Ninth Ireland Post: Cliffs of Moher

On Friday morning, we struck out bright and early for The Cliffs of Moher. It was a long drive, the end of which offered some twisty-turny country road driving, which I grow to love more and more.

This was the windiest place we’ve visited so far, which is an impressive prize in this country. Though we didn’t last long out on the Cliffs, we all enjoyed the view, and the warm lunch at the cafe inside. There was also an unexpectedly fantastic museum nestled in the visitor’s center buried into the side of the hill. And though we didn’t go through them, we were all very impressed that The Cliffs boast SIX gift shops. That might be a new record.

Once we returned home, it was an afternoon of work and play around the house, and then Buds and I were excited for our next trek to CrossFit Limerick. We were shooting for the 6:30 p.m. class, and thought we left the house with ample time to spare.

There’s a certain divide in the road that stumped us before, and we were determined to not miss it this time…yet miss it we did. This would not have been cause for alarm except that the quick and easy turn around we executed when we took the wrong turn the previous time was not an option.

Why was it not an option?

Because the side of the road that we needed to take had been shut down…because there were horses on the road. It was wonderful and alarming to see all at once. Ponies trotting along down the highway…a major highway…escorted by police cars, while two other police cars blocked traffic going back for quite a ways.

Buds quickly re-routed us and we drove as quickly as we could to CF Limerick, only arriving a few minutes late…to learn that they don’t have class on Friday nights.

It was a good reminder to us that Ireland runs on a different time in so many ways from the U.S. Derek and Conor want to have their Friday nights free, not being at The Box until 8 p.m., so they have classes in the morning, only. Lesson learned.

We did make it to the Box on Saturday morning, but that will appear in the next post about our weekend.