"Rainy Days and Mondays. . ."

. . . (and not having hot coffee when promised) always get me down."
--Karen Carpenter

Monday, February 12, 2007

Monday morning, it is raining as we wake up. Although I enjoy rain at night, I hate waking up to rain. We shower and I head out to to the breakfast room at 8:00 a.m. for the coffee that was promised to be ready. No sign of coffee. I go back to our room. At 8:20 a.m., I go back out. No coffee, no sign of coffee. Back to the room. At 8:40 a.m., I head back out. Megan warns me she just got barked at for asking about the coffee. I don't give a damn. I head to the kitchen and ask if we can have some coffee. "Fine," she snaps. Five minutes later, I have coffee.

Gene shows up on time as always. We begin our journey again, headed toward Kenmare and the Ring of Kerry. We stop at a delightful little pub in Dunmanaway called the Shamrock and an older couple offers to let us sit down with them. They are very nice and entertaining.

We continue on with the trip through the southwestern region. It is as beautiful as you've seen in any postcards. We begin heading North through Bantry and take some pictures overlooking the Bantry Bay. We head toward Glengariff and drive by Maureen O'Hara's place. She starred opposite John Wayne in The Quiet Man (and four other movies), and was the wife in Miracle on 34th Street and The Parent Trap. By the the way, for those of you that don't know, John Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, about 30 miles southwest of Des Moines. Gene shows us his place and is very hospitable. By the way Gene, your place is beautiful. We look around town, but don't buy anything, because it all seems kind of pricey. We eat at the Park Hotel for lunch, and it's standard pub fare, but still very good.

Currently playing on XM as I type this: Alanis Morrisette, "Ironic". Perfect. I think I'll buy a lottery ticket today. :-)

It's raining as we leave the Park Hotel in Glengariff. It alternates between rain and sunshine switching to mostly rain by the time we get to Kenmare. We do get to see some beautiful scenery during breaks in the weather. Gene drives this large bus like a master up and down the very narrow and steep road . We are now in the Caha Mountains. and we drive through Turner's Rock Tunnel, a hand made tunnel.

Shortly after that, we stop at Molly Gallivan's Cottage and Visitor Centre. Although it is not open this time of year, Gene has arranged with the owner of the place to let us check it out. It is named after Gallivan who was widowed with seven children. She supplemented her meager income by selling part of her farm produce such as butter, eggs and honey on the local market. Her home baking and hand spun woollens were ever popular with the few passing tourists but it was her illicit home brewed poitin (potato whiskey) locally known as Molly’s Mountain Dew which she sold in her sibbeen (illegal pub) that was the most profitable. "The exploits of this enterprising widow are legendary" , according to the brochure. It sounds like she had plenty of advance warning when the local authorities we coming, both due to her vantage point at the top of the mountain and probably from grateful customers. The cottage where she stayed was 500 square feet. Can you imagine? An adult, 7 children, and a couple of animals (sheep and chickens ) inside a 500 square foot cottage! We see a short movie on the site and then Wendy gets to meet a "relative" (someone with the same name as some of her relatives), and have her picture taken with him.

We stop in Kenmare, and do some shopping. I decided to splurge and get a Gaelic wool sweater. Probably paid too much , but man it's warm. Plus Melissa negotiated the price downwards, so we didn't overpay too terribly much. Apparently, you can negotiate at any of the the shops in tourist towns, we later learn from Gene. We also pick up a Gaelic Football and shirt for Joe and Melissa gets a few things for herself.

We meet at the Wander Inn for a couple of drinks, and then head to the Rockcrest house to check in. As we are still getting out of the bus and bringing in the luggage, the owner demands to know when want breakfast tomorrow morning. Can we consult with the rest of our party before deciding ?", I ask. "No. I have another group coming in tonight so I need to know now," she snaps. Melissa and I decide that everyone is eating at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. That means no coffee in the morning. I hate having no coffee in the morning.

We go to a place called Ryan's where a young guy (about 30 yrs. old maybe) who is bartending owns the place. It is a large place which has new decor, but is tastefully done. Lots of wood, brass, etc. We start talking to him , and he indicates that including improvements, he has E 2.2 million (about $3 million) into the place. I ask him where his cash came from and he states he got lucky fixing up two previous bars and flipping them. At least he doesn't think he's a genius, because he bought in the right place at the right time. Sure it takes hard work, but there's also an element of luck to owning a place and he recognizes this. I kind of like the guy. We meet a couple where the female is originally from Davenport, Iowa. We exchange stories about Iowa City.

We head to a fast food place where basically all they serve is fish and chips , but talk about fresh. The owner (at least I presume she was) actually pulls the fish out of the fridge and breads it in front of us before dropping it in the cooker. It is delicious. We head to couple of more pubs before walking home. If the weather clears up like it finally appears to be doing here, we'll be seeing the Ring of Kerry tomorrow.