Day 5 – Give me some Moher

Given the hike yesterday, we decided to give ourselves a break and sleep in, which is easy to do since the sun doesn’t really come up until abut 8am.  Damon and I “overslept” until 8:30 – a luxury – and then we all grabbed breakfast. We are becoming used to the traditional Irish breakfast which seems to waiver little in variety:  wet, runny scrambled eggs (sometimes fried), “bacon” (ham), baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, black and white pudding (involves blood, don’t ask), porridge (oatmeal) and a variety of pastries.  I’m trying to stick with the oatmeal and fruit, but damn that ham is good.

We spent the morning exploring Galway – Tricia and Bobby did their own thing while Damon and I toured the town.  The downtown area is a really cute pedestrian only shopping area with pubs and coffee shops occupying every other space and random street performers playing music.  

Galway

We wandered up and down the narrow streets, popped out at a river that had a historical Spanish arch that was on every tourist brochure.  We were not impressed.  

We wandered up the river, saw a few churches, and eventually made it back to the hotel to meet up at noon.

Next stop… the well known Cliffs of Moher!  The drive was about an hour and a half during which time Bobby continued the quest (unsuccessfully) for the perfect sheep-wall picture.  

Sheep and wall somewhere.  Maybe.

I had long since given up.  The drive took us through some incredible scenery.  

Now we made it onto single-lane roads with rolling green pastures on both sides.  The stone walls were everywhere separating property and animals.  Luckily, the road was near empty and but for the one tour bus that caused a group scream,  and a near miss with a truck carrying a 20’ tall load of hay that was listing dangerously to the middle of the road causing Bobby to silently (in his words) “pucker” as the hay truck flew past us.  All in all, a scenic drive and a beautiful sunny day.  On that note, we have been incredibly lucky with the weather.  We’ve had no rain (knock on wood) and sun almost every day.  Today, barely a cloud in the sky.

We arrived at the Cliffs, parked, and had our typical PB&J lunch.  We carry a bag of food consisting of fruit, snacks and sandwich fixings that we eat out of the back of the car.  We are very fancy.  The visitor center at the Cliffs is actually quite nice as it is built into the side of the hill, so it is not in any way ostentatious.  There are a few shops also built into the hill.  None of us took pictures, so credit to Google on this one. 

One thing that must be addressed is the bathroom situation in the visitor center.  You walk in and the bathroom sign points to a unisex bathroom.  One might assume that means that there are individual unisex bathrooms, but no, it is literally a full bathroom that has stalls and everyone is welcome.  There is something a little disconcerting, about going to the bathroom in a stall next to a male stranger.  I’m not sure if the stalls all had doors or not, but I did see one man standing and doing his thing with no door.  Luckily, it was a largish room, so I could grab a stall in a corner away from everyone else.  Still, weird.  Of course, I later realized that if you went upstairs, there were gender specific bathrooms.  But then again, the thought of walking up a flight of stairs would have been enough to keep me in the creepy toilet.

Okay, so on to the hike.  We had the option of going in one of two directions – we opted for the 10k round trip rather than the 16k round trip, plus, we wanted the sun behind us in our pictures.  The first mile or so was loaded with tourists – people stopped every 5’ to take selfies.  We pushed past them all (after taking selfies every 5’) and the crowd started to thin.  There is a placard at the start of the trail in remembrance of all who have died on the cliffs.  We googled and learned that 66 people have died in the last 15 or so years and there are signs everywhere communicating the danger of hiking on the cliffs. 

As we continued the hike, the trail separated into three distinct paths – sometimes coming together, but usually independent.  The safe (sissy) path was the one far away from the cliffs segregated by a waist high wall of rocks.  You can still see everything, but there is zero element of danger – this was built following too many deaths.  The flipside is the path closest to the edge (the idiot path).  This is the one that tempts people to peek over the edge, take selfies fake leaping, and the romantic make-out pictures (yes, quite a few of these).   Then there is the middle path – still on the danger side of the wall, but with enough room to make a leap to the sissy path should the bluff start to give way.  Obviously, we spent most of our time on the middle path with me yelling at Damon at regular intervals when he started edging toward the idiot path.

