Up the Coast to Donegal: Day 32

15 July, Wednesday

Over the past few days we talked with Joseph about how he had made the change three months prior to leave the rat race of society and move to rural Ireland. He talked about how he knew that he was in the right place the moment he set foot in the area. He is also doing things he never has done before...like making tables and bedframes and growing plants and vegetables. He was very encouranging for me. I've really done nothing productive since Jim died almost a year ago and that's okay I know I needed to rest and seek the Lord's direction, but when I get home I know there will be changes in my life...not sure what, but I know that I need to find that place as did Joseph and the woman in the music store.

Anyhow. Time to get the tyre (tire) fixed so we managed, with help, to find the Tyre Man store and this wonderful man stopped what he was doing and gave us a new tire and switched out the spare...for a price of course, but he did this in about 15 minutes and we were on our way.

We arrived at Sligo about 2 hours later and stopped in a grocery store for sandwiches and green coke to go (do we have green coke in the USA yet?) We nearly lost our lives in the city with the crazy traffic, but were spared our lives and drove on. Inadvertently we saw two of Sligo's most famous attractions: a flat mountain (looked a little like Castlerock in Colorado only greener and longer) and a beautiful old castle that set on private land...but we managed to get to the beach below to take some photos and gaze at an amazingly cool beach with rocks like we've not seen yet. We were both too tired to walk down (ok, I'll admit, my thighs were burning a wee bit from the mountain climb...)

Barbara was our next Air B&B location in Donegal and we found her house using the Mapsme App which also led us down a small one lane road where Mackenzie met another horse to pet. An older man stopped as well and said that he saw the horse everyday but was afraid to pet it, but Mackenzie convinced him to do it

Barbara wasn't home so we headed the 2Km into Donegal. Cute, Cute, town and now another of our favorites. It is set up in a diamond shape around the main roundabout in the center of the town. First stop is a wool shop since Donegal wool is popular all over the world (we found that out in Ireland). The owner had to be in his 80's and everytime we commented on something we liked he said, "You like that? Well that's good because we are having a special sale on that...only 50 euros and it was 80!" So basically everything in the shop was on special...we even picked up things to see if he would say, "You like that? Well that's good because we are having a special sale on that..." He did!

We windowed shopped at a few antique and jewelry stores and then visited the Donegal Castle right in town. By now it was 5:00 and we wanted some tea and hoped that Barbara would offer as all of our hosts have done.

Sure enough, Barbara was delightful and showed us our amazingly lovely room and told us there was a heated blanket on the bed. She then said our most favorite words at this time of day, "Let me make you some tea." We sat in her living room sipping Irish tea and eating Irish buiscuits.

Still a little hungry, we drove into town to a little take-away store and bought a 5 euro fish fry and a chicken sandwich. We saw some Austrailian Shiraz we'd never seen so we bought a bottle of wine, had a glass at home and talked on messagnger with Marguerite and Madeleine and laughed a lot. It was fun communicating with them...I just might miss them a little!

Peace,

The Traveling Women

Tip of the Day: Air B&Bs in Ireland have the best afternoon teas!

 

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