Still having nightmares!

Wow the drive! Picture this: one lane roads. Small villages spaced just perfectly apart. 500 year old pubs on either side of the street with patrons hanging out and visiting with one another. The occasional castle on the hill overlooking the valley. Hilltops covered in shades of green that are indescribable. 18 wheelers speeding down the one lane roads. Your heart rate spiking as you try to figure out how to get out of his way but there is no place to go. Blood pressure through the roof. The relief you feel once the truck has passed (because you found a small turnout to squeeze into without getting run over) This was the drive to the Cliffs of Moher. Beautiful and stressful at the same time.

(FYI to anyone who may go to the Cliffs of Moher in the future. The parking lot charges per person. Clint dropped us off about 1/4 mile from the parking lot and we walked up the hill to meet him. This way, he only had to pay for himself to park the car.)

The Cliffs of Moher were everything we had hoped for and imagined! For a flyover view, watch this video from Wikipedia.

As we were walking up the hill to the cliffs, Kendall pointed out the dark skies behind us and we knew we wouldn't have much time to take in the view before the rain came. Thankfully, we were able to hike about 1 mile, stopping every few feet to take in the beautiful scenery, before the rain and fog set in. The Cliffs of Moher are amazing cliffs that rise up from the ocean and, depending on where you are, rise from 350 ft to 1000 ft high. There is a small walking trail along the edge that you can take to get amazing views of the south west coastline of Ireland. Though we had the discussion with our children that there could be no goofing around while hiking this trail and that they had to stand at least 5 ft away from the edge, I caught myself on edge the entire time. The hike was beautiful! We stopped at several places to look back and see the varying shear drop offs and vistas.

Along the way there were warning signs about staying away from the edge, and pictures capturing landslides that had taken parts of the cliff into the sea recently. You could see the fissures in the grass and soil along certain sections where another large mass of cliff was starting to pull away. And yet, right there on the very edge, you could see the dead patch of grass where 100s of reckless tourists had sat to get that perfect shot of the view. It was creepy and amazing at the same time.

It was just a short walk past the end of the major tourist area before you could start seeing the birds. Many 100s of sea birds nest along these cliffs including the amazing and beautiful Puffin. The Puffins are quite elusive and nest a few miles down from the visitor area and with the rain setting in, we turned back before seeing them, but we did get to catch lots of great views of cute little fuzzy baby birds tucked away in their cliff shelters while their Moms were out seeking food for them.

As the rain began to fall, we turned back to head to the car. It was almost creepy how quickly the fog set in. We stopped at one point to watch the dense grey clouds creep up the cliffs and slowly pour themselves over onto the trail. Funny. Even though the drop off was still 750 ft or so down, the fog seemed to calm my nerves and anxiety. I guess because I couldn't see the sheer drop off any more, I wasn't quite as scared of it. But, for days after, I had nightmares of those cliffs.