Middle Path and Idiot Path

Me on Sissy Path, Damon taking pictures on idiot path

Damon on idiot ledge with me screaming at him out of camera range

We made it to the turnaround point at Hag’s Head where there was a nice grassy bluff to sit and enjoy the view.  Walking 6 miles is normally not a huge issue, but given our exertion over the previous two days, the soreness was really starting to kick in.  We power walked back, only stopping to take 700-800 more pictures.  We were motivated by the setting sun as the only thing worse than the idiot path is the idiot path in the dark.

Enjoying the View

Our next overnight spot was going to be somewhere near Shannon or Limerick.  Having no real plan was awesome – we just drove and searched for hotels until I found one that I insisted on stopping at because the name was so awesome – the Bunratty Castle Hotel in Bunratty, Ireland.  Oh, people tried to talk me out of it to stay at the Radison Blu, but I was insistent.  The deal was, if the Bunratty was scary or weird, we would continue to the Rad Blue.  The Bunratty was awesome.  We skillfully negotiated another wonderful rate that was somehow 24-Euro higher than the on-line rate.  The clerk had me confused about the exchange rate and I was doing it the wrong way, but it was still super cheap and nice accommodations, so we stayed.  Need to work on our negotiation skilz for tomorrow.

When Triecia and I walked back to the car, we were super excited that there were young people in the lobby since our other two prior hotels seemed to lean toward the slightly older crowd.  Bobby looked at us like we were crazy and commented that when the two of us hobbled out of the lobby with our sore muscles, we looked like senior citizens and the people in the lobby were probably not thrilled to see us.  Add to that the fact that Damon and I are both currently wearing Invisaligns so we are forever popping our “teeth” in and out like dentures, eliciting constant ridicule.

The town of Bunratty is small and centered on the, you guessed it, Bunratty Castle.  We found a pub for dinner called Durty Nelly’s, (also) claiming to be the oldest pub in Ireland, built in the early 1600’s.  When one finds a 400-year old pub called Durty Nelly’s, one goes there.  

The pub consisted of several small rooms with a few tables in each room.  One room was the pub – drinks only, one room was the fancy room –nice menu, and one room was the pub menu.  We were all in a burger type of mood, so we moved to the pub menu room.  There, we were offered a pamphlet that gave the history of Durty Nelly.  This is brilliant and must be shared.

I’m paraphrasing based on a quick ready of a very long explanation.  In the early 1600’s, Nelly somehow scored the right to charge tolls to cross a bridge.  She accepted money, chickens, eggs and if a guy was hot enough, she accepted “other” forms of payment, thereby earning her the moniker “Durty Nelly”.  One night, following a durty encounter, she realized that her manfriend had stolen all of her gold.  She determined that he must have needed it for something important, so she forgave him.  That night, she had a strange premonition – a recipe for a secret potion.   She rubbed the secret potion on a sick dog and it healed.  Then she tried it on a horse and it healed.  Then a barren woman came to her to assist with getting pregnant.  Her husband tried the potion, they had a rockin’ night, followed by six kids.  Nelly’s potion became world renowned and people came from all over to get healed, among other things.  The recipe was carried down and was eventually banned due to its potency, although it is still secretly brewed in the backwoods of Ireland.  What we determined is that Nelly basically invented Viagra and was able to keep her fantastic little pub going for 400 years on the proceeds.  Go Nelly.

