Mighty Good Craic!

We're headed to Ireland!

Due to scheduling conflicts and typical family summer chaos, there was no true 25th wedding celebration this past July when we hit the big milestone. Laura and I discussed the fact that since there was only two days allowed for our honeymoon by a not-so-people-oriented Squadron Commander back in the day, that we could just celebrate the 25th Anniversary in much the same manner: a trip to IKEA or Costco, maybe, or an overnighter to the Motel 6 in Zanesville, OH... (wonder if the shaking bed still costs a quarter??)

Thankfully, fate had other ideas!

Last Spring, Jill decided her college experience wouldn't be complete without a Semester Abroad, and took it upon herself to investigate the process, visit the Study Abroad Office on campus, get all the info and make her applications. Her first choice, St. Andrews in Scotland fell through when it filled up before she got her paperwork in, but the Study Abroad folks came through and found a program in Ireland that seemed to fit the bill: A semester at the University of Limerick. Personally, I thought Ireland would be a great experience, and I have been just a BIT jealous at her good fortune...who wouldn't love to spend four months in a college town in the heart of Eire?

So.... After we went through the craziness of packing her up and sending her off via jet plane on the very day a Nor'easter clobbers the East Coast (Laura routed her through Chicago, missing all that madness!), we sat down over a cup of coffee and realized that since she was there, and we had never been, going to visit her was a great way of killing two birds with one rock: We get to go see her an stave off any homesickness, PLUS we can take a couple of days just to ourselves and get that 25th Anniversary trip in after all!

After agreeing on a time frame, I contacted a local travel agent (Liberty Travel) and had them set us up for a 6 day tour then three extra days just hanging around Limerick/Shannon area so we can visit with Jill around Thanksgiving when most other kids in the US are home with their families. I think we found a pretty good plan, and though it's not comprehensive, it should be a lot of fun! Our five day tour is called, "A Taste of Ireland."

Day 1: Overnight Flight to Dublin
Depart your North American gateway city and travel through the night to Dublin.

Day 2: Dublin Independent Tour
Arrive at Dublin Airport, go through immigration formalities and pick up your baggage. Go your hotel, located near the Georgian area in central Dublin. In the afternoon use your independent open-top bus tour voucher with a Guinness or Jameson visit and tasting - these features are valid for 24 hours.

Day 3: Dublin Tour & Burlington Cabaret
Enjoy a free morning in Dublin for further sightseeing with the included vouchers. At 2:00 pm all participants join a local guide for a tour of ancient and modern Dublin. Drive through the main streets to see historic buildings such as Trinity College, where the Book of Kells is housed; the evocative figures of the Famine Memorial; and rows of Georgian houses with gaily-colored doorways. Stop at Dublin Castle for a guided tour through the elegant State Apartments, which are filled with elaborate Waterford Crystal chandeliers and portraits of prominent Irish leaders. Return to your hotel for a get-together with your tour group and a welcome drink. In the evening enjoy a great dinner of Irish specialties, which is followed by a show of traditional Irish songs and intricate step-dancing, right in your hotel at the Burlington Cabaret. (B, D)

Day 4: Blarney Castle & Killarney
Depart Dublin and travel through the center of Ireland, which has many mixed farms. Stop to view the stately church ruins atop the Rock of Cashel, rising high above the surrounding plain. Continue your drive south and, just a few miles outside Cork, visit Blarney Castle to kiss the famous “Stone of Eloquence.” Also visit the Blarney Woollen Mills where you can find quality Irish-made goods of all types, conveniently displayed under one roof. Drive through Macroom, built around a fine castle, and into County Kerry where the scenery becomes more mountainous. Arrive in Killarney, picturesquely set beside lakes with Ireland's highest mountains, the Macgillycuddy's Reeks, forming a backdrop. Check in to your hotel and relax before dinner. After your meal you may like to take a stroll through the compact town center and explore Killarney's famous singing pubs. (B, D)

