Hello everyone!

Today was quite an adventure. We had planned on visiting the city of Galway today for some food and shopping, but we looked out our window this morning and saw a break in the clouds, and decided to head out and try to catch the Cliffs of Moher instead.

We all got up and started to get ready, and I caught sight of this interestingly labeled bag:

In case you can’t tell it’s labeled “thermal bottoms” and is filled with candy. Interesting way to create a thermal bottom.

It had continued to be extremely windy over the night and into the morning, but I checked the website for the Cliffs, and it said they were open so out we ventured.

Here’s some views from the house we’re staying in

The view from our place is incredible.

We are on a hill up a one lane road just outside the little village of Doolin. In the summer it’s crowded with tourists and vacationers, but right now it’s cute and sleepy.

It’s in a region of Ireland called The Burren, which is filled with fields and animal grazing despite the landscape being made up entirely of rock with no actual soil.

Here’s a view from the road to the cliffs

We got to the cliffs and the wind was whipping. As we parked we watched a young man next to us in his car carefully coiffing his hair. Then he stepped out of the car and the wind sent his hair flying in all directions.

We braced against the wind and headed up the path to the cliffs.

They are truly spectacular.

We got a bunch of pictures of all of us, including my aunt was apparently cold. Her coats haven’t been holding up to the weather as well as we hoped, and it’s been hard. Ireland is beautiful, but it’s no joke. Bring warm, waterproof clothes.

As we were standing watching the cliffs the wind picked up and we decided to head into the visitors center for some lunch and to warm up.

The cafeteria in the visitor’s center had ok food, but excellent views from the right table.

The visitor’s center was actually pretty cool, with a very good gift shop and some fun interactive exhibits that teach you about the cliffs and their ever changing, complicated micro climate. There are some fun things for kids.

Jimmy and I ducked into a 4D movie flying you through the cliffs and into the water. When we walked into the theatre it was wet all over the floor, which we thought was strange. It had been off and on down pouring all day, so we assumed the water was from people’s coats.

Nope. One of the 4D effects is that they spray you with water.

Three times.

Would have been nice to know, as we had just gotten dry from being outside.

Jimmy and I left mom and aunt Anita in the gift shop and decided to head back out and walk around the cliffs some more.

When we got outside the wind was a bit calmer, and it wasn’t raining yet. We decided to walk up along the side of the cliffs to get a view of the other side. The rain picked up a bit, and we decided we’d had enough exploring, so we began to head back down.

The white stuff flying in that video is sea foam spraying off the water. It was fun and bubbly.

As we were walking the wind picked up and started gusting so hard it was hard to walk. Jimmy and I found a walk to jean against to wait out the gusts, but they just kept coming.

Friends, standing against that wall in the persistent wind, I thought I was going to literally blow away. At one point I remember thinking, maybe I should hold on to Jimmy, but then thinking that if I blew away I didn’t want to take him with me.

I want you to live, Jimmy!

It all felt very dramatic in the moment.

After what felt like hours but was probably less than five minutes, Jimmy and I looked up and saw people not far from us walking totally normally. That was when it occurred to us that we had stopped in a wind tunnel. We started trudging in the wind towards the visitor center, and sure enough after a few feet the wind was much more manageable.

Don’t I feel silly.

To be fair the sense of danger is heightened by all of the “danger” signs telling you to stay on the path or die.

We headed back in to the visitor center to pick up mom and aunt Anita, then we all headed back to the house.

More views from the road

After dropping off the others for an afternoon nap, Jimmy and I headed to the Doolin cave which advertised having the largest stalactite in Europe.

We showed up to find out that tours to the cave were full for the day, but a kind and friendly tour guide overheard the front desk telling us that, and told us just to tag along on the tour leaving right then. He ended up being a good guide and excellent storyteller.

We descended 125 steps into the ground, and grabbed some hard hats which ended up being needed as the cave ceiling was quite short in the passage ways and we had to duck down while walking.

I hit my head twice.

The story of how the cave was discovered was really interesting, but I’ll let you discover it on your own if you ever go to the caves.

You end up in a huge pitch black cavern, where there is a grand reveal of the stalactite. It is the third largest in the world, and was actually way cooler than I was expecting. Definitely worth a visit to the cave if you’re able to climb 125 stairs (you go back up the way you came) and can walk hunched over through the passages.

The cave also has a small nature trail with some cute donkeys and goats.

We headed back to the house where we all froze in the living room with the wind shaking the house and waited to venture out to a pub.

Dan, Brianna, and Evie had also made it back. They had their own adventure today also visiting the cliffs (just as harrowing for them, but for a very different reason: my niece loves to run and is very fast), then they went to a pub in town we hadn’t been to yet and got info on live music happening there tonight. The pub owner also fell in love with Evie and gave her a free ice cream sundae.

The whole group decided to head back out for music that we were told would start at 8:30. Pub time means it actually started at 9:30.

This new pub was really cute inside, and the food was excellent. I had an Irish beef burger with some kind of caramelized onion sauce. It was full of more tourists than the pub from last night, but was still fun.

The music started up, and my niece hung up her dancing shoes and decided to try her hand at playing guitar instead. Her guitar was a fork, but boy did she strum it like it was the fanciest acoustic guitar in the land.

After a few songs we all decided to turn in and head to bed.

Tomorrow we get to visit an Irish castle.