Tuesday, July 17 - Sligo

Our goal today was the town of Sligo, which is on the north eastern side of the country. We had breakfast at the hotel and checked out around 9:00. The GPS and the computer both said that the journey would take three hours. This estimation of time could have been correct if we were driving on marked roads and had more than 100 feet of visibility. I would love to tell you about all of the wonderful things we saw while driving, but unfortunately I cannot, because we could not see anything. It was not fog, but very dense, fine misty rain that impeeded our vision. Also, the roads requir all of my attention. It was as if they were mocking me and morphing themselves into even worse roads with every comment I would make. At one point I exhaled deeply, let out a "whew" and said "that was a crazy section of road." No sooner did those words pass my lips than we approached a sign proclaiming the upcoming section of road as "Corkscrew Hill." And boy was it! For most of the trip we were averaging less than half of the posted speed. Needless to say, we ended up adding an hour to our travel time.

L'Arche Sligo does not yet have a community in terms of homes and day support options, but they are working on it. They have a group that meets on a consistent basis for social activities, and they are working towards developing a more traditional L'Arche community. Currently they operate a second hand store as a fund-raising effort to fund their future endeavors. We were unable to find the shop as we drove into town, so we decided to try to check into our hotel, and ask for assistance there. Surprisingly, one of the receptionists' mother works for the shop. This was both amazingly coincidental and extremely helpful. She was able to give us walking directions, and loaned us umbrellas as well. After talking with the kind volunteer at the second hand shop we proceeded to peruse many of the shops in town. Based on the rain, it was an awful day for shopping, but we soldiered on. Rachael is on the hunt for an Adidas jacket for several reasons: 1- she has always loved Adidas, 2- Ireland is an Adidas happy country and everyone wears their stuff, including full out track suits. While walking around, we decided to stop into an Italian restaurant for a pizza. We ordered a pepperoni pizza, and were shocked to find that their 'pepperoni' is our 'hot dog.' The first slice was weird, but after warming up to the idea of pizza and hot dog united, we enjoyed the rest of the meal. This is all for now, but check back soon, I will be posting more tonight.

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