the vehicle but I can't say the same for our underpants.

This time - really home again!

On our last few moments at the beach we took a picture of us....

We had our toes near the water and our chairs in the sand....it was good day all around.....

A view from our "spot" on the beach

And all is well....we got up early and got out of the condo around 9:15 - then of course we got all bamboozled by mapquest and the lady on the GPS and it took us 30 mins to get the hell our of dodge! Somehow we got stuck on the back roads to St Louis!!! It was a heck of a drive until we got into Alabama and stopped for lunch - then we got ourselves situated and on to an interstate. At that point we felt like we were flying! The three of decided we are going back to Destin and staying at the same place.....anyone care to join us next time????

Home again, home again

Let's see - where did I leave off? Oh - I know....as I was laying on beach on Wednesday I overheard this cute, young couple next to me talking about going some place that was playing live music that evening. I asked them what was going on and they said "Go to Baystown - they have live music free every Weds night" They said it's a cute litte place with lots of shops and restaurants. So I got directions for us and we went! Of course, not without our usual driving back and forth at least twice because we were lost - but we made it! And what cute little town it was!

There was a fountain in the square with these sayings 

all around it - here's one that I thought was

very profound!

A picture of the town

The band playing

Patrice and Marge waiting for the music

Marge and I doing the same

The restaurant where we had dinner and boy oh

boy was it  a good one! We had grouper 3 ways - P had 

blacked, Marge grilled and me good ole' fried!

Another view of the town

Watching the sunset as we ate our dinner....

Town square

I'm thinking this is the penthouse - too bad

the tree is in the way - it was mightly

fine lookin'

So that was our night at Baystown....I would highly recommend it if anyone is ever down that way.

A day in pictures

Since we didn't plan to stay all day we didn't bring all of "stuff" just lived on the edge with nothing but towels and a selected beverage

Lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise
this was a cheeseburger and fries
as you can see if was very, very good

                                                       What's left of a chicken salad-

then it was off to Winn Dixie to buy our provisions for the week....

our Darling kitchen

Our DARLING living room

a few shot from our balcony - take that sidewalk past the building in the middle and your at the pool. walk past that and your at the ocean....

the gazebo where we gather for drinks in the evening with our new friends

another balcony shot.

Patrice and Marge ready to go to the beach

the beach

P after a few....

ready to go out to dinner

dinner time.....

more pic and tales of our time to follow

on the road again

What started as a cluster continued for many, many miles.... OK - so we left St Louis around 7:30 - who cares that we are running a little behind schedule? The coffee was hot, the car was a rental and rode as smooth as silk - we were starting the journey. Prior to leaving St Louis P asked me to print out a mapquest. She said she had a GPS so we would be all set. I eyeballed the map the that quest came up with and thought - OK OK - go to Memphis and turn on the GPS - I can get us to Memphis and let the GPS do the rest. We were off in a flurry of laughter. Let the stories begin! We talked and laughed and talked and laughed as we sailed the highway. At about 10:30 in the morning I saw the big, giant sign WELCOME TO MISSOURI. Missouri??? Either that sign is wrong or somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn. I pulled onto the shoulder and said "hand me that GPS" (we tried using it at the start of the trip but my two cohearts in crime said they were technically challenged and couldn't figure it out). So I program the lady and thus begins the back road trip to Destin. It took us a few hours to get here but we made memories! At one point as were we meandering through yet another small town in God only knows what state Patrice said "well, at least we can be thankful there isn't a man traveling with us"
I said "Sweet Mother if there the car would have been turned around and we be back in St Louis with the vac kay over!"
We marched on - going further and further into the hinterlands.
Marge said "When I travel I print out my mapquest and put right up by me as I drive"
I said "Yea and you thought we were leaving tomorrow"
Marge said Do we even have a map? I said "No we have the lady"
Thank God we all have a good sense of humor! Somewhere in Alabama we took at potty stop and as I was waiting outside for the girls I struck up a conversation with another women standing there. "Do you know how far it is to Florida?" I said. She looked at me and said "Florida - I have no idea - we are going to blah blah town here in Alabama" I said "Oh and where are you from?" She said "Michigan" I said so when did you guys leave Michigan?" She said "at 5 O'clock this morning" I said "Really- we left St Louis at 7:30 - you left Michigan at 5 and here we meet at a gas station in Alabama.....I think we were lost a whole lot longer that we thought we were!".

Well long story short - WE MADE IT! Now we are inching to find a map so we can see how in the hotel we got here!

p.s. on a side note - our place is just darling - pictures to follow later today......

Zip - A - Dee - Line???

We began our day determined to do nothing but enjoy our infinity pool and our cocktails - we decided to make our arrangements to go whale watching on Friday. As the arrangements were being made somehow Zip Lining came up....that has been on Marge's bucket list for years so what the hotel? We signed on for the 3:00 run and kept on swimming. Sooner rather than later the time came to leave our pool and put on real clothes and head out. When we got to the "place" I have to say I was thinking "Of all the places to zip line - this is not pretty country!" It was the desert but that is where we were. So we get there and get all geared up and start thinking "OK - where are the zip lines?" First the guides or the "poppies" as they refer to themselves gave us the scoop on how to zip line then they said "Are you ready for your Extreme Adventure?" We politely shook our heads NO and Poppie said "OK follow us" - thus began the climb of our lives. We had to freakin' mountain climb to get to the first zip. By the time we got there the four of us were winded. All of the other people were quite a bit younger than us and they just marched up that hill like old age would never catch them. So we did our first zip line which was scary but once you got out there it was pretty fun. Only after we got done with this zipper we had to hike again to the next one and this hike was vertical! Now mind your the guides kept saying to the four of us "come on mama you have nothing to worry about poppie is here to take care of you" so as we are walking up the hill here comes poppie - I tell him to go ahead of me. Well apparently poppie thought I was about to expire because he got on his walkie talkie and started talking majic. Low and behold when it was time to zip this line he said "Mary Lou, Mary Lou you come now. You will go first. There will be an ATV waiting for you at the end of this line to take you to the next zipper". Well I felt kind of stupid, like what was wrong with me? BUT I didn't reject the ride!!! So as Marge, Sue and Caroline huffed and puffed I was on the back of an ATV getting a very nice tour of the mountain. So we zipped and lined all over that mountain and then we came to a place where we had to cross this rickey rope bridge for the last run. Only once we got over there it was really to repel down the face of the mountain!!! Yes you heard me - I said REPEL! In our group there were 7 women and 5 men. As I stated earlier the other women were younger than us and lets face in a lot better shape than me. I was surprised when one of the buff young things got up to the edge of the cliff and walked away saying "I can't do it - I can't do it" The four of us kept ourselves tethered to the rope and waited our turn. Wouldn't you know the next buff gal did the same thing!!! Couldn't do it. Now it was Carolyn's turn and she couldn't do it either! I thought "I don't think I can do it!" Next up was Sue and she went over the side of the mountain like a man! Now it's my turn and I followed her and went down the cliff into the blue abyss. Marge came up and went over the top too. We were all pretty darn happy with ourselves. We got back to the top of the mountain for our last zip and one of the buff girls who didn't repel looked at me and said "I can't believe you did it Mary Lou!" I looked at her and said "I'm not a chicken - just out of shape!" That shut her buff ass up pretty quickly!! We did our final zip and took our sorry asses home!