Post dinner, we went back to the Bunratty and while everyone else went to sleep, I spent the next two and half hours writing the blog 😊

Day 4 – Holy hell of all hikes

Woke up today and headed down for breakfast.  A little slower moving as we all try to time adjust, but made out by 10am for our hike to Croagh Patrick (“Crow” Patrick, not “Cro-Ag” Patrick as Triecia is fond of calling it).  This hike was Triecia’s pick for the trip as it is a sacred mountain with spiritual origins and she is much more spiritual than, say, me.  To me, it was just a big freaking mountain that needed to be conquered.  The mountain is nicknamed “The Holy Mountain” as people make a pilgrimage to the top to honor St. Patrick and we understood there to be a church at the top where St. Patrick fasted for 40 days in 441 AD (thank you Wikipedia). 

As we researched this little day hike, descriptive words like “Strenuous” “Weather subject to change” “Dangerous” “Loose Rocks” “bring a walking stick” popped up regularly.  No worries, we are relatively fit for upper 40’s, early 50-year olds!  We arrived at the base of the mountain raring to go. 

Still Happy!

Having fun with my walking stick...

In the distance, we saw two peaks – a big one, and then one that was way off in the distance that was at least twice the height of the big one.  We weren’t sure which one we were actually planning to summit (knowing full well that it was obviously going to be the monster peak).  

Guess which peak we have to climb.

We got one step out of the parking lot, which I would say was probably the last flat surface we encountered.  It was straight uphill immediately.  We read that the hike should take about 3.5 hours (ha).  The first part of the hike was walking up a lightly flowing stream over uneven rocks and boulders.  It was tough, but doable – maybe ½ mile of this.  

The next section of the hike was probably about a 20-degree incline – again, lots of loose rocks and uneven surfaces – another mile.  We were all still smiling at this point, stopping to rest and enjoy the view at regular intervals.  

Still Smiling

Still the "easy" part

Path to the saddle

Muscles were burning, calves were sore, but on we went toward the first peak where we stopped to rest and fuel up with some PB&Js.  The wind was whipping like crazy so we hunkered down behind a big pile of rocks (aka cairn).

It was from this halfway point that we got our first really good view of the massive peak and the trail that we were supposed to follow. We could see people in colored jackets dotting the trail – how they were not all rolling down the mountain was a mystery to me as this was the steepest climb I’ve ever seen.  There was a lot of profanity over the course of this rest period ending with “okay, let’s conquer this b*tch”.  

Me, not happy with what is to come.  Dressed for arctic winter.

Bobby - still far enough down to be excited about the peak where the weather was warmer

We had a nice lull as we left the saddle and traversed the relatively flat ridge to get to the big peak.  The wind was strong enough to nearly knock us off our feet and almost did a few times.  

The ridge - windy, but thankfully flat

About halfway across the ridge, we came across “rustic facilities”, which of course Triecia & I had to take advantage of.  In the middle of nowhere, toilets and sinks in what felt like an old dungeon with sheep grazing nearby.  But when you gotta go…

Note blue sheep in background

We made our way to the base of the final leg of the climb – it was straight uphill on terrain that was made up of wet gravel and rocks the size of your fist or bigger – all loose.  It was insane.  I understand why this is considered a holy mountain because I can assure you the words “holy mother of god why are we doing this” “holy @#($*& this is a nightmare”, and a few other choice words left my lips more than a few times.  To give you an idea on what we were climbing, I had guesstimated that we were climbing at a 45 degree incline and since I’m accused of having a tendency to exaggerate, I double-checked later and found that at points, the incline was a 55 degree grade.  Think about it – more than half of a 90-degree angle on loose rocks. 

Loose Rocks

55 degree incline

I was completely focused on not breaking an ankle, Damon was completely focused on me not breaking an ankle, and while we weren’t always close to Triecia and Bobby during the hike, we did see Bobby literally pushing Triecia by her butt up the mountain.  We stopped every 20-30’ to try to see how much further but it just never ended.  Every time we passed people going down every one of them said “you are almost there!  Just 10 more minutes!”  If I had a nickel for every time we went ten more minutes… finally, after more than 2 hours of climbing, we saw the summit.  The hike was strenuous and at times very windy and at times very hot – we went from hats, mittens and down to t-shirts and sunglasses multiple times.

