Aug 5 Drogheda

Ann was out of the house early this morning to go to work. Kevin was up making phone calls for a new contract this morning when I got up about 9'ish. Kevin gave me a run down on what was going on today and left us about 10 am to go to work. Shannon and Shayla started getting up about 10:30. By 11:30 they had breakfast and had showered and were ready to go out.

With a map in hand and a list of things to go see we headed out for a short walk to downtown. We walked straight into town and up the main street to Trinity Gardens, which is where my Dad lived back in the 40's. I wasn't sure which house so I took a few pictures to get them all in.

We walked back down the main street, stopping in the occasional store to look around. Shannon got the flag of Ireland she wanted, to go with her Scotland and England flags she got while in those places.

I took several pictures of some street views and some historical sights along the way, including St. Peters Church, which I had forgotten had the head of St. Oliver Plunkett inside. I'm going to have to go back there again to take a look.

I also took several photos of St. Laurence Gate, then headed down to the Boyne to take some photos of the viaduct. There were cranes along the river blocking the view so I'm going to walk down to the seaward side of the viaduct to get better photos tomorrow if possible.

We walked across the river on a pedestrian bridge over to Scotch Hall, which is a big retail shopping mall. We had lunch in the mall and then walked up to Millmount, where we had a guided tour and took some great photos of the city. You can see all the way down the river to the sea from the Millmount. From there we essentially walked straight back to Kevin's house through the middle of town and got back about 5:30.

Ann got home about 6:00 but had to go out to a course she was taking a course, and Kevin was working late. David had called and had arranged to pick us up and take us to his house for dinner at about 6:30. We had a traditional Irish Stew, which was very good and was pretty much exactly like the ones I was used to growing up.

Annette came over after dinner with Juliette, after just getting home from Portugal yesterday very late. We had a great chat and at the kitchen table while Shannon and Shayla watched the TV with Katie and Juliette.

We stayed until about 11 and Annette gave us a ride back to Kevin's house, stopping a couple times along the way so I could get some night pictures of the cable bridge on the M1. It is the newest bridge in Ireland and very impressive looking all lit up at night.

When we got back to the house Kevin was just going to go to bed, but I managed to keep him up a bit longer to have a chat about what we did today, and he gave me some ideas about what I could do tomorrow morning before Annette gets off work. If the girls are up to it they can come for another long walk with me around town or stay at Kevin's house with the 3 dogs.