This was a a long day. We saw A LOT. We stayed in a room above a pub in Dungloe in County Donegal in the northwestern part of the Republic of Ireland. We drove to Dunfanaghy and hike up to see the cliffs at Horn Head. It is a peninsula now but used to be an island. There was a lot of heather making the tops of the cliffs appear purple and LOTS of wind. This is part of the Wild Atlantic Way and the roads to get to these far-off places are incredibly narrow. We also trekked to Murder Hole Beach. When I say trekked…well, it included going up a few hundred steps…a few steep sandy hills, crossing a cow pasture with LOTS of cows and sheep in it, and traversing a few sand dunes. The surf was, of course, cold and crashing. We stopped in Letterkenny for lunch at Mr. Chippies, where I had the Irish version of a Cajun chicken sandwich. My Louisiana friends would shudder at trying it. When I think of Cajun, I expect a bit of a kick and some tingling lips afterwards. That is Cajun. This was more like watered down Thousand Island dressing. I was a bit underwhelmed, however, after the sandy climb to and from Murder Hole Beach, I was pretty hungry! I put a picture of the Letterkenny sign because it was something special for my Joe. He loved a show by that name…a slapstick comedy about a Canadian town by that same name. Joe always asked me if I had watched the latest season (it was totally out of my wheelhouse) but he talked about it a lot. When I saw there was a town in Ireland by that name, I wanted to make sure we stopped there and took a photo of the sign. If Joe was alive, I would have done the same thing. It was just a little bittersweet this time.

We crossed into Northern Ireland….for those of you who aren’t up on your geography or European history, that is a separate country. The money changes from Euro to pounds and so do the signs…from Irish to English and from km to miles. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom (to include Wales, Scotland, and England). When you think of the “Troubles” – the time from 1969 to 1994 when the Protestants and Catholics were bombing each other and couldn’t live side by side….Northern Ireland is where you are thinking of. Our first stop was in Derry or Londonderry (depends on who you ask as to what they call it). This is an old walled medieval city with canons on the walls. We walked the walls of the city and also toured the old cathedral in town, which they have reverted to the city hall. We crossed the Peace Bridge and took photos of St. Columb’s Cathedral. After spending a lot of time walking in Londonderry, we drove east towards the Giants Causeway. This natural phenomenon is comprised of over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns. There are a lot of myths about how the Giant’s Causeway came into being. The one we heard went something like this:

There was once a giant who lived in Northern Ireland named Finn McCool. There was another giant who lived across the Irish Sea in Scotland named Benandonner. He had threatened Finn and so Finn ripped apart the rocks along the Antrim coast and flung them into the sea, making a walking path to Scotland, to attack. Benandonner. Finn went across the sea on the rocky path and spied on the Scottish giant, finding, to his dismay, that Benandonner was much larger than him! Finn went back to Ireland and with the help of his wife, donned the outfit of an infant. He curled up and pretended to be sleeping when Benandonner came to spy on Finn. Benandonner was shocked at the sheer size of the infant he saw….thinking his father must really be ginormous! He hurriedly went back to his home in Scotland, and tore the walkway away as he went, hoping the Irish giant Finn McCool wouldn’t follow him. Hence the story of the Giant’s Causeway.

Rich and I agreed that if we hadn’t seen so many of these formations along the coast of Iceland, we would have been in total awe of the Giant’s Causeway. It was spectacular though and we were, of course, in the wind and rain and the sun was just starting to set as we left. However, we made one more stop for me. Ever since I saw a photo of the Dark Hedges online several years ago, I wanted to photograph them. I thought we would have a hard time getting photos in as it is a pretty popular place to go now that Game of Thrones has its stamp on it. However, the weather was rainy and windy. The sun was setting….fog was rolling in. Not many people were there. Photography-wise, it was perfect. If you know me at all, you know I love trees. The more gnarled the better. I loved it!

