Finding the right name for our business was no easy task, and many names were proposed and rejected. We wanted a name that was memorable but not too confining, and we wanted it to convey the important ways that our tours are different from a typical tour. When Craig suggested Closer Look, we all agreed that we had hit upon the right name for us.
In my mind’s eye, Closer Look evokes the moment captured below. Kathy and I had spent a week exploring the Burren, and on our last day we decided to walk an old Green Road out to Black Head. This track follows the contours of Morrough Mountain and overlooks farms fields, the main road, and the stony limestone rocks down to the sea. It was a drizzly November day, and we were alone on the walking trail. As we ambled along we met a curious herd of cows, we studied fossils in the rock and wildflowers growing along the trail, and we pondered the stone walls built straight up the rocky mountain. As we settled into the barren but beautiful landscape of the Burren, we also noticed the amazing regularity of the “Paddy Wagon” tour buses traveling from Galway to the Cliffs of Moher. Each bus would stop at Black Head point for a few minutes, and the people would pile out, look across the stone wall at the rocky landscape, then file back into the bus.
Kathy looks out over Black Head point and the passing tour bus far below.
We watched from above as yet another bus stopped, but one determined tourist in this group decided he wanted more. While the rest of the group walked to the stone wall and looked out, this young man paused for just a moment, then clambered over the stone wall and ran out onto the limestone pavements. Though he couldn’t hear us, Kathy and I cheered from high up the mountain! He kept going until he reached a large glacial erratic left behind on the limestone surface, where he examined the rock, felt the surface of the limestone, and examined his surroundings.
His busmates were now all back on the bus out of the rain, and our lone explorer ran back over the stone surface, climbed the stone wall and trotted onto the bus to continue on his way to the next stop on the tour. We agreed, this explorer would have been happier taking our tour, where he would have had the opportunity to delve in to get a Closer Look at the places we chose to explore.