Category Archives: On the Road

johnnies be good

It’s inevitable. If you go on a road trip (which I did), and the trip is long enough (which it was), you’re bound to get hungry every once in a while (or more frequently than that, if you are me). The result is plenty of time spent in restaurants.

Some people’s thinking follows a pattern: food served, photo taken, photo up on Facebook for the world to see what you ate for lunch today. It’s not that I’ve never done that, but it was never my thing. My thinking went in a different direction: into the toilet.

Literally.

I became enthralled with the creativity that had gone into some of these restaurants’ bathroom doors and just had to capture it. It got so that I was trying to figure out how to monetize my love affair with these doors. A book, I thought. A book full of bathroom doors the world over – wouldn’t that make a great holiday gift. Or maybe an e-book for your Kindle, perfect reading material on the john.

While I sort out the details on this financial goldmine I’m sitting on, here’s a sample, starting off from Ireland …

O’Shea’s, Dublin

Let’s go to Ecuador next …

A few from Canada …

Lougheed Pub, Harvey, New Brunswick

It looks like I was eating and drinking considerably more in the United States. In no particular order …

And that, mesdames et messieurs, bouys and gulls, is the end of the tour. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

one more sunset por favor

Smooth or crunchy? Cane’s or Popeye’s? Mets or Yankees? Sunrise or sunset?

Me? I’m sunset all the way.

Granted, it would be almost impossible for me to choose sunrise, for no other reason than I would never be up at that hour, and if I was, the odds of me remembering to take my camera with me would be next to zero. But I have seen a few, and truly, I think the science will back me up here, sunsets are simply more beautiful. Plus, there is a good chance I will be awake.

Just look to the west, beyond the ocean, beyond the trees and the mountains, and watch the sun melt into the horizon. The mix of color and light changes from moment to moment, and each one of those moments is an Impressionist painting for me. I understand what Claude Monet saw in the lilies – every day the same, every day totally different.

Here’s my impressionist take on the sunsets at Harris Beach in Oregon …

North America’s Pacific Coast offers some of the most spectacular mountains and forests to explore by day, and when evening comes, simply stop the car wherever you are and take in all the ocean has to offer at sunset. From San Diego in southern California all the way up through northern California, Oregon and Washington, then over the Canadian border into beautiful British Columbia, it’s one glorious view after another. Here then, from south to north is what the sun will do.

Before we head inland, there’s more coast, this time in Ecuador, also on the Pacific Ocean – two beach towns on the southern coast, the sleepy Manglaralto and the party/surf town of Montanita, not that you can tell the difference at sunset …

Off to Ireland …

Back to the innards of the United States …

The Grand Canyon …

There are always more …

And now up to Canada. First, the interior of British Columbia …

… and Quebec

From my wonderful stay in Chania on the island of Crete …

One last one, to finish off – looking out on the Atlantic Ocean from Spanish Point, Ireland …

wall art

Street walkers, in the broadest sense of the word, have a lot to see, if they keep their eyes open. There’s likely plenty of street walkers who don’t bring their cameras along with them when they head out, but not me. If I’m in a new city or town and walking the streets, chances are, the camera is ready and waiting.

Without further ado, here are some samples from the road. For those who like pictures more than words, this blog’s for you.

CANADA

NORTHERN IRELAND

IRELAND

ECUADOR

UNITED STATES

These first six are from the Mission District in San Francisco. Such color!

If you’re ever in Miami, you’ll want to spend an afternoon walking in the Wynwood Arts District …

It all makes me want to hit the streets again!

a mooving story

We’re not going to go too deep here – not too much soul searching or navel gazing as to the why’s. It is what it is.

I used to collect cows.

There, I’ve said it. I think I was a collecting type person from the start, but my efforts never really amounted to much. I remember having a stamp collection, but its ragtag bunch of specimens looked more like a discard pile than something resembling a sensible collection. Same with rocks and shells – always an impressive start, but somehow it just seemed like too much work to make a real go of it. When I got older, I started collecting 45s and LPs, but those required some serious money to maintain and grow, and I was sadly lacking. Alas, another modest attempt at collecting, stopped in its tracks.