We woke up in the morning and decided to start our day taking a walk along Bertra Strand, a nearby beach. Unlike Iceland where we didn’t see many dogs at all, the Irish seem to love their dogs and they were all on the beach that morning, living their best lives running in the wet sand.

We then packed up and took off, stopping at the National Famine Memorial to see the Coffin Ship statue. This commemorates (if that is the right word to use in this situation) the Great Famine of 1845-1850. Evidently a lot of the workers in the countryside came to the town to see their “Lord” in charge of their land because they were starving. Instead of helping and feeding them, he put them onto boats going to America. Most of them died of “starvation sickness” prior to landing on the shores of America. It is a horrible story that is still very close to the surface in Ireland. The statue of the Coffin Ship was put up in 1997 in a large park and garden.

We continued on through Donagal and the Slieve League Loop and traveled to the top of the cliffs there. The coast is not usually beaches in Ireland…but towering cliffs with a fierce, churning sea far below. I mentioned that the weather was also moody in Ireland…we hiked up to the cliffs in County Donegal in a driving mist…. then the rain stopped…then was off and on again the whole time we were up there. There were a few moments where the sun broke through the clouds and sent gorgeous sunrays onto the ocean’s surface. These are moments are when I think Joe is showing me that he is with us still. We weren’t the only ones who noticed the beautiful sight. As we drove towards our stop for the night, we got to see several rainbows…even a double one!

We started the day driving to Adare, where we looked at a beautiful walking garden trail in the city centre and then on to Limerick. We stopped at Bunratty Castle as it was in the tourism books, but it was $17 a person to enter. We thought that was quite a bit to pay. Instead, we walked around the shops in the area and got some really good Irish chocolates and a couple of sweaters at an end of summer sale. We got a kick out of the “Tidy Town” signs in many of the towns we stopped in. They were pretty tidy. I guess it is a big award and something to be quite proud of. (I would be!). We drove up the western coast of Ireland along the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW). I love the names of the pubs and stores in Ireland. One of my favorites was a clothing store called Earls and Pearls. It had clothes for men and women. There are golf country clubs, full courses, and pitch & putt courses everywhere.

This was one of our sunniest days on our whole trip. It was also the day that we walked 6 miles along the Cliffs of Moher, which was slow going but so beautiful. We saw a lot of husker fans there. In fact, in my notes for the day, I wrote that the people we saw along the Cliffs of Moher were German, Italian, Spanish and Nebraskan. We parked about a mile south of Hag’s Head and then walked to Hag’s Head and then 5 miles on to Brian’s Castle…and a bit beyond that as well. There is a small area (well, it isn’t THAT small) where there were hundreds and hundreds of cairns – piles of stones – that people had constructed. I constructed one for our family, with a stone (from bottom to top) to represent Rich, me, Tim, Lily, Michelle, and Joe. His was a pretty red color. The last photo on this post is that Messina family cairn on the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. We had an ongoing joke with Joe because he was just sure he had been to Ireland before and I am just positive he hadn’t. The discussion started when he wanted to get a shamrock tattoo from when he was in Ireland. Hmmmm…he had been to Scotland, but not Ireland. We teased him all the time about that. I carried him with me in my heart there, so now I can say he has been there.

We met a lovely man from Omaha who was not there for the Husker game but on a pilgrimage to see Father Flanagan’s hometown (the founder of Boy’s Town in Omaha). After leaving the Cliffs of Moher, we went just around the corner to St. Brigid’s Well. We then headed to Murrisk, Ireland, where we saw an amazing sunset off the water. We saw but did not hike the Croagh Patrick. It was a very triangular hill in County Mayo where St. Patrick climbed to the top and stayed up there to fast for 40 days during Lent. Evidently pilgrims hike the path barefoot and often don’t make the steep, rocky climb up. We stayed at another bed and breakfast and the older woman who owned the place had avocado-colored toilets and flower-printed everything – the bedspread, the sheets, the wallpaper, the tablecloths, and the teacups in the room. We met some lovely people from Northern Ireland who were vacationing in the area, and we were able to talk to them at great extent about where to go in Northern Ireland. So, thank you to the MacKenzies for helping guide us across your country!

