Hello Everyone Interested in the DHS travels to Ireland:
Today was jam packed with sightseeing, all around, and I literally mean “around”, the “Ring” of Kerry. We were told it is the most famous and most popular driving tour people take while in Ireland. It is just that because the sights of the landscape of Ireland are truly incredible…mountains, water, rivers, rocks, canyons, lakes, green grasses, grazing sheep, little lambs, cows, horses, traditional homes/farm houses, and small, quaint towns, you see it all.
To describe it, I’ll spin off on a Deerprints’ feature. They publish a column called, By the numbers. So I’ll describe our drive today, BY THE NUMBERS:
In miles, the Ring of Kerry is 120.
In time, we drove from 9-5:00, that’s an 8 hour day as Dolly Parton taught us, with 5 stops.
In bus sickness, it was 2 who reported feeling seriously queasy and 68 (the rest of us) who felt the same way, but tried to ignore it.
The close calls with other vehicles were too many to count—seemed infinite. But that is because the roads were snakelike windy, two-lane country roads that were extremely narrow. They could fit two cars side-by-side relatively easily. But we are on a coach bus. Comfortably, that road could fit our coach bus and a motorcycle, assuming we both stayed in our lane. With care and skillful maneuvering, that is patience, timing, and cooperation, the twisty road could fit a coach bus and a car.
Staying with the numbers, there were 00 accidents and 00 injuries, fatalities, bumps or bruises. We traveled safely but closed our 70 pairs of eyes approximately 128 times, which is 17,920 total.
I’m exaggerating of course, but it was a tight road. Nevertheless, we had a great time listening to the driver explain the history and/or hearing traditional Irish music.
During the driving tour, we went to Skellig Island and learned how hundreds of years ago, young monks wanted to find solitude to pay homage in an early Christian monastery. So, they moved onto that island and built a 600 stair walk that would take them to the peak area, 714 feet above sea level. There they built stone, rounded huts that would protect them for enemies, elements, and evil. We also saw a few quaint towns and stopped for lunch and ice cream at two different places—no, we didn’t get ice cream twice. I meant we had lunch at one place and ice cream at another. Another shot at the ice cream would come at dessert after dinner! The restaurant options were right across a green field that then eased into a rocky border, some sand and the Atlantic Ocean. Stunning. The day was sunny—yes, we were lucky again with weather, and at times the ocean front was a little chilly given the wind, but not bad really. As you know, we are from Chicago.
When we got back to the hotel, we had another quick turnaround and the group went to dinner. Immediately after dinner, the students began their Traditional Music Workshop. They worked with four Irish musicians who played various instruments such as the harp, the banjo and mandolin, the flute, the box accordion, the bagpipes, and various percussion instruments. These people were talented, friendly, and interesting. Students got hands-on opportunities to play some of these instruments and learned a lot about the uniqueness and the similarities of playing various instruments. When they figured out the Irishman was saying CHORDS and not CARDS, they got into the flow of the teaching session. It was a history lesson, instrumental instruction, and music theory class all wrapped into one. (Sorry, no high school or college credit is awarded.) The students shared their talent too, singing for their new teachers the "Fiddler of Dooney”. All in all, from breakfast until bedtime, it was 14 hours, 840 minutes, or 50,400 seconds of fun. Now, if only we could increase our sleep number.
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