A little older still, and I’d be at a friend’s house and see their collection of beer bottles or bottle caps or matchbooks or baseball caps, and I’d think, what a great collection; I wish I’d thought of that, but now it’s too late. A collector wannabee.

Then along came cows. The kind of cows that stand around in farmers’ fields eating grass all day. When our family of four – mommy (me), daddy, two young children – moved to New England, we were leaving behind the big city and heading to the country. We were actually moving to a suburban town, but as anyone can tell you in New England, if you want to go somewhere, you’re a half hour away at a minimum. And a lot of those half hours-plus were spent driving through the countryside, with the farmers’ fields, and those cows standing around eating grass all day.

Never let it be said that every moment isn’t a teaching moment. If we go with that thought, you’d understand that whenever the kids were in the back seat and I was in the front, whenever we passed a field of cows, I’d call out “mooooooooo” to the cows. I didn’t even necessarily have to open the window – it’s not like I cared if they heard me – I sure didn’t want them thinking some cow was driving by on the road asking for directions. The first time I did it, it felt innocent enough – teaching the youngsters in the back seat that these were actual cows, which to that point in their lives existed only as pictures in books. The second time I moooooed when we passed a field of cows, we all laughed. By the tenth time, it was a contest as to who could spot the cow and moo first.

The logic that says if I would do that with cows, what about sheep, and horses, and I don’t know, giraffes, and hippopotami, and zebras? I never felt the urge. Not like with the cows. And you can guess the rest.

My cow collection was born. I’m going to jump to the punch line here. I started collecting cows in the early 1990s and I stopped collecting in 2014, when I downsized my life, and the cows didn’t make the cut. But during all that time, I was a housewife with this house and that house and another with bathrooms and kitchens and bedrooms galore, all waiting to be filled with cows. I’m going to share just one from that period. I only recently saw this photo as I was putting together this album. It’s one of my favorite pieces – two cows sitting on a wooden bench – that I picked up in a gift shop on Prince Edward Island, probably an Anne of Green Gables gift shop, and when I saw it, the cows were screaming at me to get them out of there, so into the shopping bag they went. In this particular picture – really, a motif, with the tiny cows grazing below and the white and black cow going to town on the windowsill – there is a ball of tinfoil between the seated cows. That was during my PeeWee Herman stage – remember when every week, he’d patch another piece of tinfoil to his monstrous tinfoil ball? But this isn’t a story about tinfoil, it’s about cows.

It’s only natural that I would want to feed my cow universe with photos from the road. Without further ado then, here’s a sampling. If you’re on your game, you’ll spot straight away that they’re not all cows. Ireland has way better sheep pictures than cow pictures, and once you let the sheep in, you never know what else will weasel its way in.

Who says cows don’t have any fun? Postcard from Holland …

my fling with Elvis

My affair with Elvis was short and very sweet, and thankfully for all concerned, it ended without rancor. Although to be fair, I’m not sure Elvis was ever invested in it the way I was.

Our formal introduction came one Saturday afternoon during my prepubescent years, plunked down as I was in front of the TV set for the Saturday movie matinee. The movie that afternoon was one of those beach blanket bingo/race car Elvis movies that they churned out ad nauseum in the mid-60s. I wasn’t even a teenager at that point, so his arrival on the world stage years earlier as the swiveling-hipped heart-throb had passed me by. And that slew of plotless films he starred in did nothing to capture my interest. But at least I now knew who he was. And although our little fling was years in the future, at least in the mid-60s we were both alive, which is saying something.