Day 5: Ring of Kerry & Skellig Experience
Today embark on Ireland's most popular scenic drive of 100 miles - the Ring of Kerry. This winding route reveals breathtaking sights of the Macgillycuddy's Reeks as well as coastal views of beaches and cliffs. As you travel along, there will be plenty of stops for photos at the best vantage points. Stop at Kells to meet a local farmer, Brendan Ferris, for a taste of farm life with a sheepdog demonstration of herding flocks and see different breeds of sheep. Drive through the village of Cahirciveen and cross to Valencia Island by bridge. Visit the Skellig Experience to learn about the nearby rocky islands where early Christian monks lived in austere conditions and today they form a thriving bird sanctuary. Stop to walk around Sneem, where brightly-painted houses are grouped around a central green. Pause at Moll's Gap for a view of the Three Lakes of Killarney with the town in the distance. Return to Killarney and enjoy a fine dinner in your hotel once again. (B, D)

Day 6: Cliffs of Moher & Bunratty Castle
Leave Killarney and drive north to Tarbert for a 20-minute ferry ride across the wide River Shannon Estuary. Your tour continues along the Clare coast to the Cliffs of Moher, a spectacular wall of limestone that reaches to almost 700 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. Drive past Lahinch golf links, one of Ireland's most famous, and through the marketing town of Ennis to Bunratty. Check in to Bunratty Castle Hotel, which is located very close to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. In the evening head to Bunratty Castle for a memorable experience in a wonderful setting with good food and entertainment. Take your place in the Great Hall for a medieval-style feast of excellent dishes and plenty of wine. During and after the meal the lords and ladies will serenade you with song and harp music, evocative of the Middle Ages. (B, D)

Day 7: Shannon
Take a group transfer to arrive at nearby Shannon Airport where you pick up a rental for the next three days of touring in and around Southwest Ireland!

Day 10: Shannon Departure
Travel back to reality via Shannon Airport.

The Hotels where we're scheduled to stay look pretty inviting:

• Burlington Hotel, Dublin (2 nights)
• Killarney Towers Hotel, Killarney (2 nights)
• Bunratty Castle Hotel, Bunratty (1 night)

All in all, it sounds like a lot of fun, and something we've both wanted to do for a long time. Now it's time to start packing!

Where were you on 9/11?

 On September 11, 2001, I was teaching Ground School at the McCormick Elementary School US Airways leased as a training facility. It’s probably 10 minutes from the Pittsburgh Airport by car, which is where I was serving in the Reserves as a C-130 Navigator.

By 2001, I had enough seniority to be teaching International Procedures, which covered pretty much anything and everything associated with flying across the Atlantic Ocean to our European destinations. My students were all seasoned pilots, finally having the seniority to hold positions on the lucrative International routes.

My classes started at 0800, and every 50 minutes or so, I’d give a break. At about 0851, we walked out into the hallway for a restroom break and coffee refills. The school had a main entry way with a security guard sitting at a desk, who provided at least the look of deterrence. He would sit at a desk right in the middle of the hall facing the entrance, with a small b&w TV to fill the hours while he was on duty. As we came out, he waived us over and told us a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

By the time we huddled around him, news cameras were starting to pick up the story and we could see smoke coming out of one of the buildings. I don’t think any of us knew what we were looking at. One or two planes had hit tall buildings in NYC before, a B-17 ran into the Empire State Building on a foggy night back in the 40s or 50s, and I’d heard that a Cessna hit a building sometime recently, so I figured it was something like that again…. but it was a clear day…. And then we saw the 2nd airplane hit!

It happened so fast, you didn’t understand what you saw until the replays in slow motion, then you saw the jet. It was crazy: as aviators, you just couldn’t wrap your head around the idea that TWO planes hit these buildings by accident.

At some point I think one of the Supervisors came out of the office and herded us back into classrooms. People were getting paid to be trained, and airline pilots aren’t cheap; we had to at least go through the motions so someone wouldn’t complain to the FAA they weren’t getting the required training they were due (it happened!).

From that point on, there wasn’t much training going on. Guys were on their phones trying to get information. People knew dispatchers and were pinging them for the latest. Then at 0937 a plane hit the Pentagon, and from there on there was no doubt we were being attacked.