As you approach the summit, slowly a big white building comes into view.  You can imagine the sounds of heaven (aaahhh aaahhh ahhhh) as the building comes into view and you know you’ve made it. 

Approaching the summit

The summit is impressive with a full-blown church at the top, plus a lot of room to walk around and enjoy 360-degree views.  We could barely haul our butts to the summit, not sure how people got an entire church up there. 

The church

We were very lucky that we had good weather and a relatively clear day, so we spent about 30 minutes enjoying the view, refueling, and trying to decide if it was a better idea to walk back the way we came, or to just die up there.  

We made it!

Proof of summit

Triecia and I dueled it out highlander style (yes, I am aware that was Scotland) and we opted to head back down.  I think I know why St. Patrick spent 40 days at the summit, he just didn’t want to walk back down the mountain.

There can be only one

The descent was not as physically grueling as the ascent, but it required tremendous concentration with foot placement to make sure you were not going to slip on the rocks or break an ankle. Both Triecia and I had walking poles, which we agreed were worth far more than the 4 Euro we paid to rent them.  On the way down, we had the distinct pleasure of telling everyone it was “just 10 more minutes” to the top.  It was cruel, but also seemed to be a right of passage.  When we were about ¾ of the way down, we passed two hikers on their way up.  One guy was crawling on his hands and knees, swearing the entire way while his friend was laughing and telling him not to swear in front of the ladies.  Having gone through the full cycle of profanities on our way up, we told him it was cool.

A few times I looked back up at Triecia and Bobby making their way down… Triecia was somehow using Bobby as a second walking stick.  While we didn’t see it, she took a small tumble on the descent – nerve wracking.  My near calamity came later.

To say that our calves and knees were burning is an understatement.  By the time we got to the ridge to get to the “easy” part of the hike, we were exhausted, but glad that the worst was behind us.  We made our way down the final mile or so kind of stumbling along.  At one point, I was climbing over a rock and my boot caught on the lip of the rock and I tripped badly.  Somehow, I fell/ran downhill toward Damon who was waiting to catch me while I heard gasps from all three of them - and in the three strides it took me to get to Damon, I somehow managed to regain my balance.  I call that years of tripping practice. 

We finally got to the bottom, had hot chocolate, and headed to Galway.  But not before we bumped into the guy who left his swearing buddy somewhere on the mountain while he ran down a different part of the mountain – grassy – as evidenced by his dirty knees and grass stained clothes – he had wiped out a few times.  In his Irish accent, he said he left the bloke somewhere on the mountain and was cracking up every time he thought he could see the guy’s blue jacket saying “aye, he’s gonna kill me if he makes it down”.  The guy made it as we were getting into our car.

Our drive to Galway was about an hour and a half.  Damon is getting better at driving – only hit the curb once today.  We left the bigger roads for secondary roads which get narrower.  Why the Irish think it is a good idea to have narrow lanes with stone walls or thick shrubs right up against the side of the road is beyond me.  One very cool thing we saw during the drive was a plethora of stone walls.  I’ve never seen anything like this.  All of the houses/yards/farms/grazing pastures are separated not by fences, but by stone walls – most look like they are hundreds of years old.  It was so “Irish” that I said I needed a picture for the blog.  What took place over the next 30 minutes or so was pure hilarity.

Damon is the driver.  Triecia is the front seat passenger and navigator.  Bobby and I are relegated to the back seat.  Having no official transportation jobs, it was on Bobby & me to get the perfect pastoral picture – preferably with a perfectly preserved stone wall with fluffy white sheep in the background.  Not so easy when you are driving 100 kpm and your driver will not slow down – even for a blog picture. 

The conversation is the back seat sounded like this:

Donna (yelling) – I got wall I got wall but no sheep.  I see sheep.  Do you have sheep?  What about a wall.

Bobby – I got wall but I got cows, no sheep.  Wait, I think I see sheep. 

