On the road in Ireland; Journey of surprises for mother and daughter.

Byline: Margaret LeRoux; Emily LeRoux Volkert

MOM:

The trip was an impulse purchase. With my daughter's college graduation coming up, I wanted to give Emily a present that would make her say, "Wow!" While trolling on the Internet, I found it: a travel package to Ireland from Aer Lingus that included airfare, bed-and-breakfast vouchers for six nights and a rental car to tour the country at our own pace.

Neither of us had been to Ireland, though I have Irish ancestors and Emily has dreamed of Connemara ponies since she started riding lessons at the age of 7. After a few clicks I had purchased practically everything we would need.

I decided to ignore the possibility that spending a week with Mom might not be her idea of the Best Graduation Gift Ever and forwarded our itinerary in an e-mail to Emily.

EMILY:

While I was thrilled at the idea of a trip to Ireland, (especially one I wouldn't have to pay for), I couldn't help but roll my eyes when Mom said, "Ireland will be great! I'm the perfect pub companion since I don't really like beer!" While I know she meant to say that she'd be a great pub companion because I could rely on her to cart me home after my fair share of Guinness, she did not seem to get the point of the Irish pub scene that I read about in guidebooks. The books wrote of a place where tourists share pints and chatter with the locals over live Irish music late into the night. I couldn't help but think I would probably miss out on this aspect of Irish culture, given that Mom was already thinking about how we would get home from bars before we even got out of the country.

Our different trip-planning strategies were yet another source of angst between the two of us. In college, I spent a summer in Peru, a semester in Costa Rica, and a month in Egypt, all tied to school and volunteer projects. On these trips, I became very accustomed to flexible itineraries and staying patient in sticky situations - the style of travel necessary in developing countries. In contrast, my Mom's travel experiences are much more limited and her usual trip preparation involves weeks of research to plan the logistics. For this trip we had just over a month before takeoff and plenty going on in our lives, so she was getting overwhelmed. We compromised, deciding we would schedule some destinations ahead of time (to make sure we'd have a place to sleep) and leave the rest of the trip up in the air (to satisfy my style).

MOM:

We landed at Ireland's Shannon Airport about 6:30 a.m. and headed straight for a couple of strong lattes from the aptly named Insomniac coffee shop in the airport. After a cursory set of instructions from the car rental staff, I slid behind the wheel of our Ford Focus with its steering wheel on the right and faced my fears of driving on the opposite side of the road. Thankfully, Shannon Airport is far less busy than Logan and my initial experience with a roundabout - the Irish equivalent of a rotary - wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. After stopping for a hearty Irish breakfast, we prepared to sightsee as much as our sleep-deprived...