Suddenly guys heard from the Dispatch Center that there was a plane headed towards Pittsburgh. Speculation was all over the place. It was going to hit the Airport Control Tower. It was going to crash into the Training Center. None of that made sense. Why even bother with Pittsburgh? And then it did crash, south of the city.  What was next?

By then we were hearing that all flights were being forced to land at the first available airport, and that anyone remaining airborne would be shot down. I’m sure some semblance of that was true, but everyone knew that would be a hard, difficult call to execute: shooting down an airliner? Better be right.

At some point I’m sure I called Laura and checked in. Did she know? How was she? Any word about the kids and schools?  I’m pretty sure every community in Western PA thought Flight 93 (as we found out later) was headed at them or their schools.
We all watched and waited, wondering what was next, and then the unthinkable happened: the second tower at the World Trade Center suddenly imploded, slowly collapsing in on itself and came crumbling down. I think everyone who watched that was completely stunned. It’s still a point of conspiracy theorists today: how could two building that size collapse to basically ash?

The rest of the day is still a blur. We were required to stay and “teach.” There was a cafeteria on-site, so I’m pretty sure we grabbed food and ate in front of the TV just trying to make sense of it all.

I called over to the Squadron to see if they knew anything, but they were just as clueless as the rest of us. All flying was cancelled, and anybody who was out on the road was stuck until it was deemed safe to fly again. But no one knew when that might be. A big question was who or what was on the flights still coming from overseas. As it happened, anyone outside the US had to land before they got to the US, or turn around and head back to Europe. That’s how all the aircraft stacked up in Gander, St. Johns, Stephensville, and Halifax, and ended up staying there for a week or more.

When I got home, I think Laura texted me that she was at Chris & Dave Seaman’s house, a few blocks away from ours in Zelienople. They had just brought home their new adopted daughter Carly. I remember going over to see them and sharing this surreal moment where such happiness at this new addition to their family was overwashed by such a crazy, tragic blow to our nation and psyche.

In the days that followed, the news was 24/7 on the attack. The FBI started figuring out who was who, how it had happened, where they came from, what the plot was, etc. The toll from the attack started to sink in: how many had died, both in the planes and in the buildings, and of course the tragic loss of so many first responders who had rushed to help.

No one seemed to know what the mechanism was for turning flying back on. I kept bugging people on base that we should be up and flying and showing that things were going to go back to normal, and on the next Thursday (about 8 days after the attack), the FAA let us take a pair of planes out for a training ride. It was VERY eerie being pretty much the only ones in the sky.

Almost immediately, Operation Nobel Eagle started. It was basically an all-out defense of the Continental United States. Fighters were up 24 hours a day over New York City and Washington, D.C. There was a thought someone would sneak a dirty bomb into the country, or use chemicals like Sarin gas, so response teams were put on alert all over the country.

In mid October, I flew out to McChord AFB, in Tacoma, Washington, and sat alert for a month to support a quick response decon team; ready to take them any place on the west coast that might be attacked. Between our days on alert, we practiced it a couple times, and it was pretty ugly, but we could have responded fairly quickly if such an attack had happened.

Of course everyone’s world changed after that. Airline travel became a royal pain. At first it shut down, and then slowly returned; by then the various second and third order effects became evident: hotels and restaurants were all effected by the travel industry. Anti-terrorism measures doubled and tripled in pretty much all aspects of our lives. Laws were changed. The Department of Homeland Security was set up, consolidating a host of other departments, with huge reach into every sector of our lives.

Simply put, 9/11 was a watershed moment for the entire country. It  was the beginning of the busiest 14 years of my life, and included six more trips to Southwest Asia (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2015) as we took up the Global War on Terror.

Les Andelys and the River Seine

Today we pulled anchor and headed back towards Paris. The weather was cool and overcast, but mostly pleasant enough to sit on deck reading or just watching the countryside flow by. It was interesting watching the terrain change from flat and rolling farmlands, to chalky cliffs filled with caves and crevices...