Donna – DAMON SLOW DOWN WE NEED A PICTURE FOR THE BLOG.  Sheep!  I see sheep!  Is there a wall?  Dammit, my picture is blurry.  I see sheep on your side – roll down your window.

Bobby – I got a car and a cow but no sheep and no wall.

Triecia (oblivious to what is going on in the back) - Hey - there is a cow mounting another cow!

You get it.  Needless to say, the fruits of our labors are less than stellar.

Sheep too far and wall

Sheep and Wall!

My best effort

During the drive, we also found an acceptable hotel in Galway – we learned to walk in and not reserve on-line to get a better rate, so Triecia and I hobbled in and negotiated two sweet rooms, breakfast, and parking for a great price.  We asked for suggestions for dinner and live music and thank the lord they recommended a place roughly a 30 second walk out our front door across the street.  Since we were all hobbled, closeness trumped everything else.

Great Place!

We got very lucky and scored a table in front of the band, the food was amazing, and we had a super excited local telling us this was the best Irish band ever as he waved his arms to the music and danced, he said a lot more, but we couldn’t understand 95% of it. 

We drank beer and whiskey and still made it to bed by 10pm.  We are killing it in Ireland.

Day 3 – Stairway to Heaven

Alarm went off at 6:30am and we felt great having had a full night of sleep.  We had loosely decided to meet up when we were all ready, but aim for 8 or 9 ish since we had a two hour drive to our first hike.  Damon and I went to breakfast and we were eventually joined by Triecia and Bobby.  We stopped at a grocery store to stock up on some lunch and snacks and aimed North to get to the famed Cuilcagh Boardwalk Hike in Northern Ireland, aka, the Stairway to Heaven.  This was my must do on the list of places to go.

We knew the trail was right over the border of Northern Ireland, and given all of the hoopla around Brexit, we assumed there would be some indication when we left Ireland for Northern Ireland.  Without GoogleMaps, we never would have known we crossed the border - no border crossing, no signs, nothing.  So much for getting that extra stamp in our passports!

The hike consisted of about a 2-mile gravel trail that led to a 1.5 mile boardwalk built on top of bogland culminating in a staircase that led the rest of the way to the top of the “mountain”.  The weather was cool and misty, but thankfully not raining.  We bundled up and headed out.  The hike was not too bad – relatively moderate incline – until we got to the staircase.  394 steps (yes, I counted them) in a brisk wind, but we were rewarded with amazing views from the top – in between the patches of fog.  The wind was so strong that if the fog rolled in, you only had to wait a few minutes for a break to get great pictures. 

The hike was generally uneventful except for the part where both Damon and Bobby, separately, managed to wipe out.  Damon by slipping off the boardwalk and into the bog, and Bobby mis-stepping into a hidden hole and wiping out.  Just saying that they give us so much grief for being clumsy and we were not the ones with bog on our butts.  Oh, and then there were sheep – shocking.  The sheep, to our surprise, are all fluorescent.  The herd we saw were painted with neon orange paint.  Not just a little spot, but some of them where covered in bright orange.  As we saw the occasional blue sheep, we assume it is an alternative and more humane way to brand flocks.  Definitely more humiliating from a sheep’s perspective, but better than branding.  Will have to see what colors the rest of the week brings.

Post hike, we started the drive to – well – we didn’t know where since we didn’t actually have a destination.  We picked a hike for tomorrow and headed in that general direction while I started hunting for a decent hotel or BnB.  We stopped a few times trying to find a coffee shop in one of the small towns we passed, but quickly realized that we are much more likely to find beer than coffee, and our best bet will consistently be the incredibly well-stocked and clean gas stations that are relatively easy to find.  We are also getting a real kick out of the road signage and town names, most of which are in both English and Gaelic.  Take the “Ballin Together Community Centre” as Bobby called it as an example.  

Oh, and we are also on a 2fer2 rainbow kick – gorgeous rainbows both days so far.  During our drive to the hotel, the sun came out in full force and we had nothing but blue skies for the whole drive.  Expecting the next two days (hopefully) to be sunny with no rain.

