Here are some facts:

1.  My next big travel adventure has arrived.

2.  I am on my way to the Dingle Peninsula, in County Kerry, Ireland!  I leave July 7th.  Guy and the kids will meet me on the 15th and we’ll be home in Maine on the 24th.

Here she is.

3.  I don’t know much about Ireland.

4.  I know they drink a lot of beer in Ireland.

5.  I will very much like to also drink a lot of beer in Ireland.

6.  I happily enlisted the help of the only Irish person I know, a neighbor of ours for the past 18 years, called Declan O’Connor, and I realized something important:  I need to go to Ireland so I no longer only know one person from Ireland.

7.  Making new friends is not the reason I’m going to Ireland.

8.  I’m going for my Stonecoast residency, (I AM HALF-WAY THROUGH MY MASTER’S DEGREE!) to learn and to write in what National Geographic calls the most beautiful place on earth.  Which is really saying something, don’t you think?

9.  I.  CAN’T.  WAIT.

10.  I’m really going to Ireland to drink beer.

Here’s Ireland. Here it is. Dec is pointing at the town in which he grew up, and where his family still lives — Milltown.

Guy and Declan narrowing down the details.