We had intended to visit Ireland last year. About three or so years ago, when we were living in Washington State, our friend Pamela Florence first got Jill interested in going on a foreign trip where you could take a...
Continue reading "Why Ireland?" »
We arrived around 8am on Sunday morning in Dublin. We had no hotel reservations until the two nights before our departure when we planned to return to Dublin. Instead, we had a car rental reservation. This worked well for us...
Continue reading "Arrival" »
End of our first day in Ireland, in a pub in the city of Cahir. A good first day, successful in driving, eating, lodging, and drinking, plus sight seeing some lovely ruins. Started with an easy flight from D.C. to...
Continue reading "Cahir" »
We drove to Middleton to tour the Jameson Whiskey distillary there (part of my consolation for the upcoming horseback trip was the ability to do some whiskey and stout tasting), then over to Kerry prior to doing the "ring of...
Continue reading "Middleton" »
We started with a lovely breakfast at the prison B&B, with fried eggs and brown bread. We then headed to the Cahir castle, one of the most complete strong castles in Ireland (it was used in the film Excalibur), started...
Continue reading "Kenmare" »
The gale force winds struck and we decided to forego the horizontal rain of the Ring of Kerry to instead make some time northward to meet up with Jill's cousin and husband who also happened to be visiting Ireland at...
Continue reading "Raining in Ireland" »
Well, lost track of writing and now we’ve begun the Sligo trail. But before I go on to that, I’ll recap briefly the last three days. We woke in Kenmare on the 21st to a gale storm. Rain pouring down—no,...
Continue reading "Dromoland Castle" »
On the 22nd, we drove to the Cliffs of Moher, which were spectacular, if a bit overrun with tourists. We then drove up to Connemara—a remote, ragged and beautiful place—but got caught in a dilemma trying to find a B&B....
Continue reading "Cliffs and driving" »
On the 23rd, we spent the late morning and early afternoon hiking a few small nature trails in Connemara National Park. Both the park and the roads were filled with beautiful Connemara ponies and blackfaced long-wool sheep. We had to...
Continue reading "Cong" »
Finally, the 24th. We drive to Sligo and spend a little time getting money, some supplies, and lunch in a café. As it got to afternoon, we drove to the Sligo airport—they gave us instructions to get gas—and turned in...
Continue reading "Starting the Sligo Trail" »
The next morning we show back up at the farm, stash our luggage in the storage room, and walk over to the stable with our saddlebags. People are out and about doing things, but we're not quite sure where to...
Continue reading "Starting on the trail" »
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...
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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...
Continue reading "Cama-fuggin-roon" »
Day 3 was 7 hours of riding a range of Irish landscape. We were so tired last night, we dropped into bed after showers and dinner and slept like logs for ten hours. Beautiful, adventurous, long day. Breakfast at the...
Continue reading "The Forest Bog" »
I lengthened my stirrups, and that made all the difference. After a morning of fried egg and toast (which quickly became the standard, as neither of us cared for the "full" Irish breakfast of rashers, bacon, eggs, and a side...
Continue reading "Staying on Course" »
Evening now, after a short day of riding, but many other events in the evening. We rode only about 10 km today (as opposed to about 25 km yesterday), only about 3.5 hours. Pretty amazing when only 3.5 hours of...
Continue reading "A Rush of Adrenaline" »
Today was a "short" day, which I had started to think of as any ride less than five hours in the saddle. Really, I don't mean to complain--after the second day, the soreness wasn't nearly as incapacitating as I had...
Continue reading "Backtracking" »
I write this on the 30th, but our day yesterday was long and eventful, so we did not have time to write. So, I will try and recall everything that happened. We knew we had about 25 km to travel,...
Continue reading "The Lake Bog" »
Well, I had intended to write up the final day while we were in the pub, but I decided to do a few sketches of the horses while I had the chance. So, as we ride the train from Sligo...
Continue reading "The Last Day of Riding" »
After breakfast, around 10am, Dannaka, one of Collette and Tillman’s sons, arrived to pick us up. We loaded the horses in the trailer and drove back to Horse Holiday Farm. Along the way we heard about some of the adventures...
Continue reading "Train to Dublin" »
The breakfast room and lobby were completely empty. Only a few cars were on the road. Ireland was playing in the World Cup, the first match versus Cameroon. I had some brown bread and after awhile the woman at the...
Continue reading "Dublin's World Cup Day" »
We're sitting on the plane now, about to fly back to the States (as they say here). I'm having the usual melancholy of returning home, although I know my own little "pony" will be very happy to see me. Overall,...
Continue reading "Heading Home" »
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