This was essentially a travel day. It got off to a slow start, as Benton’s stomach decided to empty itself through the entrance rather than its usual digestive exit shortly after midnight. The root cause is a bit of a mystery, as we shared our dinner dishes earlier that night, and a COVID test came back negative (which Benton protested taking, as he maintained that he did not have sufficient symptoms; but, we had tests, and they were going to expire mid-trip, anyway, so he went ahead and used one).
Rather than getting an early-ish start and driving the 1.5 hours to Cork for breakfast, we grabbed breakfast in Kenmare (a light one for Benton) and then headed on towards Dublin. We passed through Cork, but it was raining, time was feeling a little short, and nothing jumped out as stop-worthy, so we kept on driving.
We did have time for a brief stop at the Rock of Cashel, did the 30-40 minute guided tour there, and then walked around the outside a little bit.
From there, we headed on to Dublin, where we turned in our rental car (the Hertz attendant actually complimented us on returning the car unscathed, as it sounds like that’s a rarity for first-time ‘merican drivers in Ireland; he pointed to a van that had been returned earlier in the day with one side completely trashed to the tune of €17K).
A 20-minute walk from the Hertz return location got us to our AirBnB for the next two nights, and Kim arrived 10 minutes later. She had shifted some planned European travel on her end to make that work out. Benton was feeling a little fatigued based on his overnight gastrointestinal issues, so he took a nap while Tim and Kim walked to a nearby pub for a couple of pints of Guinness and a sibling catch-up. All three of us then headed to dinner (pho) and then called it a night. The AirBnB is…not awesome. It’s serviceable, though.
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: the two almost certainly American drivers encountered: one who was completely lost in a construction zone and almost caused a multi-car accident with oncoming traffic, and the other who made a turn and was headed straight towards us, as he had turned into the wrong lane
Tim: the gulls swarming around the trash at the end of the street where our AirBnB is. That’s not a great sign (Dublin is, clearly, a long way off from competing to be a Tidy Town!).
