St. Valentine's Day

February 14, 2007

[You can't ] "wallow with the eagles at night and then soar with the pigs in the morning." --Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt

We wake up having got our best night's sleep in God knows how long. The shower is hot and there is plenty of water. We call room service and have them bring us coffee and a soda while we are getting ready. It is a rested casual morning. We go down to breakfast. We get a great window seat in the restaurant. Service is marginally better than we've had. They at least fill our coffee and other drinks and bring us soda bread. The buffet itself is very good, but frankly, after seven days, I'm ready for a chocolate doughnut. We have to track down the waitress to get her to bring more juice and coffee. Ben is not feeling well this morning. Apparently, too much booze and rich seafood has done in he and his stomach. Wendy tells us this. My wife and Megan immediately volunteer to stay another night in this beautiful hotel, but I'm non-plussed. If we weren't on such a tight schedule, I'd go along with staying another night, but if I miss stuff now, it's not like I can come back next year or some other time. I indicate to Wendy that we are pressing on. Wendy says that if we give Ben until 11:30 a.m. he can move on. We're not on that tight of a schedule, so we give Ben an opportunity to man up.

My wife bought me underwear and t-shirts at a Target type store yesterday, so I use the additional time to return my 60 Euro underwear. The dollar is falling so fast against the Euro that I actually make $0.24 on the exchange. Ben, does in fact, man up, and we move on shortly after the noon hour. It is not a long drive to Dingle, but it is beautiful. Cattle laying down right by the shoreline. Damnedest thing I've ever seen, except maybe the cattle on the mountains on our right. The cattle are negotiating the mountains!!

We stop at Tom Crean's South Pole Inn in Annascaul or "Áth na Scal" (Ford of the Heroes). Most people in the pub speak Gaelic. It helps that Gene does too. Crean went the South Pole twice, once each with the well known explorers Robert Scott and Earnest Shackleton. He also single handedly saved a member of the expedition when most people would have left him for dead. If you're really interested, a link is here:

http://www.70south.com/resources/antarctic-places/irelandannascaul

We then head into Dingle, where we check in at Walsh's Townhouse B&B. We are actually warmly greeted by the owner, and she doesn't complain about the fact that we are early. Good first impressions are usually correct, and in this case they turn out to be. The Rooms are small, but clean. The shower has American type controls on it. The breakfast room has been recently redone, and the lights work. We meet across the street at the an drocied beag (Gaelic for "the small bridge"). Ben, Wendy, Bruce and Megan decide to take Gene up on his offer to show them the "beehive" huts. Melissa and I decide to stay back at the pub where we are seated by our usual spot near the fireplace because neither of us have much interest in the beehive huts and it is getting cold and windy out. After awhile, Melissa and I walk up and down Main Street during which we discover that Doyle's, the place where I was planning on taking everyone to dinner, is closed. We stop at another Pub (Sheey's) and ask for a recommendation from the owner for dinner and she mentions Ashes, down Main Street.

We then head down Main, window shopping, until I spy a place called Foxy John's Bar and Hardware. I insist on stopping in, and damned if it isn't a bar on one side and hardware shop on the other. While I'm drinking a pint, two people actually make hardware purchases. You can see Foxy John and I in the photo above. I'm the ugly one on the right. Note the girl's bicycle in the left window in the lower photo on the left.

We meet back up with gang at "the small bridge" and are also told by the people there to go dinner at Ashes.' Dinner is very good, one our best in Ireland. We finish the night at the Small Bridge where they have live Irish music every night. You'd be surprised how many places have only American rock'n'roll. I'm pretty tired, so Melissa and I call it an early night.