It was a relatively short ride today, easy too - and very enjoyable. It stayed gray all day, a bit cooler than yesterday, and nicely still dry. I was again able to ride in shorts and a jersey, although there were a couple of times when I thought about grabbing my wind vest. It stayed in the trailer though - I didn't really need it. Sounds like I'm going to get wet on Friday, but I'll worry about that when it happens.
I headed out of Belleek on a small road that went by the fire station and the (very fortified) police station, and then changed to a tiny rural road. I haven't said it before, and you'll figure it out when you see my pictures, but there are animals everywhere. There are mainly cows and sheep, in fields that could be someone's front yard. I expected to see these animals, but it surprises me that I'm seeing front yard animals instead of big farms. Sometimes I'll come around a corner and see a field of what looks like a bunch of white rocks. Nope, not rocks - they're sheep! There have been some horses too, and today I saw my first goats. They were pretty funny. One of them came waltzing right up to the fence. I guess he (or she) was checking me out while I was trying to take pictures. And dogs? I'd have to say they've been pretty well-behaved. I had some chasers today, but most of them didn't leave their own property. There were two that did - a cocker spaniel was wildly barking, but he didn't seem too ferocious. And later on I saw a dog in his yard, which was enclosed by a fence and a gate. What I didn't realize at first was that this little dog easily fit under the gate. Oops! He started a chase, but he gave it up pretty quickly.
I had to verify my directions in Ballyshannon. My directions - turn left at the T, then bear right up a hill. No road names again, made me a bit nervous. So I stopped a mom who was walking with a stroller. When I asked her for directions, her response was "I wouldn't know anything about the roads". Hmm. A walking society? I'm so used to everyone driving that I forget that people don't always know how to get to the next town. OK, let's try again. I asked a guy who was walking up the street. He confirmed I was heading in the right direction to pick up R231, then asked where I was going. When I said Donegal, and mentioned some of the places I'd be riding through today, he asked why. Even though it was a pretty short ride, I still wasn't headed by way of the most direct route. It turned out that I was going to be riding right by his place of employment - an inn on the coast, on a beautiful side road, a bit off the beaten path. He was waiting for a ride, and a bit later on I heard a beep and saw a wave from him as he went by on his way to work.
At one point I stopped by the side of the road to have a snack. A man walking a dog stopped to ask what I had in my "wee trolley". OK, that's a first. I've always called it a trailer, my sister called it my truck as I was wandering across the US last summer, and now I guess it's a wee trolley!
I was starting to wonder about the reputation Ireland has of being a wonderful place for touring. I agree that it is wonderful, but I found it curious that I haven't seen any other cyclists. Until today, that is. I met Barbara and (oops, I didn't get his name) from Florida on the road this morning. They're here a few days longer than I will be, and they're traveling in the opposite direction. We stood by the side of the road and talked for at least a half an hour. They were both fascinated by my folding bike and trailer, mainly because they will need to find boxes to pack in at the end of their trip. Having a Bike Friday that packs into it's own trailer is definitely a help when it comes to packing to go home - in addition to allowing me to bypass excess baggage fees when I'm flying in the states (international flights still seem to be somewhat immune to that nonsense). Luckily we crossed paths near a gravel pullout, which is very unusual in these parts; it gave us a safe place to stand and chat. We could have easily stayed there talking for quite a lot longer, but we eventually needed to move on in our opposite directions to continue our rides. I suppose the lack of touring cyclists could be due to the fact that it is September. With Ireland having a reputation for rain, I wouldn't be surprised if there is much higher percentage of visiting cyclists during the summer.
My route today included a ride out to Lough Eske after I arrived in Donegal Town. Surprise, surprise - there were logging trucks out on that very skinny (and poorly surfaced) road. Not a total surprise, since I had just passed a sign saying "TIMBER LORRIES OPERATING". The road was definitely too narrow for both the truck and me - so I stopped and pulled off to the side to let the truck pass. It was just too big to argue with!
My ride ended today in Donegal Town, a much larger city than those I've visited so far. It's almost like a bit of culture shock. No complaints though, that means plenty of choices for dinner, and even access to the Internet.