The years passed, and while his career was ebbing and flowing, it was all rather beside the point to me. Until that fateful day in 2012, when my daughter and I, fresh from our first visit to New Orleans, arrived on the doorstep of a fellow couchsurfer in Jackson, Mississippi. She insisted that the following day we absolutely must drive the Natchez Trace Parkway – for its beauty – en route to our next stop, Nashville, Tennessee. The bonus, she assured us, was if we took that scenic route, we’d go right by Tupelo, Mississippi, the birthplace of Elvis Presley.

Why not, right?

I can’t say what it was that triggered it, but it was love at first sight, the moment I sat down on the front porch of Elvis’s house, strumming a guitar, and thinking, Elvis must have sat right here. All I know is I was smitten.

So, of course, when we got to Memphis, we were all over Elvis – the pink Cadillacs, Graceland, Sun Studios. Sure, we did the ducks at the Peabody Hotel and walked Beale Street, but we were there for Elvis.

From then on, we watched for him everywhere the road took us …

Austin, Texas …

At one point we caught up with Route 66, and that was an Elvis goldmine. First, Albuquerque, New Mexico …

An on to Flagstaff, Arizona …

And of course Vegas …

He’s everywhere …

And the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland … Look at that lip!

Bridget and I, international travelers that we were, turned the car north to Canada, and wouldn’t you know, the worldly bon vivant Elvis was right there waiting the moment we crossed the border into British Columbia …

And he was there as we travelled east …

Our year with Elvis on the road was something else, but when it was over, it was over. All I have left are the memories … and the movies, and the documentaries, and the Elvis calendar, and the Elvis playing cards.

We’re caught in a trap, I can’t walk out, because I love you too much baby.

2016 comes to an end in New Orleans

I’ve told myself a thousand times that if I’m going to keep a blog, the #1 key thing to do is write said blog. Which is all well and good, and it really is all well and good, but I might as well be talking to a brick wall. My sad excuse for an explanation about my four-month hiatus from blog world is that it’s been busy. Too busy for blogging, at least.

But the good news is that the crazy busy is over. What a couple of months it’s been, and it’s great to be at the other side of it all, ready to carve out a new year with lots of blogging in it, I trust!  Let me catch you up on those four months of zig-zagging …

I last left the blogger me in Ireland near the end of August – having spent three wonderful and industrious months there. Then it was on to Greece for five incredible weeks; it was the perfect getaway, and I promise, there’s a blog post to follow! I just have to cull through the umpteen hundred pictures of Greek sunsets first.

From Greece, I flew back to Boston at the end of September and went up to New Hampshire, and got to spend ten days with son Sean, who had flown in from Japan for his friend’s wedding. New Hampshire had a beautiful fall this year. It was an unusually late year for the leaves; they were just beginning to turn the first week of October. Driving along the back country roads, it was a daily delight to watch a real-life paint-by-numbers scene in action: the beautiful New England countryside, with its canopy of green slowly being filled in with splotches and speckles of oranges and reds and yellows.

In the middle of that beautiful setting, I was busy packing up my stuff, with the only really hard part being the books – ten boxes of books that are have-to-haves, they’re my job. The thing is, if you’re already bringing ten boxes of books, how many more boxes of books can you legitimately bring? I said “one,” and I got by with one and a half. There’s always the library, right? And while I was at it, I got myself a 2004 Toyota Corolla, packed up my stuff, and on October 11, headed south for Louisiana.

My idea was to drive, no detours, no nothing, just drive. The upside of just driving, no detours, is it makes pre-planning the road trip totally unnecessary – just get in the car and go, bring enough money for tolls. The downside is you don’t make any plans. So it wasn’t until I was sitting in my hotel room outside Scranton, Pennsylvania, 350 miles into my trip, when I realize that I’ll be in Virginia the next day, and hadn’t I always loved the beauty of Virginia the few times I’d driven through it, commenting that I really should come back one day and stop to smell the roses instead of whizzing by on I-81.

