The Events of Wednesday, May 11, 2011

                The morning light filtered through the insubstantial curtains, illuminating every corner of my room. The light got brighter and brighter until I drowsily awoke at 6:40. 6:40! Doesn’t the sun know to stay well below the horizon at least until 7? Yeesh. But I was up, so it was time to get started on the day. As I slipped out of my room and walked down the stairs, I could hear that breakfast preparations were already underway. After all the girls were finished showering, we sat down to a good and healthy breakfast, complete with bananas and pineapple.

                After breakfast came the final packing spree; all our luggage was soon packed and loaded into the van. Before we could leave, however, we needed a destination. We knew we wanted to see Slieve Bloom Heights on our way to our next lodging near Wexford. Since we didn’t have internet access, we tried to find Slieve Bloom Heights, Slieve Bloom Way, and anything even remotely related to Slieve Bloom on our GPS’s. Perhaps as a prediction of our later troubles, they were not to be found. So we headed off with the name of a nearby city: Rathdowney.

                On toward Rathdowney we went, every so often glancing up from books or the laptop to admire the sprawling green in every direction. We were soon in town and wondering where to head next. Dad saw a sign for an outlet center, so we headed in that direction. We eventually found the shopping center and headed inside. It was fairly pitiful. Because of Ireland’s economic troubles, most of the stores were closed, and others were having huge liquidation sales. Although we found several places selling shoes (which Dad and I need), they were either overpriced or not available in our size. The lady at the counter looked at us like we were crazy when we asked for size 12 (US size 13). I guess few Irishmen have giant feet. Although there weren’t shoes for us, we were able to get directions to Slieve Bloom. Unfortunately, they came with a thick Irish brogue, making interpretation a little tough.

                Back in the car, we had a slight idea of which direction to head. Mom’s skillful map work gave a bit of a better plan. We headed off, knowing that we would someday reach the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The road was built with two car-sized lanes, so we had to stop, pull off the road, or back up to allow lorries (British term for 18-wheelers) to pass. After a couple wrong turns, U-turns, and guesswork (luckily Dad guessed right!), we finally found and followed the well-signed directions toward Slieve Bloom Way. Up, down, left, right, bouncing, swerving—the road was not as good as the signage. It was at best one lane, and at times less, but intended for two-way traffic. Luckily, we were the only ones on the road. We climbed and climbed and climbed, gaining elevation every minute. When the road leveled off, we saw a sign for a picnic area. Great! Searching for this “Slieve Bloom” thing, whatever it was, had taken almost our entire morning!

                Rounding a bend, we spotted a lone bulldozer, dutifully completing its work. Dad gave a friendly wave from behind the wheel; the worker gave an incredulous wave back. I can only imagine the thoughts going through the poor guy’s head. “Oh! A car! Haven’t seen one in these parts in years! And there’s a guy waving at me. Guess I’ll wave back. Wait…how can he be the driver and on that side? And the license plate says France. These guys are really lost. Huh?” A couple hundred feet farther on was the picnic table, where we pulled over for the meal.

                As Dad started unpacking the food, the rest of us headed our separate ways to use the “facilitrees”. As we all returned to the table to eat, the clouds overhead opened up. We rushed all the plates and food into the car to wait out the rain. The second all the food was safely sheltered, the skies suddenly cleared, revealing a beautiful expanse of blue. So the food came back out and we enjoyed our simple picnic meal in the middle of Irish green nowhere with relatively good weather.

                At the end of the meal, it was getting drizzly again, so we hurriedly packed up and prepared to set off. The question now was: go on or turn back?

                Mom doggedly pushed us on, since we hadn’t made it to where the Slieve Bloom signs were leading. So on we drove. As we turned a blind corner, a compact car with two passengers came into view and slammed on their brakes. Dad dutifully pulled over to the right side of the road, letting him pass. But then Mom whispered, “To the left, honey.” Oops! That’s the first time we’ve made that mistake! We pulled over to the correct side of the road to let the car pass. As they drove by, we saw the quizzical looks on their faces. A couple hundred jostles, jolts, bumps, and swerves later, we reached the top of a pass and the road instantly changed from a poor dirt trail to a nice, smooth, well-graded, completely paved road. Most of the time, it was actually wide enough for cars to pass!

                As we made our way down the steep hills and hairpin turns, we realized that we had driven up and over the Slieve Bloom Mountains. We then set the GPS’s to our lodging in Blackwater, near Wexford, and toward Wexford we sped. On the drive, we encountered a couple funny sights. For a while, there was a truck in front of us towing a cattle trailer. Inside was a cow that, like many people we’ve seen, was curious about the French minivan we drive. So the cow turned around, and tried to find a spot to stick its head out the back. There were a couple openings, but it could never stick any more than the tip of its nose out of the trailer. It made for a funny sight.

                We stopped briefly in Enniscorthy to pick up some groceries. Since the car was full of luggage, we stowed the purchases on our laps for the bouncy, jolting, jarring, but hopefully short drive to our residence for the night. It was another one of those Irish roads. As the dirt road seemingly came to an end, our stone house came into view.

                The owners of this house have four daughters, so it is clearly family friendly. There are three bedrooms: a two doubles and a twin. We admired the well-equipped kitchen, the lovely ocean views from the sunroom, and the lavish living room. It is the largest and best-equipped house we’ve had in Europe—and we get it all to ourselves! After moving all of our luggage inside, we began our relaxing evening. Mom, Dad, and Abby didn’t relax long, though, for they were soon hard at work making the night’s dinner. Before long, the mouth-watering smell of fajitas drifted from our steaming plates. Dinnertime! After the delicious meal, we cleaned up and got ready for our after-dinner walk.

                We walked through the brisk whipping wind along the main road (actually a sandy lane) before taking a side street into a land of farmhouses and fields. When we passed a large white house, a friendly border collie, who we dubbed Paddy, came out of the yard and escorted us to the beach. The dogs at the house next door, obviously watchdogs, were not as friendly as Paddy. Two overly-aggressive dogs, growling and barking like we were criminals, startled us at the gate. Then one ran over to a gate down the lane and started jumping, yes, jumping up off its hind legs to bark at us. I guess it was supposed to be intimidating, but the effect was more humorous. I have never seen a dog doing jumping jacks before in my life.

                Paddy led us down the lane, around a bend, and down a steep sandy slope to the rocky beach. This is truly a quintessential Irish beach: a rocky shore under grass-topped cliffs. We spent a good twenty minutes here, throwing and skipping rocks. Lindsey took off her shoes to dip her toes in the St. George’s Strait. We headed back up the steep sandy slope, took some photos on the grassy hills, and ambled back up the lane. After passing the barking dogs, Paddy returned home, and so did we. Back at home, we relaxed until bedtime. After a long transition day, heading from the country to the coast, the mountains to the shore, we headed from the couches to our lovely warm beds.