A little after 1 pm, the boat docked at a place called Les Andelys, "Les" because it was actually two villages that had grown together. Overlooking them is one of the most dramatic sights anywhere along the Seine: Richard the Lionheart's Château Gaillard. Completed in 1198, it was constructed in a position of impregnable power, high above a sharp bend in the Seine, giving it a dominate view for miles in either direction and controlling any movement on the river at the frontier of the English king's domains.

We were allowed about 2-1/2 hours on dry land, and offered two choices of activities: one was a walk through the town and it's shopping district, and the other was a steep climb up the hill to see inside one of the most famous French Castles of the middle ages. Kurt, Kara and I chose the hike.

The castle lies at the end of a steep lane that led up from the town center, eventually turning to dirt road. While not a strenuous hike, it was rather steep, and caused the various members of our group, ages ranging from 16 to 70+, to slowly spread out as we wound our way up the narrow road. Upon reaching the castle proper, we were met with the partial remains of the outer casements, a closed off Castle Keep, and a spectacular view of miles of the winding Seine River.

Kurt, Kara and I climbed up and around the various portions of the accessible castle, seeing what remained, and trying to imagine what life would have been like living in this ancient structure "back in the day." Apparently it was completed just one year before the death of it's creator, and then was used by his son. Unfortunately the French decided to take back Normandy about that time, and the Castle was set siege to by Phillip II, and finally captured in 1204. By 1573, Château Gaillard was uninhabited and in a ruinous state, but it was still believed to posed a threat to the local population if it was repaired. Therefore, King Henry IV ordered the demolition of Château Gaillard in 1599. Some of the building material was reused by Capuchin monks who were granted permission to use the stone for maintaining their monasteries. It must have been incredibly taxing to pry these massive stones from the thick walls and cart them down the hill to whatever monestary they were working on.

In 1611, the demolition of Château Gaillard came to an end. The site was left as a ruin, and in 1862 was classified as a Monument historique.

After a few pictures and a tour of the Keep's moat, we headed back down the hill to try and tour the little town before we had to set sail again. The town of Les Andelys was built about the same time as the castle, so is rich in history and interesting buildings. They even have a miniature version of the Notre Dame Cathedral, complete with flying buttresses. I didn't get a chance to go inside, but apparently the stained glass windows are gorgeous. I met up with Laura and Jill, who had toured the town with Pat, Stew and Patti. They were totally enamored of the small village, it's quaint shops and clean streets. I'm fairly certain a number of souvenirs made their way onto the boat from our family's extensive tour of the town. We definitely do our best to help support the local economies!

At exactly 3 pm, the Captain pulled way from the river bank and continued our journey. Apparently there is a set schedule of times that the boat had meet to transit the six locks between Rouen and Paris. I was impressed that with 140+ passengers with untold number of personal agendas, we had no problem making any of our scheduled events, either coming or going. That says a lot about both the crew/staff and the passengers themselves.

One of the highlights of the afternoon cruise was passing the estate Field Marshall Irwin Rommel used as his headquarters during his tenure as Commander of the forces protecting the "Atlantic Wall," including the period of the D-Day landings. It is a huge place cut into a cliffside, and if our tour director was correct, had tunnels cut into the stone cliffs that led up to an ancient castle situated on the hill above it. Good place to take refuge from allied bombing attacks.

For dinner our waiter Joey, who has taken superb care of us all week long, arranged for us to have a large table together in celebration of Pat & Stew’s 50^th Anniversary. The main course was Beef Tenderloin in a Foie Gras sauce, which I never expected to be as wonderful as it was. Again, one more dish that literally melted in your mouth! We had brought along some decorations for some type of 50^th celebration, and the wait staff was kind enough to hang them up around the table, and bring out a cake with sparklers as desert was being served. It was a nice little moment to celebrate a true milestone.

After dinner we strolled the decks as we continued our trip along the river. The weather was gorgeous and made for a great end to a very relaxing day. Tomorrow we stop in Conflans, and visit Versailles.