It was our last day in Ireland. We would be spending most of it driving back to Dublin, where we were planning to stay with the same friends that we met for the first time when we arrived. We had a lot of things to talk about and savor, and since we are both big into nature, we usually ended up on subjects involving trees, horses, and birds. Three of our favorite topics. The long chats were marked by pockets of silence when we were both lost in our own thoughts and worlds.
We made one stop along the way, at a castle ruins called The Rock of Cashel. The ruins are one of the things I love about Ireland, or any country that has enough history to have ruins. In Ireland, however, there is something magical about them. When I am in a ruins there is something mysterious that happens to time. The stark contrast between time that has stopped and time that is still moving causes me to feel the force of it more strongly, and I am gripped with fascination about the story. I could spend a lot of time in old ruins and abandoned buildings.
And I got my wish at the Rock of Cashel, thanks to an eternally clueless tourist. Joanna was trying to get a picture of a view across the vestibule and this tourist planted himself at other end and simply would not budge. I looked in from time to time and she was still crouched at her end, waiting, while Mr. Tourist stood there and looked touristy. I never did figure out what he was actually doing, other than disrupting a perfectly good picture. I offered to throw rocks at him, but Joanna wouldn’t let me.
Our plan was to arrive at the house around dinner time, knowing that no-one would be there to greet us. They had given us a set of keys before we left, so apparently we did a good job of convincing our new friends that we were the harmless kinds of nuts.
I would be flying out early the next morning, but Joanna decided to stay a few more days and take a ferry over to the Isle of Man. Her ferry was going to leave late that night.
We arrived well at the house and even found the little driveway on the first try. I had only been there a couple of days in the beginning, mostly in a sleep deprived stupor, but it still felt like coming home. We did a little shopping for some grub for dinner and then settled in for a few hours until we needed to leave for the docks.
We left the house around 10:30 PM. Not the best hour for the two of us to be driving around downtown Dublin, but we found the docks with minimal fuss. Once we got there, I decided I would rather have downtown Dublin. The docks may have been perfectly innocent during the day, but they were rather ominous at night. Too many looming ships and stacks of containers and shadowy places for thugs to hide. Was I going to leave Joanna there all by herself? I don’t think so! Well, she wasn’t very impressed by my concerns so we kept driving to the terminal for her ferry.
I was vastly relieved to see that at her ferry line there was a nice lighted terminal and waiting room with other passengers and vending machines. There is something comforting about vending machines. So, I pulled into the drop-off area and we said our goodbyes. It was the end of our travels together. We had done it. We two nuts had not only survived the trip, we developed a friendship and had many rich experiences along the way.
God had given so much on this trip. It was not always where I expected and definitely not always what I expected. But encounter Him we did – richly, deeply, overwhelmingly so. This Mercy was about as overloaded as any one person can be.
I drove back to the house – successfully and in one piece, I might add! One last night in Dublin. I was ending where we began. We came full circle. Nothing could have been more fitting for an adventure in Ireland.
And so is the end … of this blog … and the beginning of all that lies beyond!