This was a very long day in the car but we saw a lot! We left early from our bed and breakfast in Killarney and drove the Ring of Kerry, a scenic drive around the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry. We went on a car ferry and to the island of Valentia Island and spent time on the Skillig Ring and Kingstown as well as the Cliffs of Kerry. This is usually a day long trip but we left early enough to also squeeze in a tour of the Dingle Peninsula as well. It is further north and the countryside is breathtaking. The very narrow country roads are not for the faint of heart though. We saw the Blasket Islands and the Inch Strand (beach). In the Dingle Peninsula, the majority of the population there spoke Irish. There are areas within the Republic of Ireland that are given extra money by the government to make sure that the Irish culture is preserved. This means that classes are taught in Irish (Gaelic) and all the signs, etc, are also in Irish. Whereas all students take Irish classes, these particular areas are immersive. One thing that the Irish do well are stone walls. The amount of stone walls in the pastures were AMAZING. While we were looking around the Ring of Kerry, we came by a few odd (we will call them rare breeds) of sheep. We saw a couple of 4 horned sheep and one of the biggest rabbits I have ever seen. That whole hike, I was trying to decide which I had more of on the bottom of my shoes….sheep poop or slimey slugs (because they were everywhere). Rich’s opinion was an even 50/50. Rich and I were pretty sure that the Old Irish Farmer’s Almanac must have told all the farmers it was the day to spray liquid manure. We had pleasantly blocked those olfactory memories from those times in Norway the farmers used the poop sprayers…..but we saw nearly a dozen of them on the road and in the fields.

So to talk about something more pleasant…let’s talk about a full Irish breakfast. At this bed and breakfast, it consisted of a runny sunnyside egg, 2 huge very salty slabs of what they call bacon but is more like a skinny slice of ham, and 2 large sausages. Other places also included blood pudding. Yep. Sounds as good as it looks. The houses don’t have dryers either. All laundry is put out on the line in the garden or in the living room if it is raining.

We started our 2nd day in Ireland in Kilkenny. We went into town and took a trolley ride around this adorable town. It is a 9th century medieval city with narrow cobblestone streets, castles, an abbey or two, and a lot of beautiful flowers. Actually, there were so many lovely (pronounced Loov lee) flowers everywhere we went in Ireland. I had forgotten how the Europeans really pride themselves on how their towns look and their gardens (yards). Kilkenny also has the dubious distinction of being the hottest spot in Ireland. After three windblown, rainy, and cold days in Iceland, we were sweating. Layers in Ireland were a must. I felt like I always had a sweater and then a rain jacket along with me. This made me very thankful for not being on a tour bus or something like that where I had to carry all of this all the time. Having our own car was wonderful. We took a trolley ride around the city of Kilkenny and got to hear more about the city before we were on our way again to the Rock of Cashel. This is a huge medieval church were St. Patrick baptized the Irish king. There were graveyards and a fortress on a hill that overlooked pastures of cows and lambs on the countryside. We took a walking tour of the Cashel Rock Cathedral and then made our way to Killarney, where we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast for two nights.

Rich and I are both big sports fanatics, so we were paying close attention to the sports the youngsters were playing while we were traveling around Ireland. We also took the opportunity to ask locals questions as well. The top three sports in Ireland in the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) are #1 Gaelic football (which is nothing like anything I have ever seen. They can run and carry the ball as well as kick. The rules are quite extensive, but we stopped to stretch our legs and watched some practices and then looked up the rules when we had wi-fi at night.) #2 hurling (this looks like a death wish for all players involved. The injuries received from smacking this hard ball (sliotar) with a bat called a hurley or caman in Irish language, seem like they would be plentiful. It dates back to 1272 BC. The female game of hurling is called camogie. Google it….is INSANE.) #3 Rugby (we actually know this one pretty well!). I was able to get a few boys practicing hurling.