There's a real grocery store here, but it doesn't stock energy bars either. But I've been doing OK so far with bananas, peanuts, the occasional cereal bar, and chocolate covered cookies from the candy selection. Nice that the temperature is cool enough to allow me to carry chocolate! (Rover approves too - he likes chocolate better than the macadamia nuts I gave him on our last trip - even though there are times that I personally prefer the macadamia nuts!) And on the cereal bar front, I've discovered that Kellogg's Nutrigrain Elevenses are pretty good - much better than the usual Nutrigrain bars.They have a cakey texture almost (but not quite) reminding me of carrot cake, with raisins scattered throughout and oats on the top. I'll have to keep my eye out for those. Interesting that there is nutritional information on the package, but the information is for 100 grams worth of Elevenses, and the package only contains a 45 gram bar. A similar idiocy to the packages at home that show nutritional information for eating only half the package. Actually, I suppose that is worse for people trying to watch their caloric intake who don't read far enough to see that they should only eat half of the package! Anyhow, 1 bar turns out to be 162 calories, which is slightly less than the Luna Bars I usually eat. That gives me an idea of how much I should be eating... I wonder if there is a regulation that says the nutrition information on packages has to be for 100 grams. It seems like everything I've picked up shows values for 100 grams, and sometimes also shows the values for the package or a single serving. Hmmm... The choice of fruit in the grocery store is pretty bad too. There is very little summer fruit, and the apples look like last year's crop. I wonder where the apples come from. I don't know if there are any good apple-growing regions in Europe. Seems like there should be...
Island View House B&B, my home for the night, is the most beautiful of my accommodations so far. Interestingly enough, it's also the first place where I haven't been the only guest for the night. The house is a bit further out of the center of town than I expected, but it's well worth the walk. I headed out of the center of town on Ballyshannon Road - which of course wasn't marked with a name, so I had to ask someone - and as I rode further I started wondering if I'd missed the B&B. I didn't, and it's only about a 10 minute walk back to town. It just seemed further when I was looking for it! My room has beautiful hardwood floors, with an entryway leading to the room and the en suite door hidden on the side of the entryway. The shower stalls in all of these en suites have been tiny - makes me glad I'm not a big person! And like all but one of the other B&Bs, this one has an electric shower. That is, there is a switch that needs to be turned on before the water is turned on - the source of instant and plentiful hot water. I like hot showers, so I'm very happy with these showers!
I arrived here fairly early, a little before 3. I got settled, took a shower, and headed into town with my baby computer. I was delighted that there is an Internet cafe here, and I spent almost two hours there entering only a portion of my journal entries. As expected, I couldn't use my Jornada to dial up, so the only thing I could do was build some journal entries from scratch. I was delighted to find that the computers had readily accessible USB ports, so I was able to use my Zio to view and upload some pictures. The connection speed seemed pretty slow though - it took ages to upload pictures. So I only uploaded a few pictures- not as many as I would have liked. I retyped one full journal entry (from my handheld to my crazyguyonabike journal), and that took a really long time. That wasn't a surprise at all, and I knew I couldn't sit there long enough to retype all of my entries up through today. And besides, it takes very little time when I can cut and paste my already typed entries, so it really makes more sense to wait. I entered summaries for all of the days so far, uploaded a few photos, checked email, and read a few pages from other cyclist's journals. When I went downstairs to pay for my computer time, I checked out the menu of the real cafe. lt looked good to me, so I had dinner there. A simple dinner of soup and a sandwich. Just what I wanted - something simple! It was a family-run cafe with very good food.
My hostess here serves breakfast between 8:30 and 9:45. I've been eating at 8, but I certainly don't mind an extra half hour of sleep tomorrow morning. That full Irish breakfast started getting to me, so I asked for oatmeal this morning instead. I was served porridge, which had no texture and was pretty bland. It was worth a try, but I probably won't do that again! I really wanted oatmeal - and isn't that supposed to be an Irish thing? In fact, the oatmeal that I buy at home is McCann's - and it is imported from Ireland! I asked for just cold cereal and toast for tomorrow morning, and I think that caused a bit of consternation. "You don't want the bacon, sausage, eggs, and..?." No, cereal and toast and some fruit will be fine. "But wouldn't you like some scrambled eggs? I can bring you yogurt too. And there will be a choice of cereal." OK, I'm back to the beginning again. I never accepted the "full Irish" since I turned down the meat. I was eating cereal every morning, then taking a couple of bites of eggs. Looks like that's what I'm going to do here too! I may be a little odd, but I'm going to be very happy to get home to my choice of hot cereals, cold cereals like GrapeNuts and shredded wheat, and grind-your-own peanut butter! I guess that's my complaint for the day, and although I am going through peanut butter withdrawal, that's not really much of a complaint!
