Days 8 & 9

So day 8 (I think – I don’t have wireless connection so I cant see where I left off!) we wake up in a beautiful B&B in Dingle. They have wireless! I see that Ironman canada is over and Marcul & some dude I don’t know won. I also see that Sister madonna Buda (or something like that) finished in 16:48 or close to that. At 79, holy crap (sorry God) man she rocks! There is no way I will be doing Ironman’s at that age. I don’t know if I can do another one ever! Anyways, back to Ireland (for now). So we wake up and have another yummy breakfast. Of course IT IS RAINING!!!!! WTF!!! After we eat, we try to figure out what to do. I look at the weather forecast and see that we are supposed to have a 35% sunny day –whatever that means. [ Susie Q, if you ever read this, I apologize now for my incorrect sentence structure and use of dashes, commas and dots. I stick needles in people, they don’t care if I can properly construct a sentence!] So we pack up our bags and start to pack up the car. Even though we are spending another night in Dingle, our B&B does not have rooms available so we are going to have to move. As we are finishing loading up the car we are slightly blinded by this bright light shining in the sky. UNBELEIVABLE – the sun. We hurry our asses up and get in the car. We are going to circle around the coast on the Slea Head Drive that we did yesterday (in the rain, fog and mist). Poor Lisa, it’s bad enough driving on these roads, but to do it in these conditions and then have to backtrack. Let me tell you, it was worth it! The area was absolutely gorgeous. We kept saying that we could not believe that we had been on the same roads, you would never know it. The day before we could only see a feet in front of us, now we were seeing beautiful coast and the “creamy beaches”. We had been to the grocery so we ate on the fly our new staple of: soda bread, cheese, apple and salami sandwiches – yum. Really anything you put on this soda bread would be good. Anyways, we made back to Dingle and found another B&B, not nearly as nice as our last. In fact, it is OK but kind of creepy. It gave me a Norman Bates kind of vibe. Anyways, we head into town for a fried snickers. Yup, that’s right people...a fried snickers bar! Shawn & Karen have been talking about it since their Ireland trip so Lisa & I had to try it. It was interesting and good. But I think I would rather just have had the delicious Murphy’s Ice Cream! Lisa & I have seen countless people stumble out of bars completely wasted. It is amazing. I guess the difference is that they are not getting into their cars and driving home….they walk….er…sort of walk. So, some dude stumbles out of the bar, looks at the harbor and the boats, makes some sort of harsh remark to someone/something that had done him wrong and gives the old f-you gesture.  The one where you hit your elbow with one arm and  it makes that arm bend up raising the glinched fist up in the air (you get the picture). Then he proceeds to sit down next to me on a bench (lucky me). He is still kind of cursing under his breath and then he drops a pack “Chesterfields” out of his hand and it goes flying and lands under the bench behind him. I help him retrieve his little cancer sticks and hand them to him. He tells me, more with grunting than actual words that they are for me, a present. I think he may have been speaking Gaelic, but really it sounded more like caveman. I told him I didn’t smoke, he wouldn’t take the cigarettes from me. Then he takes off his Ray Bans and sort of tells me he has had them for 25yrs, then asks if I want them (as only a caveman could --- grunt and shove them towards me). Lisa said it was time to go (oh darn) so I go up and politely left the cigarette pack next to him on the bench (nice caveman) and left. We later saw him rumbling up the street kicking some piece of trash and still mumbling to himself.
Unfortunately, after all of this excitement, there was no way we were going to be able to make it up to Connor Pass because it was raining and we wouldn’t see a thing anyways so ….. off to the grocery, the pub and then to the Bates Motel (we’ll sleep with the lights on).