We arrived in Dublin mid-day on a Saturday. Let me tell you, driving in Ireland is a nightmare. Driving in Dublin is a special kind of horrifying experience…especially on a weekend. We rented a small car. If you didn’t realize it, Ireland drives on the left side of the road from the right side of the car. This means everything is backwards. Luckily, we lived in Okinawa, Japan for two years and were relatively well-versed with driving on the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road. They actually put a sticker on the dash of the rental cars that remind the driver to drive on the left side of the road. It actually was kind of handy. Add to the charm of these driving conditions, the car was also a stick shift…shifting with your left hand. The car rental place generously (or so we thought) gave us a Garmin for free to use whilst in Ireland. It didn’t speak…didn’t give us the most direct route or easiest one, for that matter. It was like stepping back in time 15 years. We were trying not to use our phones as the roaming data fee would have been crazy. It was a lot. Rich was exhausted every night just from concentrating on the driving. We took 9 days to travel around the perimeter of the enter island, hitting most of the highlights of the Republic of Ireland and of Northern Ireland, which is a separate country. We didn’t go to some of the more popular places like the Blarney Castle and Blarney stone. We instead went to the countryside and the coastal areas and enjoyed the views without the crowds. We spent very little time in Belfast and Dublin, which we preferred. Most of the places we stayed were bed and breakfast homes where we were able to get to know some of the local folks. Evidently in many of the cities, the hotels were filled with refugees that Ireland had taken in from the Ukraine. Either way, this gave us the chance to see how people in Ireland live and we had a great time getting to know our hosts and the other guests.

In the airport in Iceland, you did everything yourself. You checked yourself in, printed your own bag tags, took the bags to the belt and scanned them yourself and loaded them on the belt. There were really very few workers – they were only there to float around and answer questions and guide people. It actually ran really well. Not quite the same in Dublin. We landed in Dublin and got to sit on the plane on the tarmac for nearly an hour as we waited for someone to come and bring airstairs so we could get off the plane. We then waited quite a while for our luggage to be unloaded. I was missing my luggage….and much later they announced they found a group of other suitcases which belonged here in Dublin. Thankfully mine were included in that group. They just kept saying that they were very understaffed. On day one, we stopped to have lunch in a small pub (imagine that) and had our lunch while watching premier soccer with some really avid fans. We then parked the car in a car park and headed to the Gaiety Theatre in the city centre of Dublin to watch the 25th anniversary of River Dance. Rich had never seen it before. The most enjoyable part of the show for me was watching a little girl, maybe 6 years old, watching from the front row. She was so moved by everything she was seeing, she had to stand for the majority of the show, her eyes just alight with the magic of it all. Times have changed since I watched this show 25 years ago in Fargo, ND. There is more music and singing…and the lead performer is a female. Watching the cast and crew smiling at this little girl beaming up at them through 2 hours of singing and dancing was magical. We spent an hour walking around Dublin and finding their city park to stretch our legs in before heading to the car and going to Glendoloch, a medieval castle and church with upper and lower lakes. We spent quite a bit of time hiking around the area as the sun began to set. We then headed to Kilkenny, where we stayed the night.

On our 3rd day in Iceland, we did a whopping 11 hour tour to the western coast and the Snaefellsness Peninsula (Rich calls it the Snuffleupagus peninsula, you know, the big furry elephant looking character on Sesame Street). It sounds remarkably alike. Surprisingly enough, it was windy and raining for this tour! Shocking, right?! One of our guides did jokingly say that all the Iceland brochure pictures were taken during the 10 days of sunshine during the year. He didn’t seem to be joking that much… Allows for moody photos because the sky is always cloudy I guess. Clouds make for good sunset photos. I was really fortunate to get in some lovely and very bright rainbow photos on this day as well. There is always a silver lining. Rich having wet socks every evening after tramping around in the wet all day wasn’t one of them…but I did figure out that the waterproof trail running shoes I bought did the trick.

