SwampBilly in Europe

Sorry for the lack of blog activity people, but as many of you know, I was off on a 18 day trip and Kelly went off to Barcelona.

The good news is we'll have plenty of blog posts for ya now that we're back.

My trip started with my monthly coaching trip to Gottingen. This time I had Gibby, Drunk Dave, Bingo and SwampBilly with me as we were en route to the Box tournament in Prague the next week.

After the tournament I had a few stops to make, so it was going to be one of my longest solo trips to date.

Posts to follow about the entire trip, but needless to say...it was a doozy.

Billy had so much fun in Gottingen & Prague, that he canceled his return flight to Florida and made the journey with me to Vienna, Munich, Gottingen and back to Ireland.

Problem was that Billy had so many bags, he looked like my sherpa...which of course turned into both of us referring to him as Tenzing Norgay, world famous Sherpa who accompanied Sir Edmund Hilary to the top of Everest in 1953.

It only seemed fitting that upon our return to Ireland, I take my Tenzing out to Wicklow and let him run wild in the mountains.

Wicklow Wednesday kicked off with a Guinness filled Tuesday night, so Wednesday morning we were running behind schedule. We took the light rail down to the foothills, and then caught a cab to the Wicklow Way trail head at Kilmashogue.

We hiked up Kilmashogue, saw some neolithic tombs and then hiked over Two Rock near Fairy Castle, down into Glencullen to Johnny Foxe's pub for lunch.

The only problem was that, while Sir Edmund Hilary had his stocky Sherpa who was used to the altitude and temperatures in the Himalayas, I had a flatlander from the steamy shores of Lake Okeechobee. Although it was May, the tempartures were in the 40's, the wind & rain were lashing at us the whole time....poor Tenzing Billy kept telling me to "Go ahead, I'm not going to make it, get help"....but we persevered...together.

Ok, I'm kidding. Although it was cold and rainy it was still a great day. Besides, you can never question Billy's toughness.

He hunts gators.

Thanks again Billy, great trip.

More posts to come about our time in Prague, Vienna, Munich and Gottingen.