Day 25: Rain, Rain, Go Away
Friday was a quiet day. The rain never let up. It's hard to believe that much can keep coming down! Kesha, Vinny's brother, bought a horse last year and he has been entering into jumping competitions. Chesy, named because he's a chestnut, is an excellent jumper, coupled with Kesha's knowledge, talent, dedication and love of the animal and sport they have been winning a lot of competitions. Chesy is a big teddy bear who is highly food motivated (sound familiar?). Kesha saddled him up and I took Chesy around the ring for a few loops. He has a lot of energy and needed no prodding to start cantering and then galloping. I was wearing sneakers, instead of riding boots, and my foot couldn't get the hold I needed. Chesy started to gallop and I almost lost my footing and went overboard. Luckily, I was able to pull the reins with not much stability. It was so fun, but I could use more lessons and I am extra motivated now to do so. Then Kesha got on Chesy and it was magic. They synced and Chesy sang as he jumped over higher and higher fences. I was mesmerized.
Kesha then headed back to work; he is a plumber and is very busy! He said it's a mix of Ireland's government updating subsidized housing fixtures and the inability to keep talent in Ireland - as soon as plumbers are licensed they head for Australia, Kesha said. I got back to Vinny's and Claire and Jerry had already left for their 5hr drive to Dingle. The others were chatting, resting, entertaining the two baby boys or nibbling while sipping tea. I did a load of laundry and played with JP while Sonny slept.
When JP learns about a new person the first question he asks is, "Do they own a tractor?" He's in for a rude awakening in New York.
Around 2pm we said bye to Vinny's family, the O'Reilly's, and started our hour drive up to Annagassan in county Louth to visit our other first cousins. Nicola is marrying Ian tomorrow, and Nicola is daughter to my dad's brother Gerard. We received big welcomes from our family and were very kindly offered three rooms in their neighbor's, Tommy and Joan, house. Tommy and Joan, like my Uncle Gerard and Aunt Bernie, are retired and loving life in Annagassan. Out their front door is the Irish Sea and out the back is a river. The town is bursting with flowers: flower baskets, hanging flowers, flowers in gardens, flowers in windowsills. There isn't a scrap of trash to be seen. And of course, every town in Ireland has a pub. The Glyde has a cozy pub in the front and a lovely bright restaurant overlooking the Irish Sea in the back. After Tommy and Joan showed us our rooms and made sure we had every comfort we could imagine we headed over to The Glyde for drinks and dinner. Nicola's brother is Gary and Gary is married to Denise. We met Gary and Denise's baby Iarle (Gaelic for Earl and pronounced EAR-la) who was a huge hit all weekend long.
With an Irish wedding ahead of us tomorrow, we played it safe and headed home for an early night and guess what? A Jack Ryan.
Day 24: Glendalough, Sally Gap and Skryne
Mom and Dad woke up early on Thursday and headed up to Dublin to pick up Clara and Eoghan - welcome to Ireland!
Jerry, Mark and I headed out for breakfast and brought some back to Claire who was soaking up sleep time since last night's sleep was spent on a plane. We packed up, checked out, and started our 40 minute drive to Glendalough, which means Valley of the Two Lakes. The two lakes are very creatively named Upper Lake and Lower Lake. It's a spiritual place as St Kevin retreated there in the early 500s. He found it peaceful and a great place to find God, in the solitude of nature, away from others. Others thought the same, though, and St Kevin was soon joined by followers. They created a simple but efficient living space in the 6th century. In the 900s, the Vikings invaded Glendalough as mostly everything was set up for them. The land and structures have remained a Catholic space. There were lots of tourists there with us on this sunny Thursday.
We started off at Lower Lake, walked around Round Tower, an old church, and priests' home. Round Tower, pictured below, was fascinating. The lowest entrance is 12ft above the ground, so you need a ladder to enter. Then the tower was used as a meditative/prayerful practice of climbing circulating stairs. It was high enough that it could also be used as a vantage point for oncoming threats. In the case of a threat, the ladder would be lifted up and placed inside the Round Tower, and the door would be locked so they were safe from invaders.