This tour included lunch at a working farmhouse where we had lamb lasagna. Yep. Never thought those two words would go together. It was pretty good though. The farm had a lot of horses on it so we got to stand in the driving rain and take photos of some sodden, but beautiful Icelandic horses. We went to another couple of black sand beaches (as I think most are considering the volcanic makeup of the island). One had seals playing off shore and another waving (literally) from the beach. There were also some whale bones from a beached whale. We stopped near the coast to see a very old black church which was originally founded in 1703 but rebuilt in 1848. There was also a very interesting-looking troll made from stones. Yet another beach had four large stones. At the turn of the century, you could determine the worth of you being a sailor by which one you could lift. We toured some national parks and the countryside was breathtaking with the clouds and the sun warring each other to see who would control how the view looked. We left early the next morning….as in we had to be outside a nearby hotel with our luggage at 0345 to meet the bus to the airport. We enjoyed our time in Iceland and honestly wished we could have come a bit earlier in the summer and spent more time there. However, we were some of the last of the straggling tourists for the season, and the lack of crowd was good. So for now I say “so long” to Iceland which is translated into Icelandic which is “bless.” Kind of appropriate, I think!

Most places in Iceland are quite small. 65% of the population lives in Reykjavik. The 2nd biggest town has only 8000 people and most places are smaller than 1000 people. The inland of Iceland is uninhabitable and everyone lives on the coast. The hottest day ever recorded in Iceland was 80 degrees F. The hottest for summer of 2022 is a mere 64 degrees F. While a lot of things are expensive in Iceland, there are two things which are very inexpensive: water and electricity. Homes are heated via hot water from volcanoes. The water is crystal clear. Sometimes the hot water smells like sulfur but it is very clean. Iceland was the poorest country in Europe at the turn of the century. It was under Danish control until 1944. During WWII, Denmark was taken by the Nazis and Iceland received independence. The U.S. and England used Iceland during WWII by bringing ships and subs into their deep, calm fjords around their island country, as it was a very strategic location. Iceland is actually a founding member of NATO. Tourism started in 2010 and became a booming industry for Iceland with the cruise lines. The draw to Iceland are its hiking, waterfalls, volcanoes, black sand beaches and northern lights.

On our second day in Iceland, we took a 10 hour tour of the southern coast of the island. We saw some beautiful waterfalls, glaciers, black sand beaches and basalt rock formations. It was, I know….shocker….windy and rainy. We were able to see some puffins though, which was really fun. They are Lily’s spirit animal. She just loves them. We were told we had missed them by about a week. They come to a small rocky island off the coast of Iceland to breed every summer. When they leave, they all go en masse to wherever it is they travel to next. Luckily there were a few stragglers on the black sand beach we visited this day. It was so windy and rainy but I hope I caught a few shots so you can see them! One interesting fact amongst many we learned from our awesome tour guide was that other countries send materials to make aluminum in Iceland. There are 3 aluminum smelting plants in Iceland. They take up so much energy and heat to work that other countries bring their materials to Iceland to create their aluminum.

We ended our evening with some really good food. Rich had some lamb chops and I had salmon. Both were very good.

Sorry it has taken me so long to get these photos and stories posted. I had to play catch up with my life at home….and the weather has been nice. I learned when I lived in rainy, misty Norway, that whenever the weather is nice, you drop everything and just spend time outside enjoying the weather – and so I have. I made a few day trips with Lily – to Kansas to see the acres and acres of sunflower fields near Lawrence, Kansas….and then the following week to a beautiful farm in Jefferson, Iowa to take photos in an acre of zinnia fields. There are a lot of photos yet to come, but I wanted to get my thoughts and photos from Iceland and Ireland posted. We flew to Iceland and stayed for 3 days (all of which it rained, and the wind blew) to tour this beautiful country and get acclimated to European time before heading to 9 days in Ireland. The best word to describe the weather in Iceland: MOODY.

