corey says...As I drove from Tony’s cottage to Knockahopple to pick up Liam, I was blinded by the bright morning sun. It was GLORIOUS! Then a half-hour later, just as we were leaving, fog rolled in. The entire mountain was experiencing a whiteout. Visibility was virtually zero, the windshield wipers were on low and the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees.

Even once we reached Nenagh, the fog was still around. However, visibility wasn’t too bad. We only had two stops in Nenagh and then it was off to Adare for a very special rendezvous.

Within five minutes on the road, the fog cleared and blue skies and puffy white clouds were overhead. In about an hour, we had experienced quite a range of conditions...I was almost expecting a dusting of snow to finish things off.

We had some time in Adare, so we wandered around a bit. Then it was time to meet Pat Preston from www.irelandexpert.com. She was traveling with one of her tour groups, and we had arranged a chance to meet up.

We saw the CIE tour bus pull in. A few moments later, Pat was directing the happy travelers to their desired locations...cafe, giftshop and toilet. Three distinctly different but vitally important components of any tour of Ireland.

Once everyone was settled in, we were greeted with a big hug from Pat. We knew each other from the Internet, but had never actually met in person. It was great fun. For those who don’t know, Pat is a bit of a celebrity in the Irish travel world...she wrote the first Frommer’s Guide to Ireland and has gone on to write several more.

We grabbed some lunch with her and her husband John. All the while, Pat “the Flash” managed to juggle our conversation and tend to her tour group members quite effortlessly...or maybe a better word would be “naturally” as such an achievement cannot be achieved with out a great deal of effort.

I think we all would have liked to have sat and chatted all afternoon, but the tour bus was waiting, and Pat had more than forty travelers eager to get to Bunratty. We managed to get some photos and then it was time for us to part.

We’ve got some photos at Week 9 Photos and you can visit Pat’s website and blog at www.irelandexpert.com.