My first flat!

July 6

After getting a ride from the nicest locals ever, I got my new tire and had the bike up and running again before lunch. We left Doolan and continued up the coast road for 50 miles having soup with a nice little, old lady along the way, and stopping to explore the rocky landscape of the Burren Coast. The Burren Coast looked like it could have been another planet - very strange looking. We didin't get into Galway until after 7 with all our stopping and the rain slowing us down a little, but once we were showered we headed out for dinner and live music. I broke down and ordered a burrito - not bad for Ireland, but clearly not as good as a CA burrito. We also ran into some friends from our Dingle Hostel, and spent the night with them - 2 teachers from a Charter School in Minnesota. 50 miles today.



The bizarre beach on the Burren Coast.


If I only could stop eating all that damn Cadbury's chocoalte . . .


Galway at night - it was 10 pm when I took this picture and still completely light out.

July 5

Needless to say, we had sort of a slow start this morning. Although we both got up early enough, we were seriously dragging. If there had been a shower in tent city, we would definitely had stayed another night for the music festival but instead we decided to move on. We spent hours walking around the Cliffs of Moher, which were truley amazing! (See pic below.) However, we only made it 20 miles to Doolin before I suffered a flat - so bad that the tire also had a gaping hole in it. So we found a cute hostel (turned out it was voted the best in Ireland in 2008) and made it home for the night. Thanks to all the help from the locals, we were able to track down a new road bike tire in the next town over where a biking enthusiast happened to live. If he hadn't had that tire I would have had to bus to Galway with my bike to a bike shop - that's how small the town of Doolan was. We had to wait until Monday though to get the new tire, so we spend the night listening to more live music and heading to bed early.


An Irish traffic jam.


The Cliffs of Moher - our photographer kept joking just back up a few more steps.


Our new friends: Jan, Katarina, Jan, and Micheal. Micheal is from Boston but now lives in Northern Ireland along with the rest of new friends.


July 4th

You won't believe our endless good luck today!!! We had our usual late start out of Tralee and rode straight to the ferry in Trabert where as we rode onto boat, they shut the gate behind us. (We decided to skip riding through Limerick.) Once across the River Shannon, we jumped on the bikes and kept heading north. As we were passing through the small town of Milltown/Mal Bay we noticed a tent city by the beach. Upon asking a fellow what was going on, we found out that it was the start of the Willie Clancy Music Festival - the largest week long musical festival in Ireland! So of course we joined the tent city on the beach and headed into the small town where we hands down, heard the best traditional Irish music of our lives. There were roving musicians everywhere and 100's of people in the town for the music and it was one big party. We met the nicest 3 Czechs who now live in Northern Ireland and spent the night partying with them. One of the town locals got us into what's called a "lock in" where a pub secretly reopens after it closes and once you get back in (really locals only) you have to stay in until the closes the second time. I ended up staying out to 4 in the morning and even then I had to wait for a taxi the streets were still packed with people. Best night in Ireland - yet! Oh - and I now I am off to Prague sooner than originally planned to meet my new Czech friends who will be there for the next 3 weeks! 60 miles today.

The ferry ride - we barely made it on the boat - Indiana Jones style.


Tent City at Spanish Fort, just outside Milltown. There were all sorts of signs that said no camping, but clearly they were making exceptions for the week.


The Trad Session at Cleery's Pub, where we spent 4 hours as musicians wandered in and out and joining the music session. Sometimes they would stop for a song - awesome!

July 3

I guess I deserve what I got after mocking Ireland's mountains: Connor's Pass. We left Dingle and Fungi the dolphin mid-morning and ending up spending half our day cycling up Connor's Pass, well 45 mins and 4.5 miles uphill . . . nonstop. The views at the top were awesome though and there was a sense of pride at the view spot when the cars couldn't believe we had peddaled the whole way up. The down hill was just as good too! I also almost killed Ron today when my left panier fell off at high speeds almost taking out Ron who was riding behind me. Once arriving in Tralee, we decided to live the lap of luxury and we spent the afternoon at the Aqua Dome going down water slides and relaxing in saunas before heading back into town to catch a performance at the National Folk Theater of Ireland . . . before returning to our glorious tent! Only 33.5 miles today


The view from Connor's Pass. Yep, we cycled up here from that ocean you see below!


The Aqua Dome . . . of fun!


My illegal photo of the National Folk Theater - all performed in Gaelic.