Day two Ireland. The three of us got back on the road and headed around the Dingle Peninsula. The weather was much prettier but it was still a bit cold. We drove along the coast and saw some windy beaches from the car mostly. Staying in the car just sounded like more fun. Along the way we kept spotting herds of sheep. Punk rocker sheep. I do not know what the deal is with al these sheep being spayed pink or blue of orange or a mixture of colors. Poor humiliated sheep. 

Then we headed up the Conor Pass. YIKES! The once 1 and a half car wide road went down to just barely 1 car wide. And there were big crazy rocks poking all around. It was great. Driving for a couple hours would make my eyes so tired. I must not be used to it anymore. Americans are so accustomed to being in their cars. We had almost made it to the summit when we realized we were practically on empty. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. We made it to the top and the trip down made our gas take look a lot more generous. We had lunch in Dingle. Cute town. I found Daniel an awesome sweater jacket and then decided to buy it later at a different store. What a bummer idea. Sorry Daniel, no present for you. 😥 Before we went on our way to see the rest of the peninsula and head out to Killarney we grabbed some honeycomb ice cream. If you ever see it offered any where, get it!

After our poor timing in Great Britain we made it to Ireland and started out the day without a hitch. That is except for the driving. After reading forums online we expected the roads to be poor and narrow and the driving to be crazy. After the UK and their narrow backroads we were in for a real treat. NOT! There are few main roads in Ireland. The ones that are main roads are wide enough for 1 and a half cars. They have uneven, shoddy, potholey paving. The roads are sided by brush covered rock walls giving the impression of a soft shoulder when in fact it is very very hard. Either people are used to that amount of space so they come whizzing by or they are just reckless and they take up the entire “one-lane” on their side giving you no choice but to brace yourself and hope you and the car emerge unscathed. Poor Chad had to deal with my nerves while he drove. That couldn’t have made it any easier. Soon after we started we were going through a city street with only about 4 inches clearance on either side of the car. A parked car had their front wheels turned out into the street a few inches, and I hit their tire as we passed. Not to mention they were parked 2+ feet from the curb. They were just asking for damage. We were unhappy–but then happier when we saw that we had only touched the rubber on their tire. It sure gave us a scare though.

The weather was pretty nasty that day. It reminded us of Seattle. We drove through the Burren whick is a very different looking area. It was super rocky. I do not know how anyone could live there. The land would be so difficult to do anything with. It was pretty though. We stopped at a seafood restaurant that was reccommended to us by Ian, one of Chad’s co-workers. It was alright. We must have had high expectations.

The only big stop that day was at the Cliffs of Moher. The pictures were really pretty there. But it was COLD and windy. Poor Eden was not having a good time, even bundled up in her stroller. She hadn’t slept very well in the car either, so she was grumpy. Or so we thought. We haven’t done a very good job of keeping track of time. As we were leaving, we did a quick calculation and realized that she hadn’t eaten in about 4 hours. She normally would eat after 3 hours. So the poor thing was just cold and tired and so hungry. She’s such a trooper.

After that we waited for a ferry to take us along our route. We stopped and had yummy hamburgers again. Then we arrived at our Castle for the night. Yes, our castle! We were impressed by the fancy old building and had a good night together. They had a really big castley dog. I want one when I grow up.

On Monday we went to the Warwick Castle. It was very fun. The castle itself wasn’t that impressive but they had a ton of die hard Renaissancers out to showcase the way of life in the Middle Ages. We learned about some old games and even a new way to play backgammon. We saw them fire their 22 ton trebuchet. And we had to hear the gruesome history of it too. 🙂 I recommend it to anyone in the area. For lunch we found hamburgers–it’s been so long since we had good hamburgers, and we missed them so much. 🙂

We went through the Hidcote gardens, pretty close to our B&B. We liked it because we got some great pictures there. Elisa got some pictures of old stone houses with traditional thatched roofs.

We were not too far from Wales, so we drove in to Caldicot to try to find the cemetery where some of my ancestors are buried. The Parry family name came from Wales, which is why it is spelled with an A. Some nice strangers directed us to an office building for Caldicot’s Church of St. Mary. The church warden happened to be there, and she had at her house a bunch of historical transcriptions. An hour later she was able to confirm for us that my great-great-great-great-grandparents John and Mary Parry were buried in that cemetery. The records showed they had christened my great-great-great-grandfather William in the church in 1811. We walked through the churchyard looking for their headstones, but all the headstones that old were undecipherable. All we found were two Parrys that died in the early 1900s.

Next we left Wales and drove to Bath, our last stop on the way to the airport. We picked up fudge and baby toys and toffee crepes. What a fun town. 🙂 We lost track of time there.

Then we had to hurry to get to the airport. We thought we were leaving ourselves plenty of time, but we ended up being 2 1/2 hours away, and our flight left in just over 3 hours. We tried our best to make it. When we thought we were only half an hour from the airport, we ran into a highway closure. It was the only highway to the airport, and the GPS couldn’t tell us how to get around it. We tried to call the airline (but it took us half an hour to find a way to get their number, since we don’t know the local 411 number). They said that the flight was 75 minutes delayed! So there was still a chance we could make the flight. Elisa figured out the alternate route and we sped to the airport. When we got there, our plane still hadn’t even landed. But then we got bad news. They had already closed their manifest. They called the captain, and he said he didn’t want to open it up again. I guess he had had a long day too. 🙁 So it was by then 10:30 pm, we were stuck in the Luton, London airport, and our hotel that night was in Ireland. We just took a cab to an “EasyHotel” in the area. (We don’t recommend them. The only thing I can say is orange.) The airlines allowed us to change our flight to the morning without charging us the full fare. All in all, missing our flight cost us £150. 🙁 Could have been a lot worse though.