People kept asking me just before and during my vacation to Ireland if I was making the trip to connect with my family roots.

The answer was, well, sort of.

It was not my purpose to dig into the Moore family history in Ireland, though I know there was a Moore clan somewhere in those soggy bogs and rocky hills centuries ago.

No, I was more focused on connecting with my current family.

More than the impossibly green landscapes, more than the beautiful accents and singing voices, more than the glorious colors of blue and green on the coastline of the Dingle Peninsula, more than any of Ireland's bounteous gifts, what I will remember most about our walking trip in Ireland was just being with my family — really being with them — on another great adventure.

Our family loves to travel. We've adopted the attitude that life is mostly about experiences and relationships, and I'd say we live that out for the most part.

I think that's why this trip came about in the first place.

The origin actually dates back a couple of years ago, to my wife's 50th birthday. My gift to Jean was dinner in London and a walk in Ireland.

We spent a week in London last year but, for various reasons, we decided to postpone the Ireland portion of the gift.

Then, last fall, as we were driving home from our annual family Thanksgiving gathering in Davis, Calif., we were talking about the joys of being together. Our daughter Sarah said something that got us all thinking.

"You know," she said, "we're not too old to take a family vacation together."

One thing led to another and, thanks to the travel agent side that emerges frequently in my wife, we connected the dots between a family vacation together and my promise to Jean of a walk in Ireland.

That's how it came to pass that, this summer, the five of us — me, Jean, our 23-year-old son Nate, 22-year-old daughter Sarah and 18-year old daughter Anna Grace — spent two weeks in Ireland, a week of it hiking amid the spectacular scenery of the Dingle Peninsula.

Those aren't the ages one necessarily associates with a family trip, but Sarah was right.

We aren't too old.

And so, when people asked if I was in Ireland connecting with the Moores, the answer was yes, absolutely. Not the Ireland Moores. The Moorpark Moores.

Dublin only the prelude

We started off in Dublin, where we stayed downtown in two rooms of a stylish inn with warm hospitality and scrumptious Irish breakfasts.

We took lots of walks. I went on morning runs through the city. We visited museums, churches and Trinity College. We took guided tours of the Guinness brewery, the Dublin Castle and the old Kilmainham Jail, where many early Irish rebels were imprisoned or executed.

We liked Dublin, but we couldn't wait to get on that train that would take us across the island to our walking adventure in Dingle, in southwest Ireland.

We contracted with a company called Contours Walking Holidays. The way it worked is that they found bed-and-breakfasts for us to stay in, provided us with maps and directions, and transported our luggage each day to the next bed-and-breakfast.

The rest was pretty much up to us.

The trail, called the Dingle Way, is for the most part marked well, primarily by wooden posts with an icon of a little yellow man with a walking stick. The Hiking Man became our good friend for the next week. He was an especially welcome sight when we were, uh, well, a little turned around. It didn't happen often, but there were a few times when the map and the directions didn't exactly correspond.

In any case, it's not that big of an island, right? How lost can you get?

A series of long walks

We started on a Sunday, a relatively easy 10.5-mile walk from the town of Camp to the town of Anascaul. Each day, we'd walk from about 9:30 in the morning to maybe 5 or 6 o'clock. The walks were from 10.5 to 15 miles long. We took one rest day in the middle of the week, in the touristy seaport town of Dingle.

Altogether, we walked 62 miles, not counting a few planned — and unplanned — excursions off the trail. Anyone who is in pretty decent shape can do it. It requires no special training, but a few warm-up hikes of 10 miles or so would be a good idea in preparation for a weeklong walking vacation.

We've taken all kinds of trips — camping trips, city trips, kayaking and rafting trips, ski trips, driving trips and other overseas trips. This was the first time we all went walking for a week, and it was a terrific way to see an Ireland we wouldn't have seen on trains or in a car.

We saw country farms, abandoned stone houses, quiet villages, rocky hillsides, ancient monoliths and beehive huts, a whole lot of stone walls going in all different directions, and who knows how many thousands of sheep. Everywhere, in all directions, sheep. They became the soundtrack of our week of walking, serenading us with a wide range of bleats. We never tired of hearing them or being amused by them.

Cash's musical memory

One night in the town of Dingle, Nate and I took in some fish and chips and some traditional Irish music in Murphy's Pub, where the local troubadour educated us about a mostly forgotten — in the U.S., anyway — song by Johnny Cash called "Forty Shades of Green," written after The Man in Black had visited Ireland. Not surprisingly, it's a good song.

We mostly were out there on our own, with very few trail mates. We did, however, meet a nice couple from France whom we bumped into on the trail a few times.

We walked most of one day with a funny, mangy little dog who seemed to be the Dingle Way dog, relying on the kindness — and Doritos — of strangers.

We saw greens and blues like we had never seen before.

One day, we climbed a mountain, ascending from the coastline about 2,500 feet in a couple of hours. It was the steepest, most strenuous part of the week, and some of us did not have our happy face on during the uphill assault. We climbed into the mist, then back down out of the mist, at which point we were greeted by the only major downpour of rain we experienced during our five days on the Dingle Way. We scrambled through our daypacks and put on our rain gear. Our spirits weren't dampened much, however, as we were mostly trying to figure out why Sarah was laughing so maniacally. Apparently, she found five soaked Americans out in the middle of the Dingle Peninsula amusing.

I guess it was.

Looking for leprechauns

Once, traversing along a steep hill, we found ourselves in a mysterious mist and came across a rock-filled stream with a couple of small caves near it. We thought that if there truly are leprechauns in this land, this was their hide-out.

We strolled across long sand beaches and along bluffs overlooking craggy coastlines that reminded us of our beloved Central California.

Those were just some of the highlights.

Mostly, though, when I got back home, I thought of the time we had together, the deep connection we had there as we explored a land that was new to us but at the same time revisited comfortable places in our relationships with one another.

I don't think there was a squabble all week.

We mostly smiled and laughed and ate picnics and lots of candy.

We also talked to the sheep quite a bit.

Parting of the ways

We took the train back to Dublin. Nate and Jean left the next day, Nate for home in San Diego, Jean for a two-day side trip to London to take in some plays and see some of her favorite paintings.

Sarah, Anna Grace and I hung out in Dublin, visiting the zoo and shopping on Grafton Street.

People asked me when I got back home how it went with three grown kids traveling with us for two weeks.

First, I corrected them. It was really four grown kids, plus my wife.

Then, I said, "You know what? It all depends on which grown kids you're talking about. Mine, I'd go for a walk with them anywhere, anytime."

I'm not sure they're ever going to be too old.