This turned out to be the day. I spent it meandering through Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, the part of it that’s in Virginia – and what a spectacular day it was for the eyes and the soul. Van does such a soulful rendition of “Shenandoah” for the Ken Burns “Irish in America” documentary, and it touches my heart every time, and today I’ve got it on repeat till my heart is bursting with the serenity and beauty of this special spot. It’s well worth a blog post, but that’s not going to happen; we’ll just have to make do with a few photos …

From Virginia, is was back on the highway, down through Tennessee, a slice of Georgia, then Alabama and Mississippi, and on into Louisiana. A little factoid I did not know but do now … In 2007, Alabama Governor Bob Riley declared that the phrase “Sweet Home Alabama” would now be plastered on all things tourist-related. The lady at the tourist center located just as you cross into Alabama asked if I wanted a bag for the free map she’d given me. I was about to decline – small carbon footprint, right? – when she pulled out a large white plastic bag with Sweet Home Alabama blazoned across it in blue. I told her I’d take it. It’s a very nice plastic bag, thank you, with a drawstring. First Shenandoah and all that Virginia conjures up about the Civil War, then a bit of Patsy Cline driving through Tennessee, and now my own Lynyrd Skynyrd bag. South, here I come.

First stop in Louisiana is Luling, a little town outside of New Orleans, to visit with cousins and dog-sit Chloe and Wally while the cousins take a trip up to Michigan. My main job, besides dog-sitting, is house hunting. I am the designated scout for our gang of three, let loose upon the rental housing market in New Orleans, to find us the perfect home. The gang is daughter Bridget, friend Steve, and me. Those two would be joining me in New Orleans in two weeks’ time, hopefully at our newfound home.

The last time I went looking to rent a place was in the ’70s, so I’m a bit rusty at this. And picky, it turns out. The short story of those weeks traipsing around New Orleans, minus any angst, is that we’ve got ourselves the quintessential Southern home in a lovely little neighborhood. Yes, it’s got high ceilings, and every room has a ceiling fan, there’s warm hardwood throughout, and there’s a spacious backyard with an orange tree!! (eating one as we speak), but I think what secured the deal for me was the front porch. A porch with a swing – what more could I ask for?

Louisiana may be a southern state, and New Orleans its crown jewel, but New Orleans is no southern American city, no ma’am.  It was founded by the French, later was under Spanish rule, then the French again, until where we are now: a possession of the United States. History will tell us how well that works out in the end, but in the meantime, New Orleans seems undisturbed by whoever it is in charge; it marches to its own drum. To me, it feels like a northern Caribbean outpost that just happens to be in the United States.

Now that I’m here, I’m here. Maybe it’s time to put down some roots. And indeed, if it is time, I couldn’t have found myself a better place.

 

 

Ireland once again – or how I spent my summer vacation

Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you hoped they would. Ah, such is life, and such is my life. My grand plan to move to Ireland for a year or two – to write this book that’s been in my head for so long – came to naught. The fellow at the Irish Embassy who had assured me I would have no trouble getting permission to remain was, like many an Irishman, only half right. It was the other half that gave me grief, and the short of it is, my dream of two years in this country that feels like home turned into a different reality: three months, like any other tourist.

Talk about putting a crimp in my game plan. But if Plan A wasn’t going to work, I’d have to come up with Plan B. In order to work, it was going to require a serious work ethic on my part … if three months is all I was going to get, then I had better apply myself and get every stitch of research I could get done in that allotted time. So that’s how I spent my summer vacation – at the library, with my nose in one book or another. With a few days off to explore various settings in my book.

I must have taken about eleventy hundred photos, but unfortunately, the bulk of them were taken inside libraries, so not a lot of the green, green grass of home type pictures that capture the beauty of Ireland. But let me show you a bit of where I was …

… and how it all fits in.

Remember ’48

1848. County Clare, in western Ireland. It was the third year of what history now calls The Great Famine, and the story of Clare during that time is one of misery – poverty, starvation, destitution, sickness and death. But that is not really the story I am about to write. But it is the story of that time, so there is no glossing over. The plantation system, instituted by Cromwell during the 1600s, was in effect, with the English or Anglo-Irish aristocracy owning most of the land in the country. They were the landed gentry, and those who chose to live on their estates, lived in the Big House and rented out most of their land to farmers, who in turn worked for the landlord. And this is where my story begins – in the Big House.

