May 27th Issue

E and I......This is from a gig that "E" and I did for Habitat for Humanity. (Sorry, but this shot was taken just before she whipped off that conservative coat revealing the Las Vegas showgirl outfit, climbed on top of the piano and belted out the greatest hits from "Wicked." (Not bad for a Methodist on a Sunday.)

Issue #24…

Final Group Meeting

Etch the date into your calendar… Sunday afternoon, June 29^th, 3 p.m. in the fellowship hall of 1^st Presbyterian in Jacksonville. This will be our final rendezvous before taking off for Ireland and points east. If you are present at this meeting then I’ll give you your plane tickets on the date. If you know you won’t be able to attend, let me know and I’ll mail them to you.

It won’t be a long gathering…just spending enough time to answer any last minute questions and get our final bearings.

Please enter via the north entrance.

Our First Taste of the Emerald Isle

Our very first stop after landing in Limerick will be Adare. The little village tucked into the west side of Ireland, it’s often been the winner of the “Tidiest Town” award. (Cute title!) The Third Earl of Dunraven built a street with thatched cottages and well trimmed hedges at the gates of his early Victorian Manor in the 1820s, and this collection of “outdwellings” has become the present-day Adare. History had already endowed Adare with an exquisite backdrop to further please the eye - an ivied Norman Castle beside the river Maigue and the best collection of ruined medieval friaries in Ireland. These include a 13th century Trinitarian monastery, a 15th century Franciscan Monastery and a 14th century Augustinian Monastery.

Here’s a YouTube link that’ll give you a quick travelogue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9Yl7L9nxQ

Something Worth Checking Out…

Although I’ve talked a great deal about packing light, nephew Doug passed along one of the best sites I’ve seen on not only why you should do it, but how to do it.

http://www.onebag.com/

From The Horse’s Mouth…

And instead of plodding through lots of websites to discover what you can and cannot take onto the plane, why not simply go to the Transportation Security Administration’s website? Tsa.org

Show Time!

And any day now the Passports Tour office will be asking me what show we’d like to see in London (included in the price of our tour.) If you’re like me, any of them will be a thrill, but in case you’d like to email me a vote, here’s what’s playing this week (the musicals, anyway):

AvenueQ
BillyElliot
BloodBrothers
Buddy
Cabaret
Chicago
DirtyDancing
Divas
Eurobeat
GonewiththeWind
Grease
Hairspray
HighSchoolMusical
IntoTheHoods
JerseyBoys
Joseph
LesMiserables
MammaMia!
Marguerite
NeverForget
Oliver!
PhantomoftheOpera
SoundOfMusic
Spamalot
Stomp
TheHarderTheCome
TheLionKing
TheLordoftheRings
WeWillRockYou
WestSideStory
Wicked
Zorro