The Walking Dead

Thirty-three hours ago, I got up out of bed in our home in Islamorada. One shuttle bus, two planes, one taxi, two trains, and some walking found me at my first B&B for the night. In usual form, it took effort to find my accommodations; the Irish never did learn how to measure distance so when they say "go about 400 meters", you may have to walk a mile or two. Nevertheless, I eventually found it.

I tossed my things on the bed, changed out of my flip flops and into my hiking boots and set off to find beer and sustenance. The first pub into which I wandered made me even more homesick for my girl; it was called The Shire. It seems to be a work in progress and was actually pretty cute. She'd have loved it. They didn't have food, so after a pint of Frodo's Beer, I wandered off. All I can tell you is that I arrived in Killarney at 2/;30 and wandered back to my B&B at 11pm. There were pints, food, and traditional Irish music involved...and my wallet is considerably lighter. The sun hadn't fully set yet, so there was plenty of light with which to navigate home.

I showered off the stink of travel and tried to blog but technology wasn't having it. I opened the windows and crawled under thick blankets. It was chilly and nice. It reminded me of many nights on the Coast to Coast Walk and the trek around the Dingle Peninsula with my girl. I miss her company and may have cried. I was very tired and that makes me, well...emotional.

The sun was up around 4am and so was I. It wasn't nearly enough sleep after so many hours awake, but my body is confused...and I miss Lauren. I never expected it to be so bad. What the hell am I gonna do when she leaves for college in two years? Go with her, I suspect.

(I brought Lauren's old laptop with which to blog - yes, I'm carrying this thing sometimes twenty miles a day to blog! - but it's so old that it's unable to recognize my cell when I plug it in, which means I'm unable to pull of the photos to upload them here. Any suggestions? I don't have and connect install email on my cell and am locked out of my Pinterest account...)