The roads we’ve taken thus far are definitely secondary roads – very narrow, no shoulder, and cars coming at you with very little wiggle room.  Damon is doing a pretty good job of driving on the left side and has only gone off the road twice.  We came across our first oncoming tour bus.  Let’s say that a tour bus takes up far more than it’s allocated 1 lane, and this thing is barreling at us in 1 ½ lanes and we have a stone wall on our left.  Our reactions – Triecia screamed and was worried she would be found dead with a giant “O” on her mouth.  I (in the back seat) grabbed the headrest and leaned as far to the left as I could, because obviously that would help us get around an oncoming tour bus.  Bobby, relaxed as ever with no visible reaction.  Did not ask to check his pants.  And Damon somehow managed to slide us by without damage to the car.  I expect this will not be our last game of chicken with a bus this week.

We walked into the Park Hotel Kiltimagh, Swinford Rd, Corrahoor, Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo (their addresses are confusing) and we were able to get two brand newly remodeled rooms for a discounted rate as walk ins.  The hotel is very nice and we had a great dinner in the restaurant.  As it turns out, the town of Kiltimagh only has 3 restaurants and this is one of them.  Apparently there are lots of pubs and there is live music tonight, but it doesn’t start until 10pm and we are, well, exhausted.  Looks like live music will get pushed to tomorrow!

Day 2 - I hope I can fall asleep tonight

Day 2 - I hope I can fall asleep tonight

Damon “volunteered” to be our designated driver for the week primarily because I may have mentioned the number of times I almost took out the left side of a car when I was driving in Scotland a few years ago and he didn’t trust my wrong-side driving skills.  Our first stop was about a two hour drive to a town smack in the middle of Ireland called “Athlone”, home of Sean’s Bar, the oldest pub in Ireland.  Or oldest pub in the UK.   Or oldest pub in Europe.  Or oldest pub in the world.  Not sure, but it has some historical old bar status for some reason and Bobby wanted to visit.  We each got one destination demand and that was his.  Athlone is a decent sized town – we checked into our (only) hotel around 1pm and headed out to try to find some lunch.  Or maybe breakfast.  By this point, I was officially lost on time.  We happened upon a fantastic little pub called Bailey’s Pub and had an awesome lunch.  Well nourished and raring to go, we set off to explore Athlone on foot. 

 Side note - if you see any humor in the town name, let me know.  My 13-year old humor got the best of me and I would just add "leave my" in front of the town name every time I said it.  I got a lot of eye rolls from the group.

Athlone is a cute little town on the River Shannon.  We saw the first of what I expect to be many castles and a few old churches.  I don’t remember much else because I was the first one to crash.  I couldn’t focus enough to engage in conversation and all of my energy was funneled toward putting one foot in front of the other while hanging onto Damon for dear life to avoid falling asleep mid-step and ending up in traffic.   About 10,000 steps later, we made it back to our hotel and passed out in bed until our alarm went off 2 hours later.  Damon & I forced ourselves out of bed at 7 to meet Triecia and Bobby for dinner.  Those rockstars had stayed out walking and pubbing it while we napped.  Triecia and Bobby had just eaten but they met us for dinner.  The plan was to go to the infamous Sean’s pub after dinner. 

Unfortunately, some time during dinner, Bobby started to crash and he became the resident zombie.  We forced him to go to Sean’s Pub to have a beer, but we didn’t think he could stay up long enough for a full beer, so we ordered shots of whiskey instead.  The bartender poured the shots for us, we did a little cheers and downed these massive shots of whiskey.  Then two Irish 19-year olds sitting at the bar looked at us like we had three heads and said – (imagine your best Irish accent) – “that was sipping whiskey, not meant to be downed in one shot!”  To say they were horrified by our uncouthness is an understatement, but hey, we had our drink in the oldest bar on the planet and we were in and out in under five minutes!

