Burning Ring of Fire

Ok, I have a few words that have changed my life forever - Oatmeal with Bailey's. Yes, you heard me right. This morning began with porridge (oatmeal), but instead of pouring a little milk on it, our host provided Bailey's Irish Cream. This is how every day should begin for the rest of time.

After breakfast, since we are staying on a working sheep farm, we were treated to a demonstration of their award-winning sheep dogs' abilities working the sheep, with Patsy at the helm (he actually said "That'll do" multiple times - I wanted to scream Bah Ram Ewe). The dogs were awesome, and it was the first day working sheep with

Patsy for one of them. Carrie was thrilled to get some up-close sheep time, and I know she restrained herself from bahhing at them the entire demonstration. Good job, baby!

After the demo, we loaded up to explore County Donegal. We started out at Slieve League cliffs. Man, these are awesome. They are bigger than the Cliffs of Moher, and far less commercialized. We arrived at the apparent car park, and started the trek. After seeing a few cars drive past us, we realized that there was another car park farther in. Since Les and Pat, while not infirm, would probably rather not walk the entire way in, Carrie and I headed back for the car, and picked them up. It is a good thing we did, as the eventual destination would have taken a good hour to get there and back, if not longer. We walked up the rather tenuous steps a good portion of the way up.

Here's a fun fact - I have determined the most commonly uttered

phrase on that path is "please come away from there." It is either spoken to children by their parents, or to men by their female significant others. Carrie said that to me at least 5 times, and I heard an Irish couple with the same request being uttered. What is it about possible death that makes men want to push the boundaries of common sense? And why do women not want us to have that fun? I guess we'll never know.

We got some great pictures, and got back to the car. Next stop was a craft store down the hill. Coffee and scone and awesome grandfather shirt later, we were back in the car. We drove on some more of the Wild Atlantic Way?, and it was back and forth between cloudy and drizzly (is that really a word?). While we were driving, Pat through out some mighty alliteration, referring to her Bailey's boozy burps from breakfast (great band name, by the way). We stopped at a folk village museum showing how people lived and worked in the early 1900s in this part of Ireland.

From there we worked our way back to Donegal to buy tickets for the Water Bus (a bay cruise in Donegal Bay). After we bought tickets, we killed time in some craft shops, and I found my favorite treat - Bailey's chocolate bars, with the good stuff inside (unlike the fake ones they sell in the states).

When it was time, we lined up for the cruise. We ended up talking to a couple of girls from Oklahoma (yes the song is now an ear-worm in my head). They were here on a last-minute getaway, and were getting ready to go back to the heat.

We settled down on the boat, and as we were under way, the guide, who was narrating the cruise, started singing - requesting that we all join in. The german tour group downstairs had no problems joining in - maybe they had already hit the bar in the main cabin. I did my best Johnny Cash "Ring of Fire".

In addition to the Donegal Bay historical sites, we saw some friendly seals, one of which, kept posing - even for both sides of the boat as we turned around. We made it through the cruise with nothing more than a light mist. But, when we went into the restaurant our B&B host had kindly booked us into, it started raining much harder. We had great views of the harbor at our table, and it was nice to be in the warm and dry while eating.

Back at the B&B, Carrie, Les, and Pat sorted through pictures to put on FaceBook. They picked out some doozies. Now, I need to clear my head and get ready for the awesomeness of Bailey's porridge in the morning. I will never be the same. :)