We arrived in Keflavik, Iceland (that is where the international airport is located) early in the morning on August 17th, our 31st anniversary. We flew through the night from DC to Iceland…which is about a 6-hour flight. There is a five-hour time change from Nebraska to Iceland. Rich and I decided ahead of time we would just stay in Reykjavik, the capitol of Iceland, and not rent a car. We would use public transportation to get to and from Keflavik (the airport – which is 45 minutes away) and just do tours the three days we were there. The first day, we were actually scheduled to do separate tours – our first time doing that. Rich was interested in snorkeling in the very deep waters between the two tectonic plates of the continents of North America and Europe in Silfra, in Thingvellir National Park. He said the water was very clear and extremely cold. He wore a dry suit but evidently still got a bit wet. I have yet to see the photos taken by the guide, but I will share when I do. He was gone about 5 hours….mostly driving to and from the National Park. I was not interested in doing that so I was SUPPOSED to go on a ship to whale watch and see some puffins. My tour was cancelled due to poor sea conditions. Let me tell you what this translated to….it was about 50 degrees and 30-40 mph winds and raining…. sideways. Yeah, I was fine not being on a boat. However, our apartment wasn’t ready either, so I was out and about walking in that mess for several hours. Luckily the city of Reykjavik is not very spread out.

Iceland is the self-proclaimed country of “fire and ice”. It is cold and windy and a lot of it is uninhabitable. It is made up of a series of volcanoes. Although it is really green because of all the rain they get, there is a lot of lava rock EVERYWHERE. You can tell how long it has been since a nearby volcano has gone off by looking at the vegetation. The black lava fields are everywhere, and they show the most recent volcanic activity. After a few HUNDRED years, moss will start to grow over the lava rock. As centuries pass, soil and vegetation start to grow and it becomes very green. Many of these places are blocked off to protect the vegetation. There are a lot of sheep, cows, and horses….all from Iceland. The Icelanders do not allow other animals into their country unless they are dogs or cats and are domesticated pets. Even then, they have to be quarantined for several weeks to make sure they are not bringing in any diseases. They export their horses but do not bring more in. They tried to bring in some horses to diversify the breed of their Icelandic horses several decades ago and even though they were cleared by veterinarians to come into the country, they had something in their blood that wiped out 40% of their herds. Think of the Europeans coming to North America and bringing their diseases to the Native Americans. Same idea. So now they just go with what they have. Their Icelandic horses are very strong and hearty and have shorter, sturdier legs. They have long fur in the winters and shed their long hair during the summer. The farmers release the sheep to the hills inland to feed during the summer and then all go on horseback to bring them down from the hills for sheering, slaughtering…whatever in the fall. Due to the fragility of the vegetation on the lava rock, there are no motorcycles or three and four wheelers that help to herd the sheep. It is only farmers on horseback. The sheep are marked with either ear tags or spray paint. The farmers gather all the sheep they can find and then contact the farmers to whom the extra sheep belong to. They meet and swap for their own sheep. There is only one animal indigenous to Iceland and that is the Arctic Fox. They are not easy to find and have a sanctuary inland in which many of them live.

Iceland has a population of about 370,000 people and is made up of 103,000 square kilometers. It is called a micro population. Not many people….and they only live on the coastline of Iceland. A great majority live in Reykjavik. Most of the other towns are very small. I will share more in further posts, but for this one, I wanted to show you photos of Reykjavik. Lots of cobblestone-lined roads. The population in the city is about 220,000. Euros are the money used there and Icelandic is the language. Most of you know that we used to live in Norway, another of the Nordic countries. I felt a lot of my Norwegian coming back as a lot of the words are the same. However….they have a few extra letters that are even above and beyond the extra letters in the Norwegian alphabet and those just threw me for a loop (or a dot…or a slash).