We got back to the hotel around 9 or 10pm.  I was very worried about falling asleep again so soon, so I said to Damon “I really hope I can fall asleep” to which he responded by hitting me to wake me up because he was mad that I actually fell asleep in the middle of telling him that I hoped I could fall asleep.  Needless to say, the next 8.5 hours were pure bliss.  

I think we were all too tired to take a lot of pictures.  This will change in coming days.

Night 1 - Getting to Ireland

Monkeyhouse is heading to the Emerald Isle, and this time we are dragging some friends (Triecia & Bobby) along.  Ireland is a place I’ve always wanted to go – there is something about the green, the cliffs, the rolling hills that seem so alluring for a nature lover and a hiker.  And everything I’ve heard leads me to believe that Ireland generally exceeds expectations.  Triecia & Bobby have been trying to schedule a vacation with us for several years and somehow we managed to convince them that Ireland is the place to go. 

Anyone who knows me is aware of my Type A vacation planning itineraries.  They consist of spreadsheets with detailed minute by minute scheduling of where we will be, how long it takes to get everywhere, and how long each activity is expected to take – there is very little room for spontaneity  because I am afraid of missing anything.  I have been made fun of repeatedly for my planning, but should we ever disappear on vacation, it will take less than 7 minutes to locate our bodies based on these detailed itineraries.

That being said, this vacation is a true departure from the norm.  We all had different ideas of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do – and as we started planning, we realized that it would be near impossible to select overnight accommodations each night having no real idea of where we might end up on any given day.  So, we booked our flights, a rental car, and our first and last night hotel, and decided to wing it the rest of the time.  Our single point of failure will be the internet.  With internet, we will hopefully find a roof over our heads.  Without internet, car camping for all.

Triecia and Bobby live in NW Indiana and were driving to our house so we could all go to O’Hare together.  Triecia and I spent most of the day texting about what to pack.  I warned her that there is a 50lb limit on bags and was assured that she was just packing a "medium sized bag".  It gave me pause when she asked if I was planning to wear the same clothes more than once.  Um, yeah - I usually pick my clothes off the floor and if they pass the sniff test, they are usually good for a few wears!  Her bag weighed in  at 44.5 lbs while it was still in Indiana, which made her happy, because she could add more shoes and maybe more clothes.  Which she did.  Final bag weight at the airport – 48.9 lbs.  Damon and I are getting a little bit better with packing and came in at a combined duffle weight of 58lbs.  I think our plan is to borrow clean clothes from Triecia when ours start walking on their own.

Our flight took off on Thursday night about an hour late, meaning we left a little after 10pm.  My plan was to immediately take a sleeping pill, put on my eye mask, noise cancelling headset and my hoodie sweatshirt and crash for as many of the 8 hours as possible.  All went well until they turned the lights on the plane back on at 11pm to serve everyone dinner?  Seriously, dinner?  It is the middle of the night!  Lights stayed on until about midnight and then I tried once again to fall asleep.  I can sleep darn near anywhere, with the exception of airplanes and unfortunately, the sleeping pills never kicked in.  So when our plane started getting tossed around somewhere over Vancouver at 12:30, I was wide awake and not a happy camper.  Everyone else on the plane seemed oblivious to our near death bumps.

We spent the better part of the next 1.5 hours with me clutching Damon for dear life while our plane took quite a few turbulent hits.  For some odd reason, it worries me more when a flight is turbulent over water than it does over land.   As if being over land is going to save us at 40,000 feet.  I may fly for work nearly every week, but that does not mean I’m great at it.  We finally got through the worst of it by about 2am and I tried, again, to fall asleep.  I think I got in  maybe one solid hour before the breakfast cart came rolling up the aisle and the lights went on, waking everyone.  Luckily for the group, everyone else got a few hours of sleep.

We landed at about 10:45am local time and went to pick our rental car before heading to our first and only planned stop.  The rental car guy looked at all of our stuff, shook his head, and offered us an upgrade to a bigger car, and off we went in our SUVan – there is ongoing debate as to whether it is an SUV or a minivan.