Day 8.5
1230am – Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring! S:”what is that?” L:”It’s the phone” S: “Where is it?” L;”I don’t know” Lisa stumbles in the dark, finds the phone which has now stopped ringing. She has purchased a phone with international service that has her phone number and only those people watching our dogs (and our family) are to call if there is a problem. So naturally we are worried that something is wrong. The caller ID says it was Shawn. So we call her back. “Ironman Canada is open!”. I am not really awake yet. Ironman Canada I thought wasn’t supposed to open until some time in September. Shawn is asking for numbers, she tells me Squirty (my dog) is with her – What day is it?!?! Shawn was supposed to get Squirty on Monday. It is Monday you dummy. OK. So after a little waking up and calling Shawn back a second time, I learn that her and Karen have managed to enter me into Ironman Canada 2010 (damn!). I know this is supposed to be about Ireland but it is the “Irongirl Chronicles” after all. Now I can’t sleep for the rest of the night worrying already about something 364 days away.

Day 9

We survive the night! I have decided that this is the trip of hot flashes. I have been having them now for well over a year now. They come in spells, I have them for a couple months and then I won’t have them for a couple of months. Well, I have been having them for a couple months now at least. I have them almost every hour of every day. It is disgusting! I take a shower, put on clean clothes sit down to eat breakfast and then I am covered in sweat. Why bother showering or changing clothes. They are only clean for at the most, an hour. I am over it! So after we watch it rain while eating breakfast and sweating, we pack up and decide to leave Dingle and head towards the Cliffs of Moher. We are not sure how far we will get but we need a change of scenery. Again, packing up the clouds start to break-up slightly so we decide to leave via Connors Pass . We start to drive up there and we are going through clouds and fog. You can see the coast(s) from up there but not clear enough to take any pictures. Brandon mountain is completely enclosed in clouds. At the overlook it is just Lisa & I and another blue car. I get out (with my camera just in case) and so does Lisa. After a couple minutes, a man who had been sitting the car, gets out and asks if we want him to take our picture. We politely decline as there is nothing to take a picture of. He asks where we are from and he informs us that he is from Wales. He looks like an old fisherman with crinkly leathered skin, blue eyes and a white beard and hair. He is hoping the clouds will lift too. We tell him we are not waiting around and Lisa starts to head back to the car. I pat the man on the arm and tell him to have a safe trip. He seizes the opportunity and says: “Hugs. Can I get a hug?” At this point he has already grabbed me so I just go with it and give the man a hug. One of those, I’m hugging you but my chest and hips are about as far away from him as possible. For those of you who know me, I DO NOT HUG MY FRIENDS so why would I want to hug a stranger!!???!!!!?? Anyways, he wants Lisa to give him one too. She really doesn’t want to but reluctantly does and we head off down the mountain. Lisa then makes the proclamation that she is not hugging anyone else. The guy and the circumstances gave her the creeps. Off we go. The sun actually does come out. We stop a bunch to take some pictures of some cool Guinness signs along the way. We make it across the River Shannon on a car ferry and actually get to the Cliffs of Moher ahead of schedule. On issue…..it’s starts to drizzle and some clouds roll in (no, I am not kidding!) The good thing, the wind is so strong that the clouds blow over pretty quickly. It is 2-3pm so the sun is not in the best place for pictures but we don’t care. We can see the cliffs, take pictures and it isn’t raining! We have our second argument of the trip. The coolest part of the Cliffs is on private property. They have a big sign and fence but everyone walks around it and walks on the top of the cliffs. There is no one there to stop you and it is obvious that the trail is so tramped down and established that the only reason that the signs are there are so if you fall off it isn’t the property owners fault. I head out onto the Cliffs. The views are amazing. I forgot how scared list is of heights and edges in particular – she gets vertigo. So I convince her to come over and get someone to take our picture, she will not back up so I am kind of pulling her back and she is getting mad at me. Long story short, I should not have pulled her back or made her go out onto a ledged area. She was very mad at me. I told her I was sorry and we kissed and made up! Over & done! We tramped around the other side of the cliffs and started to head back to the car. It is Lisa & my 10year anniversary trip, so I asked if she would be my girl for another 10 years. (it is really romantic at the cliffs – what can I say!) She said she would think about it! We went into Doolen – the next town up- and got a very nice B&B that is supposed to have internet. I can’t get on :-( Anyways we went down to the peer and saw the Cliffs from afar. We tried to watch the sunset over the cliffs but some clouds came in before it could actually set. Oh well, we got some good shots anyways. Tomorrow is The Burren!