The next morning's tack-up went much better. We are creatures of habit and once you show us how to do something, we can repeat it. It took Jill and I about an hour to finish, and what with having breakfast at 9 am before even starting, it ended up being 11am before we eventually climbed into the saddle and started off on the next segment. I was a bit stiff getting up, but not nearly as much as I thought I would be after riding four hours the day before, and much of that stiffness went away after 30 minutes. There was a bit of "sore bottom"--a couple of spots right at the point where my pelvis bones were--and that stayed somewhat constant, and was just slightly uncomfortable at times, but not debilitating.

Unlike the previous day, which had been overcast for most of the day, this one started off sunny and stayed clar for the entire ride--along roads, a brief and mainly rock beach and then a bog moor along a cliff side. The horses were more accustomed to us today, although I still was having trouble getting mine to stay still or even to walk if his friend was not walking at the same time. At one point, where the horses before had balked walking across a bit of running water on the beach, I got off and led mine across, then Jill's horse followed, helping us to establish trust (later, the next day, the horses would simply enter running water with none of their earlier reluctance). We also got off to lead them up a 10-meter section of loose rocks from the beach to the road above. In many ways, the fact that the horses would walk over these rocks at all was amazing.

The B&B for the second night was even less prepared for us than the night before, enough so that I began thinking of the day before as a prepared stable! The proprietoress wasn't even there when we arrived--several kids were and led us through the backyard to two sheds behind the house where iron rings set in the stone shed wall provided a tie-up. In the dark recesses of the shed itself was a pony on one side, while the other side contained about twenty new road-mountain combo bikes. In front of the other shed was a blond man with a German accent that acted as if he didn't know a thing about horses (we later learned that he was the owner of the bikes and another guest at the B&B). We tied up and untacked, taking about an hour to do so, obtaining a little (unasked for) help from two of the children, Fiona (a visiting child) and Patrick (who actually lived here). At one point, the cardboard from the bikes flapped a bit in the wind, and the horses spooked a bit, which spooked the German man and frightened us a bit, not for our own safety, but for the kids who took much less care about where they were located around the horses than us.

Our room was on the second floor of this newish house, which turned out to be the home of a family of four chidren, one of them only six-weeks-old. The night we were there was special as the hostess was throwing a party down at the local pub for her husband's 40th birthday. We ended up eating dinner served by our hostess, simply because to do elsewise meant taking a taxi to somewhere, even though we felt somewhat guilty to be taking up some of her time as she was trying to prepare for that night's party. We ate our dinner with the German, Manfred, who ran tours on bicycles and was two weeks from his next group, staying here to ready the bikes for them.

After dinner, we walked down to the party pub for a quick pint. The party itself wasn't due to start until 9 pm, and since our riding the next day, according to our marked map, was going to be on the order of nearly double the amount of time (8 hours) that we had been riding, we had planned to skip it. I, still, needed my pint, which I told Jill was a condition of my continuing the ride (even though I was surprised to find myself enjoying somewhat more than I expected). The pub was a true local landmark, as the first thing that happened when we walked in the door was one of the locals attempting to play a trick on Jill (sending her to the men's restroom instead of directing her to the women's in response to her inquiry). They immediately engaged us in a coversation about the biggest news in Ireland at the time, Ireland's World Cup team and the sacking of its star player and captain by the manager. Jill managed to get a rouse out of them by answering the question, "who do you think should win?" with "Cameroon."

"Came-fuggin-roon!!" one screamed, playing as if he was going to come over and attack us, while his friends held him back. Cameroon just happened to be the first team Ireland was set to play. The rest of the time we were there, Jill was referred to as "Cameroon."

Afterwards, we referred to this B&B as the "McCourt" house, somewhat facetiously, because they were nowhere near the poverty level of the Angela's Ashes author, nor was the father as much of a deadbeat (although, according to Manfred, who told us that he had asked the father how much time he got to spend with the children, and received a response of, "as little as possible"). The general noise, the party itself (which had the entire family out until 2:30 am), and the attitude just lended itself to that designation.