Saturday, Sept. 1st at the Cliffs of Moher

Not getting to sleep until about 3 a.m. meant we would try and sleep in a little longer Saturday. But, by about 9:30 a.m., we were all awake and Kasey was busy with breakfast; eggs over easy, a marinated hamburger "steak", and toast. I made Cindy and I some coffee. Great way to start the day.

We were headed to the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland. The drive would be about 2 hours. I told them I would drive since I had missed half my turn the day before. Eric's phone GPS system worked perfectly. I actually liked it a lot because it told you which exit of the round-a-bout to use. The only issue we had was a blocked tunnel near Limerick because of an accident. We were re-routed through the city (not
all that big a city) and soon arrived at a very windy visitor center. By the way, the roads that lead to the Center are very narrow - I can't imagine getting a large tourist bus up there, but there were at least 8 parked there when we arrived with more coming and going all the time.

The Cliffs are quite spectacular. The pictures only tell part of the story. The constant, gusting winds were something else. At the top of the southern-most part of the park path, there's an entrance of sorts to an area where many people go to get more views. It is not part of the park and no safety fencing is in place. In places you can literally walk over to the edge of the cliff. Oh, and those cliffs rise about 390 feet above the Atlantic Ocean!! In the largest picture below, those are people on top of that first cliff out near the very edge.

Eric and Kasey decided to go ahead and see what was there. They came back and said there was a trail they were going to follow and that they'd meet us back for food and drinks after they returned. Well, their little path turnd out to be about 2 miles each way. By the time they returned, it was raining quite hard and Cindy and I were relaxing in the visitor center with a nice cup of hot chocolate.

They got dried up as best they could, warmed up, and had a warm drink. Eric drove home and we decided to stop at the pub in Upperchurch that had wi-fi and have something for dinner. Cindy had a lager beer with lime juice (something she has found is pretty good) and I had a Jameson's and Sprite, something I've found I like - a LOT! We had a very good pizza and some excellent chips (french fries - steak cut). We used the iPhone and the wi-fi to get caught up on communication. The pub was also showing the Notre Dame football game and then switched over to Penn State. Very nice of them to have American football on.
By the way, the Notre Dame vs. Navy football game was huge over here - they expected well over $100 million euro ($125 million) to be added to the economy of the Dublin area because of it. And, I guess the airlines are expecting the busiest 2 days ever on Monday and Tuesday as all these fans try to get home!

We arrived back home at the cottage by about 8:30 p.m. Another pretty long day. Eric and Kasey are headed back to the pub tonight. They've been invited down for a birthday party. Great place, Ireland.
You don't really need to know anyone to get invited in for some tea or a party!