Literal Heaven on Earth

Today was awesome. Rolled out of bed after a great night of sleep and ate a nice free breakfast of oatmeal and toast (my usual) and lounged around until 11:00. I wanted to check out the National Park, so I rented a bike from the hostel (Sugan) that I'm staying at and packed a bag with bread, peanut butter, a knife, rain gear, and a camera and headed out towards the park which was about 4 km away. When I got there I was immediately impressed with the beauty of the park; well kept grass, fences, paths were ever-present.

I was not sure what to expect. I have seen my share of national parks and they have all been impressive, but what I saw today was unexpected and pleasantly beautiful and I ended up taking about 230 pictures! After riding in the park for about 15 minutes, I realized I was riding in a no-biking zone so I decided to lock the bike and

head out on foot...first getting a glimpse of the mountains, then the lakes, then the waterfall. Stunning.

I must have looked like an idiot or a crazy person because I was talking to myself a lot and every time I saw a good photo op I would make some gleeful noise or grunt...making the locals wonder no doubt.

The weather for today was perfect as well; cool, crisp, dry, and sunny. What a great day to be out walking and taking in some of the landscape that Ireland is so

well known for. Everything was worthy of a picture and I was certainly trigger happy today.

By the end of my park visit, which was about 4 hours long, the balls of my feet were incredibly sore (and still are) which didn't bother me too much. I made a nice supper of poor man's chicken cordon bleu...with cheap sliced sandwich ham and a processed chees

e slice, a couple boiled red potatoes, and some pasta. After that filling supper, I laid down for about 15 minutes for a power nap that was followed by a shower and two pints of Guinness at the pub next door that had live Irish music. This day could not have gone much better and I'm extremely grateful to be here. I kept saying to myself today, "I'm in Ireland, this is unreal".