So naturally, visits to the Big House (three of them, actually) were the order of the day. It was my great fortune to meet a local historian, Dr. Joseph Power, who graciously showed me around and got us into those three homes. Two of them are currently under renovation, and the third is a veritable castle that today is a five-star hotel complete with its own golf course. Dromoland it’s called.

The fellow on the plaque in the center photo (who just happened to be born at Dromoland) played a pivotal role in Ireland’s historic uprising during 1848. The group he belonged to, Young Ireland,  have become somewhat of a footnote in Ireland’s long battle for independence from British rule, and its their cry for freedom that has inspired me to write their story …

… from the point of view of a young servant girl who is also searching for her own freedom from within the confines of the Big House she serves somewhere out in eastern County Clare. It’s dicey writing historical fiction – the blending of fact and fiction. But here’s one fact: there is a little village that sits on the Fergus Estuary, which in turn flows into the Shannon River, whose location and history have sparked my imagination. Much of that spark is thanks to Joe Power’s “A History of Clare Castle and Its Environs,” which leaves no stone unturned about this tiny dot on the map. It’s become my dot, for better or worse. It wasn’t called Clare Castle in 1848, but you’ll just have to wait for the book to find that out.

Here are a few pictures of what it looks like today, with a little history thrown in …

But as I mentioned, most of my time was spent at the library – either at the Clare County Library or the Local Studies Centre – in Ennis. Research is a lot like weeding a garden – just when you think you’ve got ’em all, there’s another … and another … and another that needs tackling. Peter Beirne and Brian Doyle at the Local Studies Centre went far beyond the call of duty and were forever finding me another and still another every time they headed up the stairs to find me yet one more book I simply had to read. I was in good hands. And if you hang out at the Local Studies Centre long enough, other history buffs are bound to show up. Lucky for me, Ciarán O Murchadha, a local historian with a wealth of knowledge and plenty of books to his credit, shared his time with me and pointed me in the right direction more than once or twice.

I was very sorry to leave – but my time was up, and I had to get to Dublin for a round of research at the National Library, with the prospect of weeks of sitting at the microfilm reader, scouring the newspapers of the time. But first, a stop in Ballingarry, another little village, this one in the heart of Tipperary, where the fellow in the plaque up above led an uprising on the last Saturday of July 1848. For the past ten years, the Ballingarry 1848 Society has led a walk that retraces the steps that our Young Ireland rebels took that fateful day. I couldn’t miss that, right? Talk about history.

From Tipp it was off to Dublin. And while my time there was mostly work, there was a bit of play. An afternoon spent in Parnell Square, poking my head in at the Irish Writers Centre and the Irish Writers Museum, and a visit to the Hugh Lane Gallery, with much to cheer about the country’s artists, including Seán Keating and Jack B Yeats, both of whom painted in a romantic-realist style during the Irish Independence period and capture it all with great beauty and style. There’s also a room devoted to the Impressionists, and any day I see a new Pissaro is a good day. It was a very good day, indeed.

But undoubtedly the highlight of my play time was the night John Collins and I caught Richie Buckley playing sax with the Ronnie Greer trio in the upstairs room at JJ Smyth’s. Richie lent such credence to Van’s band during the ’90s and was there for Van’sRichie B and SDV blog Astral Weeks Live tour in 2008/2009. His call and response on “Summertime in England” is forever etched in our minds, one of those musical pinnacles. That’s me asking Richie about the call and response during the “Common One” segment at those two Hollywood Bowl shows in ’08. He said Van just threw it at him at the last minute – no advance warning. Sounds like Van – you just never know. Fantastic to catch Richie here in Dublin. As John said, “Just one of those great nights.”

