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We are back in Green Bay, safe and sound.  If there is a final word on our trip it would be Gratitude.

One of our favorite roads

We are grateful that all the major things that could have gone wrong, didn't.  The biggest one is not being killed in the rental car.  The guy at the rental desk said about 1/3 of the cars come back with some damage (granted he's the guy who tries to sell you the insurance). 

I am personally grateful that my feet did not literally fall off.  We walked so much more than I have in a long time.  We are grateful the B and B's that we booked turned out to be nice.  It's a little bit of a crap shoot choosing something on-line.  We are grateful to Claire at the Kinsale Council taking pity on ignorant tourists and waving our $48 parking ticket (we didn't see the sign).  We are grateful for trains and planes that ran on time. 

We are very, very grateful our return flight was able to land in Chicago.  It was just

starting to snow when we landed.  The snow soon turned into a blizzard as we drove between Chicago and Milwaukee.  By the time we stopped for breakfast/lunch or dinner in Sheboygan (one is always confused about time after a long fight), we learned that since we landed in Chicago over 700 flights had been cancelled.

But perhaps on an even grander scale we are grateful for where we live.  Ireland is a beautiful country and you should consider visiting.  However, the country which is smaller than Wisconsin, is poor in natural resources.  As one Irishman told us, even today it's almost a rite of passage for many families to have children grow up and leave Ireland and never move back, not because of choice but because of necessity.  We spoke to many people who have children, brothers and sisters in the U.S., Australia and Canada.  So with this in mind, we are grateful to my ancestors, the Blaneys, the Earlys, the Hogans and Brodericks who left Ireland to start a new life in the U.S.  

We sincerely enjoyed our trip and we enjoyed blogging about it.  To us, it was just another way to journal about our experience.  We know that not everyone was hanging on to our every word but it was our way to inform the people who were interested.

In closing, I remember Cathy's late uncle, Bob Ahasay, who told me, "If I get to heaven and I think I will, I'll recognize it because I've been to Ireland. "

Thanks for sharing in this adventure!
                         Ken and Cathy