21 May ’05, Saturday.
I made my way across the street this morning by 8:30 to see if the mechanic was in yet, but found out he wouldn’t be there until about 9:30. At 9:30 I met Robert Robertson and after awhile it was determined that we would most likely be here until Thursday. The whole job won’t take but half a day, but it will take that long to get us in and get the parts. Well, we needed a couple of days anyway, so we started off with a “wash day”, complete with a wash job for “Bumble Bee”. Louise and I donned our backpacks and went looking for groceries a little later in the afternoon and also to see if there was an internet location here. We got the groceries, but found out that the only internet was at the library and they were closed until Monday…it’s a small town thing… On our way to the grocery store, we came across a local “hall” with a group of men and dummies dresses up in British/Irish, American, and German uniforms from WWII. Outside there was also war guns of all description and inside, they had some more of the same plus great displays of the Nurse’s St Johns Ambulance Corp, newspapers from the war time, and pictures of local/Belfast just prior and after having the Nazis bombers drop their bombs. Louise and I had no longer walked through the gate and we were met and cordially invited in. We were given the “Red Carpet” treatment. All this was to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. This is a small town, but they did a superb job. The opening speech, was given by a vet of WWII, and he had some very interesting stories to tell all of us. One of the other speakers was a North Ireland Congressman from this area. We had a chance to meet and talk with him for quite awhile. What a great experience our little walk gave us this morning… Fact is, it seems that our being stopped here was for a purpose, and a chance to meet a lot of great people in a small Ireland town. Speaking of meeting great people…the camper parked right next to us was a couple that are camping Europe for the next 7 months. It just so happens that they are from Fall City…it’s a small world. Robert Grimm and Helen Winkler. They had to leave here today and head up to the area’s we had just come from. They want to make it to Turkey, so we had a lot of conversation about our trip and we hope it proves to help them.
I made my way across the street this morning by 8:30 to see if the mechanic was in yet, but found out he wouldn’t be there until about 9:30. At 9:30 I met Robert Robertson and after awhile it was determined that we would most likely be here until Thursday. The whole job won’t take but half a day, but it will take that long to get us in and get the parts. Well, we needed a couple of days anyway, so we started off with a “wash day”, complete with a wash job for “Bumble Bee”. Louise and I donned our backpacks and went looking for groceries a little later in the afternoon and also to see if there was an internet location here. We got the groceries, but found out that the only internet was at the library and they were closed until Monday…it’s a small town thing… On our way to the grocery store, we came across a local “hall” with a group of men and dummies dresses up in British/Irish, American, and German uniforms from WWII. Outside there was also war guns of all description and inside, they had some more of the same plus great displays of the Nurse’s St Johns Ambulance Corp, newspapers from the war time, and pictures of local/Belfast just prior and after having the Nazis bombers drop their bombs. Louise and I had no longer walked through the gate and we were met and cordially invited in. We were given the “Red Carpet” treatment. All this was to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. This is a small town, but they did a superb job. The opening speech, was given by a vet of WWII, and he had some very interesting stories to tell all of us. One of the other speakers was a North Ireland Congressman from this area. We had a chance to meet and talk with him for quite awhile. What a great experience our little walk gave us this morning… Fact is, it seems that our being stopped here was for a purpose, and a chance to meet a lot of great people in a small Ireland town. Speaking of meeting great people…the camper parked right next to us was a couple that are camping Europe for the next 7 months. It just so happens that they are from Fall City…it’s a small world. Robert Grimm and Helen Winkler. They had to leave here today and head up to the area’s we had just come from. They want to make it to Turkey, so we had a lot of conversation about our trip and we hope it proves to help them.