The art of driving in the rain

September 7, Galway. We are very worried about Hurricane Irma now headed to southern Florida but predicted, either first or last, to hit Charleston and our beloved family there and our beach house. May it seek a mid-Atlantic path!

We arrived Galway lunchtime after a most beautiful drive around the head of Galway Bay, with the Burren slowly disappearing. The area around Kinvara is so beautiful it has attracted some serious retirement and second home money.

Galway is something different. It seems a Mecca for the young, the musical, the wanderer, the searcher. The natural setting (on the Corrib where it flows into Galway Bay) is spectacular. Lynch's Window is here. From it, Lynch, the town's JP, hung his own son after conviction for murder. Thus the term.

Mostly it is a place for food and music--and booze. We just returned from a spectacular meal at the town's best seafood restaurant, Oscar's, topped off by an evening of traditional music at the famous pub The Crane.

It rained all day but there's promise of blue skies tomorrow. We said to a pub owner, "I don't guess there will be a sunset today." And he replied, "Sure there will. You just won't see it." Another person told us, "We have all the seasons here. Every day!"

trad music in Galway