We’re staying with the McCourts tonight. Ok, not really—either literally or literature-ly. But let’s start with the beginning of the day.

We had breakfast at 9am, after we gave the horses their morning feed. I have eaten more eggs here than I’ve eaten the last year. This morning, as I do when I can, I get a fried egg, very hard, so I could just eat the whites. Every morning, we also get brown bread and white toast—I eat the brown bread and Glen eats his fried egg with the toast. I knew we were compatible.

We then easily brought in the horses—the boys as we sometimes call them—and tacked up. From start to finish this takes about an hour, but perhaps we’ll speed up as the week goes on.

The trail today was a mix of paved road, dirt road track, and cross beach-cross country. The paved roads were tiring, but the tracks were lovely. At the beach segments, we were able to do a little trot but mostly we walked today.

At the longest beach segment, we saw a flock of oyster catchers and a pair of Shelducks, along with the usual array of gulls. We met a few challenges here as well. First, the boys refused to cross a channel where the seawater was rushing. Glen got off and led Sunny through (since he had the tall rubber boots) and Kileen then followed. I think they were unsure how deep it was, not it being difficult.

Then, to get out of the cove, we had to go up a steep passage with very large boulders and rocks. I got off and led Kileen up and over the rocks and Glen was able to do the same with Sunny. Seemed a bit risky otherwise. We heard later that the two American women who are preceding us on the Sligo trail (about whom we get news at every stop) had trouble on the beach when one horse jumped over a rock and the rider fell and may have been kicked in the stomach. The details were unclear and third hand. We found out that they paid for the luggage service, so did not have saddlebags, thus perhaps they were moving faster. They certainly had less to hold them in the saddle.

Overall, it was an unsurpassingly lovely day—no rain, a lot of sun. We rode without rain jackets. We arrived at our lodging at about 3pm, apparently a bit early since our hostess was not there. However, one of her children gave us some instructions and we figured out where to tie up and store our tack and put out the horses. It was a bit chaotic with several children and three dogs, one of which (a sheepdog type) kept bringing me something to throw, and his terrier friend who did not want to fetch but to run and bark.

Also in the yard was Manfred, another German, who was assembling about 30 bicycles for bike tours he’s conducting this summer. We later got the long long story about why he was assembling bikes instead of leasing them. Suffice to say, he had a lot of bikes and fluttering cardboard boxes to add to the chaos….

Inside, we met a family of four children (or more, we’re not sure) including a six-week-old baby and a four-year-old who loves big shoes and tried on our boots and hats and gloves until we eventually put them in our room for fear they’d walk off. After a bit of cleanup and tea, we tried a short nap but the family chaos—yelling, slamming doors (I think due to the wind), small children dumping rocks on the car—kept us up. We had dinner here, since there is no nearby town, with the usual excess quantity of food. We then needed to get out of the house, so we walked the kilometer to the local pub.

The pub had a set of locals in a loud argument over the World Cup Ireland team and the scandal of the star player being tossed off the team. We have not gotten much news since we’ve been here, except this story—all over the radio, news, television in the pubs. We were doing well in the pub, siding with the folks that wanted this player sent home until the loudest of them asked us whom we thought would win. Glen equivocated, saying he didn’t know enough about the teams. I piped up with, “I kind of hope Cameroon wins.” Well, that got a response, “Came-fucking-roon!?” to be precise. I was known as “Cameroon” for the rest of the evening. Glen informed me later than Ireland was playing Cameroon in the first match a week from now. What a cultural faux pas! I told Glen that the next time we’re asked who we think will win the World Cup, we need to answer swiftly, and with no hesitation: “Ireland, of course.”

Tomorrow (day 3) is the first of three long rides (days 5 and 6 are also long). We’ve been riding about 3-4 hours a day and tomorrow looks like twice the distance. Our horses—the stout Irish half-breds seem up to it, but I hope we are!