On Causeway Road there is a turnoff an information placard for Dunseverick Castle near a cottage. This is the left side of the placard with the historical context. The right side is natural history of the area.
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Here we can see the two partial wall, remains of a gate house, destroyed in the 17th century. I can imagine making the climb up the foot path, examine the earthworks from before the Viking invasions, middle of the first millennium A.D. Recall a visit by Saint Patrick, trodding the path from his Easter fire on the Hill of Slane.
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Our last “FastPass” was for the EPCOT Forever fireworks and special effects spectacular. COVID-19 rendered the “forever” to be futile pretension, though during our wait Pam struck up a conversation with a couple who returned year after years to EPCOT, people who miss it and look forward to reopening.
We found the “FastPass” venue lacking, as there were many structures in the line of sight, as you can see from the IPhone 7 videos in this post. In retrospect, the area in front of the Canada Pavilion was open and might be a better location — when Epcot reopens, you’d need to get their early to grab a space.
“Dodge the bullet” is rather too active for our EPCOT experience as we did nothing to social distance, cover our faces and, even, attended a sit down restaurant. “Dumb luck” is a better characterization, but it makes a poor chapter heading.
As our time in Florida passed more information leaked from China, posted by their citizens on-line. I recalled the chaotic scenes from the hospital, frightened people screaming in packing halls. Seeking to protect ourselves during the flight home, we sought out N95 masks and all medical masks were sold out. We found packs of N95 masks marketed for auto body work, in Walmart. Wore them on the 2 hour flight home as the only “wierdos” wearing masks as several fellow passengers coughed uncontrollably.
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Epcot is a different experience at night, in many ways an enhancement, a gathering of glamour, smoothing of edges.
These few photographs and one video of the Japan Pavilion exemplify this effect. We were blessed with a full moon.
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Exterior of the Tokyo Dining restaurant
Tokyo Dining is a traditional sushi restaurant featuring served by native Japanese. Our service was efficient and attentive from a premium seat acquired through our on-line reservation through a smart phone Disney app. Traffic is immense. I can only think of the research from China that demonstrated transmission of COVID-19 to nine diners by one infected person. We learned in April 2020 a high percentage of infections are non-symptomatic.
Blue Roof Pagoda with Full Moon
After dinner Pam and I enjoyed views from the spacious terrace. All photos for this post are from that time. Many of our family gifts from the trip were from the large and well stocked Mitsukoshi Department Store. It is the only remaining branch of the company in North America.
Several times in the “aughts” (2000 – 2009) Pam and I visited Ottawa, the capital of Canada, for work. We’d leave on a weekend to enjoy some personal time before the appointments.
It is sad, I could find no photographs of Ottawa to share with this post. We loved the European feel of the city.
Our exposure to the Canada pavilion was a walk by at sunset on the way to our Japan dinner reservation.
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This building is very much like the Chateaus of Ottawa on the river Rideau and Ottawa rivers.
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Checking Google Maps (GM) just now am sorry to see the Breezemount House B&B is closed, even the website is disabled. GM was how I planned our Ireland tour itinerary through late Fall and Winter of 2014, marking locations as “saved.” Keeping up a GM subscription is worthwhile, making it easy to recall the specifics of our lodgings. Pete, the Breezemont proprietor, a gruff Scottsman, gave good advice. Revisiting Dunseverick Castle Ruin our crunch at the end of that June 2014 day brings to mind the jist his words, to the effect his visitors do not plan enough time (for the area).
Dunseverick, on a romantic peninsula location overlooking the Irish sea and distant Scottish coast views, is worth at least a full morning to park at the Causeway Road turnoff, adjacent to a modern cottage, hike the alluring trial to the site to trod historic turf. I remember with a sense of regret setting up the tripod for several distant views, made larger by a variable “zoom” lens.
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