Day 3

Wake up, breakfast, meet Paddy at the bus, off to Connemara National Park. Owen was again up early, this time with Sharon for a morning talk on the hotel patio.

After a brief stop along the way to feed some sheep/goats and walk near a beautiful lake, we arrived at Connemara National Park at about 11:00 am. The bus ride had apparently sapped the boy’s strength to the degree that a stop at the Café was needed to top them off with sustenance. After a

bowl of vegetable soup and piece of bread they were ready for a hike. We elected to do the 3 km loop hike up lower Binn Ghuaire (Diamond Hill). Once at the top of the trail, we contemplated continuing on to the summit (upper Binn Ghuaire), but time, weather, and other factors* dissuaded us from pressing on.

The next stop on the itinerary was Kylemore Abbey. Kylemore castle was built in the 1870’s by Mitchell Henry MP. It has been a Benedictine abbey since 1920. The grounds include a small gothic church and six acres of Victorian gardens. We spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the grounds. A highlight at the end was watching and feeding the eels in the river that flows next to the abbey.

After the abbey it was back to Galway for relaxing evening and a nice dinner at the hotel’s restaurant followed by drinks at the pub. The beer of the day was not the Hop House 13 I had in the pub. Their lines were evidently dirty and the beer tasted of lactobacilous. Washed the taste of that out with a Guinness.** Everyone was tired so it was a fairly early night.

*Editor's Note- "Cindi mainly."

**Editor's Note - Christian and Scott discussed tracking their favorite beer of the day, so Sharon and I decided to have a whiskey of the day. I started taking notes,