Saturday, Sept. 15th

Our thoughts and hearts are with our family in Cody, Wy. today, as they prepare to bury Rod, our brother-in-law.   I pray that God will give Donna and her children strength as they go forward each day.

Today, we are touring the Connemara region of Ireland, basically making a large loop along the coastal region west of Galway, and then back to the Radisson BLU for another night.

Our first stop of the morning was to the Celtic Crystal Factory, established in 1972.  I am amazed that the master craftsmen there handcut each piece from memory; no computers, just hold each piece of leaded crystal in their hands, moving it against the spinning grinding wheel (which they switch out often for different cuts).  Unbelieveable perfection in the craftsmen's movements!  We enjoyed the demonstration, watching him cut three different patterns into a small bowl.  Their showroom is full of museum quality pieces! 

Afterwards, we drove through Ireland's Connemara Region, which is known for its spectacular coastal and mountain scenery.  We passed thru this small village, where they were having a "boot sale", meaning you sell items right out of your car's "boot" (trunk)!  Believe it or not, our large motorcoach navigated right down thru the middle of of all this, since it was all right alongside the road!

 

 

Next, we toured the beautifully built Kylemore Abbey and Gardens.  I can't believe a man actually had this place built for his wife as their home.  What a grand home it must have been those hundreds of years ago!

 

Norma and I especially liked the 6-acres of walled gardens!  Unbelieveable, intricate, victorian landscaping, with many different varieties of flowers, shrubs, herbs, and vegetables! 

We saw pear trees that were planted along an ancient high wall, and they are pruned and trained to grow flat against that wall!  And they were loaded with fruit!

We had lunch while at Kylemore Abbey.  I thought I had eaten aged goat cheese before, but obviously I had not!  For lunch, I chose a very large slice of veggie quiche w/aged goat cheese, and I could only manage to eat a couple of bites of it!  I know it's crazy, but I could sense the smell of goats with each taste!  I won't  ever try that again!  I am attempting to try new foods on this trip, however I know my own limitations.  By chewing gum, AND having a cup of ice cream, I was finally able to get rid of the aftertaste of that goat cheese!  Oh yeah, and also a chunk of their homemade fudge! 

BooBoo loved Kylemore Abbey!  She found a horse to ride!  We took a shuttle bus one mile up the mountain behind the Abbey/Visitor Center, to the 6-acre walled gardens, and there was a picnic/play area with some interesting wood/metal/rope sculptures and I couldn't resist letting BooBoo have a little fun!

 

Our driver/guide, Noel, tells us stories each day and sings little local "story songs" sometimes.  It was a beautiful drive today along the Atlantic coastline.  We are continually fascinated by Noel's pronunciation of words.  His dropping of the "h" in  any word that has a "th" makes for lots of laughs for us Texans!  Also their phrases are unique!  Instead of "passing" another vehicle, one "overtakes" that vehicle; sheep in the road blocking traffic is called an "Irish traffic jam".  Noel was saying how hot it got last Summer, with temps into the 70's.  He said he thought they would melt!  Ha!  He's obviously never been to Texas!  We told him that we think temps in the 70's would be a cool front!

A lot of the roads we are traveling are definitely not designed for Tour Buses!  Many times we (and the cars we meet) must inch way over against the rock walls or hedgerows just to squeeze by one another!  Sometimes the road is too narrow, so the car will have to back up aways to a place wide enough to inch over enough to let us go by.  Pretty hair-raising!!  Crazy!!

This is a very small "caravan" (camper) meeting a car, so you can imagine what this large 53-seat bus looks like meeting those campers and cars!  It's an adventure each day!

There are not many traffic lights in Ireland, mostly traffic is controlled by roundabouts.  Most of these roundabouts are beautifully landscaped and most have a sign with the name of that roundabout.

As you can see, all the roadsigns have the Gaelic spelling of the name and also the English.  This is true of all the road signs, street signs, etc.

For some reason I am still not able to access my email via the hotel's guest computers; it's not recognizing my password! 

Norma and I walked down the street from the hotel to a convenience store where I purchased a roadmap of Ireland, some road snacks, and a international calling card.  I will love having this map as we go along each day to see where we've been and where we will be going next.  We wrote postcards to home today.  We are both tired, so by 10:00 p.m., it's lights out and to sleep!