June 26th

Ben Bulben

I had great hopes for arriving in Northern Ireland and catching some great music tonight, but I guess it was not to be. It seems that the little head cold that has been chasing me all week has caught Sarah and Georgann. Both are feeling under the weather but forging ahead.

We left Sligo yesterday morning and did the loop around Ben Bulben. The mountainous formations are breathtaking to say the least. After that it was the drive to Belleek and a tour of the factory with a few purchases. It's really unfortunate to see how few workers are present in the factory compared to 5 years ago when I had visited the first time. I should mention here that the only indication to the fact that we were in Northern Ireland was a sign saying welcome to County Fermagh. We were not on a main road, but it just goes to show how seamlessly the two countries fit together.

After Belleek it was the drive to Omagh. The countryside was very pretty and mostly farming areas. It must have been because it was Friday and around 3:30PM as traffic was not too different than in the US. I think I circled the town a couple of times just trying to find a bank and a parking space so we could exchange our money to British Sterling for the next 5 days.

We're staying in Cookstown as it is centrally located for our touring for the next few days. Most tourist sites are not more than an hour and a half drive from here. We did notice one thing about the town. It's definitely a commercial town and not a tourist town. When the work day is over the shops on the main street and feeder street close up and everyone goes home. After we got settled in our B&B we decided to go to dinner at 7PM. Low and behold there was nothing opened - except for Subway. We found out that most restaurants in and around town close at 5:30. And there are not many pubs in town. After driving around for a while, we found a place that was either "take away" or eat in - a modified fast food place - and ate there. We'll be in Omagh tomorrow evening so we shouldn't have any problems there.

So much for today's journey. I've got this driving thing pretty well down, but every once in a while I drive over a curb in a parking lot. Just have a little trouble with the perspective of not knowing exactly where I am on the left side of the car, since I'm steering from the right side.