Headed for Dingle

Nothing special, this is just how adorable Ireland is every where you turn

Saturday morning we packed the car and headed for the Dingle peninsula.  I have driven some amazing roads in my life.  The PCH from border to border, Key West, east coast, coast to coast, the continental divide, and all over the west from Montana and Wyoming down to Arizona and New Mexico.  County Kerry is up there with the best of them. 

However, it would rank higher if you weren’t absolutely afraid for your life.  Imagine the track on Space Mountain.  Add some pot holes, a left-side drive, stone walls to either side of the road – I think to prevent the auto and human wreckage from mangling the sheep, and another driver not just coming at you, but coming at you at 100kmh and the road is only a car and a half wide – assuming your car is smaller than a Jetta.  The roads in southwestern Ireland are exactly the with of a tractor, and they won’t be changing anytime soon.

And I feel I have to add.  Driving in Ireland is so bad that Ireland is exempted from every insurance policy known.  I am not kidding.  You have to take out a private policy that is twice as expensive as the car rental.  Mental calculation – that’sa lotta Euro.  Not only that, but it excludes damage done to mirrors and wheels (tires, hubcaps) and windshields because the conditions are just that scary.  It happens so much that you still have to pay for that.

Now it might be a chicken and egg argument as to whether the driving conditions in Ireland lead the drivers there to behave poorly, or if the remarkably poor driving skills of the people on the roads lead to the dangerous conditions.  I don’t think we can delve into that here.  I will say that the driving skill level is reflected in the absolutely atrocious attempt at parking.  It’s like they practice a Celtic form of the i-ching.  If you picked up some sticks and then let them fall where they may, and then pulled back to look at them – that would give you an accurate depiction of any given parking lot in Ireland.  I think here, lines are just suggestions, not rules nor preventative measures.

I had to explain all of that, not just because it’s therapeutic, but because I need you to understand why, even though I have just witnessed some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet, I don’t have any pictures of it.  To make it worse, I have searched online and I can't find any pictures of how beautiful the wildflowers along the roads are.  I guess you'll have to come see for yourself some day.  This is why coffee table books, filled with aerial shots of the landscape, are on the market.  Go online or to the library or bookstore and check it out and know that Ireland is all that and then some.  All your senses are heightened when you think you are about to die.

I found this, but I don't know the source.  However the width of the road is accurate!  Imagine this for miles, and then every time you curve there's a new color added to the mix.  Purple thistle and yellow daisy and pink hydrangea all thrown together.