After a hot breakfast with no meat we started our journey to Dingle It was a great ride. We took that couple’s suggestion of taking the Conner Pass route which was incredible. It is a windy and very narrow route through the mountains. There are a number of small lakes tucked away there and fantastic views of both sides of the Dingle Peninsula. At the top there is a spot where you can park and hike up a little further to where the view is incredible. There was even a guy playing the harp near the parking lot. We descended into Dingle in search of our next B&B which sounded nice because it was a farmhouse on the grounds of Rahinnane Castle. The only problem was that it is over five miles from town. After we pulled into the driveway we decided to look for a place a few blocks from the center that had rooms available so we dropped our stuff there. On the way into town, Steve, who lost the coin flip, called the original B&B to cancel our reservation. He made up some lame story about us staying in Killarney another night. After the call we started our search for the boat tour that the family Dun Laoghaire told us about. Unfortunately we missed it because they were only doing fall day tours. We struck out big time on the bout tours. It turns out that a number of boats weren’t running because they were going to the funeral of a 16-year-old boy who had fallen off the cliffs.

We headed to the tourist office looking for other ideas. On the way there Steve saw a sign for horseback riding so we stopped in. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get more details because the clerk was on the phone and didn’t feel the need to get off of the phone to service us. The tourist office wasn’t much help either, just giving us pamphlets. After unsuccessfully trying to find one of the places we decided to go back and get the car to drive the Slea Head route around the peninsula. On the way back to the B&B we tried the sports store one more time. This time we were successful in booking a ride at 5:00. That gave us about two hours for our drive. Luckily that turned out to be enough time as we completed it and were still early for our ride. The drive was gorgeous. We saw a bunch of beautiful cliffs and a number of stone buildings that were several hundred years old. The scenery along that round is what I imagined Ireland to look like.

When we arrived at the stables we were told to grab a pair of boots and a helmet. We were definitely styling. Steve was jealous that my helmet had a bon on the back but was able to get over it. When we told them that we had only ridden a few times and it was western style, we were told that we didn’t know how to ride there because we were going to ride English style. We learned that this style gave you better command of the horse. Whatever. Our guide was nice and had to give pretty regular instruction to these two uncoordinated American riders. It was a nice ride up one of the hills that overlooked the city. I’d say the ride was a success since we saw some good stuff and neither of us fell off. The only problem was when we finished our ride something really aggravated bot Steve’s and my allergies. We were both sneezing and wheezing. When we got back we both took hot showers in an effort to wash of whatever was bothering us.

We then headed to town for some food and a few pints. The lasagna at the Italian restaurant we tried wasn’t too bad, there just wasn’t enough of it. Our first pub of the night was Dick Mack’s which was an interesting place. On one side is the bar and on the other is a leather shop with a bench running down the middle. There were boots and belts and key chains along with dies and leather working tools. On either end of the bar were booths that had high walls and a small window facing the bar where you could order and receive your drinks. We stayed longer than planned because we started talking to a couple of guys. One was from Northern Ireland who had gone to college in Kansas. The other was from Australia. We, of course, talked about sports but also learned a few interesting things about language. For example, we learned that the people from Australia are called Auzzies not Aussies. We also learned that wog means cold or flu in Australia but is a derogatory word for a segment of the population in the U.K. After three pints and some good conversation we moved on to The Dingle Pub where we heard some bad traditional music. It was so bad that Steve overheard one of the employees say it was “scaring the dogs away.” Our last stop was at An Droichead Beag where we heard some good live music which was mostly American cover tunes. We ran into D.B and Steve there and ended up closing the place. After unsuccessfully searching for a place open late, we headed home.