We arrived in Dublin around midnight, went to the hotel, and slept.

Sunday, September 25

We went to Brother Hubbard, a large busy brunch restaurant.  We’d gone there in 2013, but it seemed bigger this time.  I told the guy in charge I was looking for our friend Sam whom we were meeting and he let me in to walk around.  So I did that, using the postures traditional to customers looking to meet their friends at a crowded cafe, but a waitress came up to me using the traditional posture of a good Samaritan who has come across an escapee from a Memory Care Facility and needs to be guided back to safety.  Are you all right?, she said.  This is how old age begins, the socially constructed part of it, anyway.

Sam showed up, and he introduced his fiancée Clare.  It was a leisurely meal, with engaging conversation, especially with our waiter, who was not scared of wandering old people.  Niall said he figured Dave and I were Samuel’s dads just meeting his girl for the first time.  Decent guess. I’m glad that all the waiters aren’t polite.

Afterwards Sam and Clare drove us up into the hills south of Dublin, to The Blue Light, a favorite pub with a vast view of the town.  Somehow the Guinness on tap in an Irish pub is a lot better than the bottles we get in America.  They also made their own beer, featuring an IPA.  We consumed several pints, and some snacks, with engaging conversation.

They drove us back to our hotel, and we recuperated for a few hours, skipped dinner, and went to sleep.

Monday, September 26

The priority for Monday was laundry.  The most convenient location was Laundry Online, a 12-minute walk, which undercuts the name.  It was nice — there were workers there to point us to a machine.  We didn’t have to fiddle with change, we just paid up at the end.  While the laundry was going on, we walked around the Ranelagh neighborhood looking for good coffee.  We ended up at yet another branch of Brother Hubbard.  This one was fairly small, with a more limited menu, but it was still quite good.  No Niall.

And when we left two socks in the machine, Laundry Online saved them for us, and we picked them up later.

Later on we walked up to “Fish Shop”, which some Internet site described as an “essential” fish & chips restaurant.  The fish was great, but the vinegar was — what do you do when the authentic regional food is petrochemicals?  And the advertising industry that goes along with it?  As an American, I should know how to feel about this.  But I don’t drink Coca Cola in Atlanta, and I’d rather not put “Chip Mate non-brewed condiment” on my fish and chips.  With a name venturing so deep into the territory of self-parody, you’d expect to see it in the generic food aisle of Repo Man, or a Ladies Against Women skit of old.

Tuesday, September 27

We got up, had breakfast, and took the bus back to the airport.  Dublin is a “Preclearance” airport, which means you enter the US before you take off.  The last time we did that we wondered if we would miss our flight, the lines were so long.  This time, there were no lines at all, and we ended up waiting around a long time in the lounge before boarding.  We had been assigned separate seats, and there was nobody to ask to change them for us.

Dublin had had a real hard time of it a week or so before, so we were anticipating the worst and showed up early.

Many airlines have started charging extra fees for the luxury of seat selection.  And sure, some people care where they are seated and some don’t.  But when people are traveling together on the same itinerary, the computer really should make an effort to keep them together.  Aer Lingus didn’t even provide it as an option.

After an 11-hour flight, it was two hours later in Seattle.  We rented a car, to go one way to San Francisco. For the second time, it is a surprisingly cheap alternative and gives lots of flexibility for visits.  I guess people are driving lots of one ways out of California and we’re balancing it out.

We drove to our friend Buster’s house. He had left some nice cheese to snack on after all the airline food. We went right to sleep.

Wednesday, September 28

Our friend Jeff didn’t feel like making the drive from his house in Mount Vernon down to Seattle, so we drove up to see him.  It’s a bit out of commute range, but he’s retired.  It was really nice to see him and his wife Dana.

The original plan for the trip was that it would end with a big party in Sunriver, a resort near Bend, Oregon, at Buster’s house there.  But between Covid fears and other commitments, most of the people who usually go to this annual affair had bowed out, so it was canceled.  We ended up having a dinner at Buster’s house in Seattle which was every bit as superspready as the Sunriver dinners would have been.  Three of his kids were there, and our friends Dean, Mark, and Callum.  Buster fixed pulled pork, there was lots of good wine, and everything was delicious.

Thursday, September 29

We left Buster’s and drove to Tacoma.  For exercise, we took a walk in a city park which could have been threatening, but wasn’t.  The homeless people were out of sight.  Birds are that way. too, unless you have a guide who knows exactly where to look for them.  After an hour, we drove to meet our friend Kord and his rockstar son Christian at Brewer’s Row, a tidy little brew pub with Mexican food a few blocks from their house.

Then we drove on to Portland to Lenore’s house, and then met up with her husband Geoff, our friend Jesse and his girlfriend Dawn at Luc Lac, a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Portland.  We ate in their parklet, as the line was a bit too long to eat inside.

It was very sweet of Lenore and Geoff to let us stay at their house.  Again.  They also send us post cards.

Friday, September 30

We drove to Ray’s cousin Meg’s house outside Eugene.  With the usual amount of phone chatter which facilitates unplanned visits, we met Kent drove to meet cousin Meg at Glenwood, for lunch.  They serve American food.  We ran into Meg’s son Colin’s ex, Nat.  We had dinner at Steelhead, an even more American place in downtown Eugene, with Colin and his new girlfriend Tina.  Colin and Tina do American very, very, well. Also, Colin had just gotten a new GTO.

Saturday, October 1

The last day if the trip!  We had breakfast at Meg’s, and left for California.

We stopped in Ashland to see our friends Dave and Parvaneh.  They have moved from a place in the hills above Talent down into Ashland itself.  No acreage to maintain.  Fire is a threat to their house just as it is to ours, only, the last big fire to pass through the Ashland area burned the town of Phoenix and left the hills unscathed.  Hard to know what to do when the signal of the End Times is so noisy.  Plus, bears come into downtown Ashland and tear down their back fence.  We found some American food downtown.

Then, the long slog down Interstate 5, stopping at Taqueria Hecho en Mexico, an authentic Mexican restaurant in Vacaville.  It definitely attracted many of the target ethnicity.  The food was really good.

And then we met Brian, who had been keeping the Tesla, and drove home, and went to sleep.