Let me leave you with just a taste of the good stuff …

vilcabamba, ecuador – 2016

blog vilcabambaLast year’s travels in Ecuador took Celeste and me to the town of Vilcabamba, nestled in a valley in the Andes mountains in the south of the country, near the Peruvian border. We were only there for three nights – just enough time for us to know that we should come back, but for a longer time next time.

And here it is – the next time. Celeste is able to stay for one week, and after she left, I had the rest of February at my leisure to explore. Not that I did much of that, at least in the physical sense. I looked at other people’s photos of their hikes to the waterfalls, while I kind of just hung out.

I had so been looking forward to just doing nothing. I had spent the better part of 2015 in “go” mode, and I just wanted to stop. Vilcabamba is the perfect place to practice stopping. And I made the most of it.

Mostly in the hammock outside my room. My home for the month of February was Rumi Wilco, an eco-lodge about a half-mile walk from town. It’s not quite the jungle, but it feels like the jungle down near the Chamba River.

The walk into town was a daily event – there’s always something fresh in the tiendas in town that you can add to tonight’s dinner. There is an overflow ofblog drinks bounteousness when it comes to fruits and vegetables in the valley, and along with the clean air and the clean water, Vilcabamba seems to have it all. If you go into town, you can also get terrific smoothies made with whatever fresh stuff they’ve got on hand at the Juice Factory – we had the guanabana, which we were told would keep us clean, or at least clean us out, and it did – or a cappuccino at the Midas Touch, both great places to sit out front across from the town square and people-watch.

The town square was the main area of entertainment during Carnivale – at least the programmed part of it – parades, bands, jugglers, live music – and the town was out in full force and in full color.

Actually, the best part of Carnivale for me was that the Rumi Wilco folks had needed to move two of us out of our regular rooms and put us up in a pole house a little farther out in the jungle. A little slice of heaven, up in the trees. I barely left the place.

I did venture forth the last day, totally oblivious to what that might mean. The walk to Felicia’s house on the other side of town meant crossing the river twice, and at the river’s edge were young boys in a water bucket brigade, dousing everyone who dared cross the bridge. My puny can of foam was no match against buckets full of water – I came home drenched to the bone. But I had a very nice visit with Felicia, whom I’ve been emailing over the past year. She’s been helping me with my research on shaman religions and plant medicine, and my visit to Vilcabamba means I can go to my first San Pedro ceremony. I am very curious.

In the days leading up to the ceremony, I took to the hammock with caledonia gusto. I’d get my little pile of supplies set up on the chair, slide into the hammock and lie there for hours. Sometimes I’d stare off into the view, sometimes I’d meditate, sometimes I’d read, and sometimes, the best times, were when I was writing my book. I feel good about the book. I feel good about a lot of things.

The view from the hammock

Before we leave the hammock … those pictures are an afternoon view, of which I had many, but it was the nighttime view that was so enchanting. On moonlit nights, the ground would be bathed in light, a bird would begin chirping in the trees, there’d be dogs barking in the distance, and the sound of the river rushing by was a constant thrum. It’s easy to stop when this is what life gives you.

In the days following the ceremony, I spent a lot of time in that hammock, pondering some of life’s lessons, discovering bits of me that I wasn’t aware of, drifting about in happy thoughts of peace, love and understanding, and just generally getting in touch with myself. Talk about stopping!

Ecuador earthquake

Six days ago, a 7.8 earthquake occurred on the north-central coast of Ecuador … where it hit hardest, there was considerable damage and destruction, lost lives, and horrible injuries. If this were to happen in the United States, everyone would look around and ask when the government was going to get here and solve the problem.

But this is Ecuador. Here, people rely on themselves. In the aftermath of the quake, I have read so many stories of heroic people working tirelessly to extract people from the rubble, get food and supplies into the affected areas, and provide medical assistance to the many injured. This is a poor country financially, but in terms of its people, it is the wealthiest nation I know. I am always touched by everyone’s generosity and helpfulness, and now, in the hours, days and weeks after the quake, they are heroes.