So here are some of the photos of the city. We so enjoyed our time there! There is a huge cathedral called Hallgrimskirkja (the church of Hallgrimur). It is a Lutheran Church and towers at 74 meters tall. It is the tallest church in the country and the 6th tallest structure in Iceland. The architect designed it in the late 1930’s and was inspired by the Icelandic basalt lava columns that are found all over Iceland. The Church was finished in 1986 and has a huge pipe organ that is 15 meters tall and weighs 25 tons! It has over 5000 pipes and easily fills the huge space with music, as when I took refuge from the rain and wind that first day in the church, the organist was practicing. Although a Lutheran church with the stark relief of a Protestant church, it has a traditional Catholic candle lighting area in the back, where I lit a candle for my Joe. I also paid a small amount to ride the elevator to the top and see the giant bell that rings every quarter hour and look out over the city and the coastline. Right in front of the church is a big statue of Leif Eriksson. The sculpture was given to Iceland in the 1930’s from the United States to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of Icelandic Parliament. I actually went a few times to this church to catch it during the daytime and then at sunset…which wasn’t until nearly 10 p.m. when I was there. There are a few shopping areas near the church that has a rainbow road leading to the church and then a giant hopscotch on the pedestrian path that goes on for several city blocks. A lot of the natives who live and work in town ride those electric scooters everywhere..going pretty fast. I was surprised to not be run over by one of these folks.

One of my favorite sculptures in the area was the Sun Voyager. It is a huge stainless-steel sculpture of a boat set on granite beside the sea. We always pick up a little token of the country we have visited to put in our “world traveling curio cabinet’ in our living room. We got a small replica of this sculpture. We went there a few times as well. The sunset reflecting on the sculpture was really striking…making it look like a burning boat. There are a lot of Viking things in Iceland…as they were also the land of the Vikings. So, this was so appropriate.

Today is a hard day. The world has seemed to forgotten what happened 21 years ago. Thousands of innocent people killed in a matter of hours. It was so traumatic in my life. I remember asking Joe if he remembered that day. He was nearly 7 and said he remembered me crying a lot. Joe, Tim, and I lived in Colorado Springs, CO at the time, in an apartment. Rich was still stationed in North Dakota at the time. In fact, he had been to the Pentagon just a couple of days prior on a TDY. We were on Mountain Time, so we were getting ready for school for Joe. He was wearing his Tiger Cub Scout uniform to school for the first time. He was so proud of that uniform. He would wear other uniforms in his lifetime….for the Army and as a fireman. The ripple effects of that day to the young ones….first graders….then as young adults, they were in the military and serving in the Middle East against the war on terror that started on that fateful day.

Today, Joe’s best friend did what he does every year. He donned his full firefighter bunker gear and climbed 110 flights of stairs in memory of the fallen firefighters in 2001 that climbed all those stairs to save people from the twin towers and in turn, gave their lives. Joe had gone with Zac on these memorial climbs to cheer him on. Today he was supposed to join him in his bunker gear and they were to do it side-by-side….instead, he carries the leather strap on his uniform that bears Joe’s name on it on his uniform with him. I hope Zac knows that Joe is with him today as he does his climb…just as he is with him on every call he answers with his crew. Michelle and two of Joe’s closest friends did a memorial climb yesterday at a stadium. They wore their Joe Messina memorial t-shirts and I am so proud of all of them. They are honoring his memory in the most wonderful ways.

So today I was really missing Joe. Sundays are just really hard. Joe was born on a Sunday and then also died on a Sunday. Sundays are hard. We were at our church and I saw that we would be singing hymn #446 in our hymnals. #446 is Joe’s OFD firefighter badge number. I wear a OFD badge pendant with #446 on it and a message about Joe on the back. I wear it everyday. I have been pretty open about the fact that my faith life is in a desert right now. I am really struggling. However, when I looked up what song it was, I smiled when I saw it was “Amazing Grace.” The Holy Spirit and Joe were surrounding me at that moment, as I felt it wasn’t a coincidence.

Today I will share some pretty old photos of a young Joe….when he showed signs of wanting to be in the military and a fireman when he was little…and then pictures of him more recently as those dreams came to fruition. September 11th marked all of us that were adults at the time, but it really had a trickle down effect on the youngsters as well.