Ireland - day 9- birds fly

Once again the food was excellent at the hotel. The servers must have had their coffee before opening time, because that seemed to improve a bit as well. But then, they only had to bring us coffee.

What lay ahead was a 327 km dash to North of Dublin. Not being satisfied with sending us full West, Katy had decided more driving was necessary for us to do our fair share of global warming. We headed east at a very fast pace, on highways that allowed a screaming 120 km/h. Well, screaming fast for Ireland, anyway. We burned up almost half the road before turning North.

And then, the great piss adventure began. We took winding roads, spurred on by the GPS, through a town, over many speed bumps, and this way and that before arriving at the gas station. Once filled up, we were notified that this location did not have a bathroom, but that their other location did have outside facilities and were provided less than clear directions on how to reach said location. We ultimately found the location, with the restroom, and all herded around the single entrance to the toilet like rabid duck, quacking and scaring any locals away from our water hole. went one to go, out they came, in went one, out they came, and so on until all were free of their liquid burden.

On we went, speeding to our destination. Some niceish ruins were seen and trees photographed in their stead in Devlin, and on we pressed to Carlingford. The bed and breakfast was a private residence turned B&B outside of the town, run by a nice lady who let us check in early. Then, she advised us on our visit to Carlingord, saying we needed to go to the square.

I wouldn't say it was a one horse town, but it really is all on one square. Ruins, fancy shmancy shops, and restaurants are all packed neatly in a little box. We decided at great length to eat at PJ's gastropub, which held the dubious honor of being selected as one of the top 10 Irish pubs of the year by a Scottish whiskey distillery. You figure it out.

Food was OK, low key, which was the way we wanted to go on our last evening in Ireland.

Got back to the B&B and we all started downing the booze we had left in our packs. Irish cream, brandy, beer, wine. We downed it all, innkeepers be damned. Then, caught up on the latest on the government shutdown on WTOP through the iPad.

I went to bed hoping, oh so badly, that dysfunction would once again reign supreme over reason, for the sole reason that I would really like the rest of the week off. As long as we are setting debt records, we may as well set government shutdown records too, right?