Here is just one story about the hours following the quake in the coastal town of Canoa. I have fond memories of the time I spent in Canoa last year and the year before, but I just didn’t get a chance to go this year. A few months ago, I heard from a couple from my old hometown in New Hampshire who’d sold their house and moved to Canoa and were now the new owners of the Surf Shak on the beach. Living la vida loca! Cathy and Alan – who are mentioned in the story. Since the night they were taken to the hospital, they have both received surgery and are recovering slowly.

The earthquake was felt all along the Ecuador coast, but other than the immediate area around the epicenter, significant damage was limited to the two big coastal cities – Manta and Guayaquil. The southern coastal town of Manglaralto, where I stayed for six weeks this year, felt severe shaking, but nothing they didn’t recuperate from quickly. Before I arrived in Manglaralto, I spent a month inland, in the Andes mountains, in the town of Vilcabamba. They too felt the shaking, but nothing much.

It’s been 15 days since I returned to New Hampshire from Ecuador. I wish I was there now, but instead I’m up here … with a couple of blog posts to write about my time in both those places. Stay tuned!

 

montana – august 2015

When I left Washington, I headed north over the Canadian border into beautiful British Columbia – the final stop on my tour of the Pacific Northwest. I was sorry to leave, and it was right about this time that I started to laughingly call this my farewell tour. I’m not sure, but this might be my last road trip. Perhaps I got it out of my system … I still want to travel, but I’m going to give myself over to buses and trains, at least for the foreseeable future.

And I don’t think a bus trip to the Pacific Northwest is what I have in mind, so I feel like I am saying farewell to my friends and family out here. But we hardly see in each other nowadays, so it’s not that painful. More joyful in fact, getting to catch up and spend quality time together.

All this to say, the first two weeks of August was people time. I never took my camera out once to snap a mountainscape or beautiful sunset – but lots of photos of friends and family, in both British Columbia and its neighboring province, Alberta, where I spent time with my brothers and their families.

Directly south of Alberta over the American border is Montana, and I am delighted to be here. If you’ve been following the book story so far, you’ll know that Virginia City, Montana, is the setting for book 3 in the trilogy. And I’m here to do research for about 10 days.

First stop is Helena – the state capital, and home of the state archives, where I spent a few days doing research – a lot on Thomas Francis Meagher, who was the acting governor of the Territory of Montana in the late 1860s and plays a big part in my book. I won’t give away anything, but Meagher was quite a character, somewhat larger than life, and I am delighted that I get to write about him. To remind everyone just how much larger than life he really was, after his death, his wife paid for and had installed a statue of him in front of the State House. He looks rather imposing, brandishing his sword sitting high on his horse.

A few hours south of Helena lie the two towns of Nevada City and Virginia City, deep in the dusty bits of Montana. Back in the 1860s, gold was found in them thar parts, and Virginia City became the capital of Montana for a time. It was a lively city back then, as were all the settlements along Alder Gulch, and it’ll be a great story to tell. Today, the two towns are tourist destinations – the Old West on display, and I availed myself of walking tours of both.

blog Nevada City 2I was in Nevada City on a Sunday, in time for an afternoon re-enactment of a tale from the town’s history – a vigilante lynching – that was played out along the dusty streets amid the old buildings of the time. Before the re-enactment, I had time to stroll among the buildings and visit with some of the people, who of course were in character the whole time.

I spent most of my week doing research at the libraries in Virginia City and nearby Ennis, and got a chance to meet with a local historian and a native Sioux, both of whom shed a little light on me. There is such a rich (no pun intended) history here to tell. I’m not wishing my life away, but I’m looking forward to the day I start writing it. Ireland first, though, right?

Here’s a taste of what I’ll be coming back to …

♫ I might be movin’ to Montana soon

Just to raise me up a crop of

Dental Floss ♫

– Frank Zappa