10:00 am Pack lunches and set outout to drive a very scenic route in Connemera. This is a very rustic area of Ireland. It is of course very green and very filled with sheep. The sheep have right of way and know it. They have no desire to get off the road and honking has no effect.
12:00 pm We bump into Ashford Castle and I remember TK (my host) has a friend who works there. This isn’t a touristy castle, but more of a high, high price hotel. We are of course grossly underdressed and under cultured, but TK’s friend Robert still shows us around and sets up a lovely tea and crumpets snack for us.
The grounds are phenomanol including a Falconry area. How cool is getting a falcon to obey your command. We kinda listened in to a falconry class but did not spend the hundreds of euros the full class would require. It would be neat, but I don’t think that’s a skill most people would care about on a resume. “So Mr. Haggerty, I see you have a degree in falconry. That’s exactly what we are looking for here at Smith, Bartles and Weinstein.”
2:30 pm We toured the interesting little town of Cong. Apparantly a John Wayne movie called “The Walking Man” was filmed there.
3:30 pm More beautiful mountains, lakes and sheep. If only wool were as valuable as diamonds, Ireland would be the richest nation on earth.
4”30 pm We drive past Kylemore Abbey. It was built so that some rich guy could impress his wife. Tragically and ironically he died before it was complete. Now it is a boarding school for filthy rich young girls. There was a gothic church where we found out that gargoyles are supposed to represent the ever present danger of the devil even when you are at church.
5:30 pm Dipped our toes in the Atlantic after a stop in a quaint little beach town. Now the beach isn’t what we are accustomed to. It was a quarter mile long, nobody on it and cold as crap. But it does have sand and water, which I guess all beaches have in common.
7:00 pm It is Galway races week in Galway, so finding a place to eat in that town is very difficult. We eat at Monroe’s pub and I again have the delicious traditional Irish stew. The kids sat together and the parents at a separate table, since the wait for five could be all night.
9:00 Have a few Guiness at a pub with some Irish music and call it a night. The drive home is super scary since the speed limits are 60 mph on roads skinnier than the width of two ford f-250s. Just an amazing day of seeing the beauty Ireland has.
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