Giants and Bridges and Fears

I was up late last night because I forgot that I needed to do laundry, so I'm a little rummy today.  We left the hotel and went to the Giants Causeway today. Since I was there in 2009, they have built a completely new visitor center.  It was very nice.  We walked down to the causeway and took some pictures.  Our delegation manager is very nice, but I don't think she gets it.  She gave us 10 minutes down at the bottom.  We took 20, but we could have spent four times that amount of time there.

After the Giants Causeway, we drove down the road and had lunch at the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge.  Between a salmon fishery and limestone quarries, this particular area on the coast has been very busy for the past 350 years.  The fishery just closed in 2002.  

This is Sheep Island.  Back in the day, the Vikings would come marauding, looking for food and women.  The Celts would put sheep on this little island, and the Vikings would take the sheep and not come ashore.  Pretty ingenious if you ask me.

The rope bridge is 98 feet above the water and 24 yds. long.  I didn't realize until I got into the middle of it that I have some of my mom's fear of heights.  Going across, I didn't even look up.  I held tightly to each side and inched my way across.  Coming back was better, but still scary.  We brought the kids back and let them swim and just relax a little.  The swimming pool here has a rule that for every two kids, you have to have one adult, so we swam in shifts.  We are about to have supper and then get packed up.  Tomorrow we head toward the Ring of Kerry.

Love and miss you all!