We took a beautiful trail to Upper Lake where there was another church, or what's left of it, as well as St Kevin's sleeping place. We couldn't get to it, but apparently if you walk around Upper Lake you can view St Kevin's bed nicely from the other side of the lake. We had three maps all showing different locations of this bed, on top of the opposing opinions of fellow tourists walking by so instead of an endless search we said we'd look for it on Google Earth.
After our walk through Glendalough we drove a bit to find a lunch spot that had fewer tourists. We had no luck with the place I found online. Again, Google hours were not the same as real hours.
We stumbled upon Round Stones Artisan and I had the best lunch of my life! Highly recommend for all! I got a kimchi sandwich that was on the freshest foccacia and the salt on top was perfectly flakey. Accompanied by a very fresh salad and a lovely mug of tea. Ireland knows how to do pottery! Claire said "yum yum yum" beside me in between most bites :) She got a sampling of two salads and soup and found everything fresh, tasty, unique and perfectly seasoned.
After lunch, we continued 30 minutes north to the Wicklow Mountains and to a great viewing spot called Sally Gap (thanks Ta for the recommendation). This was one of the highlights of the day for me. The weather was dry, thankfully, but there were clouds. Still the scenery, mountain range and surrounding areas were so beautiful. We stopped a few times, walked to the edge of the cliff and just basked. We saw people in vans that were camping and some others with hanggliders. I really would love to do that sometime! Camp there and spend a few days hiking, biking and flying with a small wing suit keeping you safe...
We then continued about 90 minutes north out of Wicklow, through Dublin, and to Meath to my cousin Vinny's house. Vinny is my first cousin. His mom is Jackie, who is my dad's sister. Vinny was very nice to host all 8 of us! His wife, Eimear is the best and they have very cute boys, JP (almost 4) and Sonny (almost 1). We had a wonderful BBQ dinner and then headed to the infamous Mrs O's. We had great chats, lots of laughs and a walk of the castle ruins.
We then got home to have the ritualistic "chip sandwich:" Tayo's on buttered bread. Night night!
Day 36: It’s a beautiful day, 24 hours of it
The weather today was amazing. Other than a slight headwind, it was sunny almost all day, and the views were stunning. I’ll try to pack this post full of the photos we took.
We got on the road at 9:30, and easily made it to Risøyhamn for a treat and tea + water for Mark. The first place we went was closed, but so very nice German women (probably in their 70’s!) told us the grocery store down the way had a nice cafe, so we went there. As a side note, we’re some of the youngest people we see doing this trip (minus the few kids we’ve seen with their parents). There’s a lot of retirees that are doing it. Some are taking e-bikes, but most are doing it on acoustic bikes!
We were quickly back on the road after our stop and on a backroad that would take us along the coast up to Andenes.
We stopped for lunch in another grocery store/cafe. This queen was particularly interesting because I think it was entirely self checkout. Or at least during some hours of the day.
We got back on the bikes after lunch, but took our time exploring beaches and other scenic areas.
We also passed a lot of building for Andøya Space! They’re building some rocket launch sites along the coast. There’s another aerospace company here too: ISAR. Not sure why they’re here, but I assume it’s a good place to safely launch rockets!
This route also has one of the most beautiful public toilets I’ve seen! (Darragh said the insides were not as nice!)
We also played with the Drone’s “follow” mode today! I unfortunately forgot to record the time it followed both Darragh and myself, but we did get one great video. (Which may have to wait for better service)
By 4pm we made it to Andenes! We’re staying at Andenes camping right now (which is mobbed with people. One annoying thing about it staying light so long is that it‘s never really okay to just pee outside your tent)
Luckily for us, we have a great little private spot:
We tried to get on tonight’s whale watching boat, but we missed it by just a bit, so we just went to dinner instead!
We had a lovely dinner at a place called “Arresten” and then walked around town a bit before going back to camp! The pier and lighthouse were pretty beautiful!
At camp, we had a quick treat for dessert! And then went for a walk to the beach and to the bluff.
We’re off to bed a bit early tonight to go whale watching early tomorrow!! We’re both pretty excited!
Day 26 to 27: Irish Wedding
