The Cliffs of Moher

If you ever have a chance to go to Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher should be first on your list! These cliffs will not disappoint.  We started our day off early, meeting the group at 6:45 in the morning.  The trip out to the cliffs and back was a bit of a trek, it took the whole day, 8 hours in a bus!  On this trip we did get to see the Irish Countryside, which was beautiful.  The tour guide was great too, he seemed to know EVERYTHING, even those little random funny facts like where most of the battle scenes were filmed from the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart. Or a little village where Obama’s great-great-great-great-grandfather is from. (They even named a small shopping center after Barack Obama visited) Fun fact, a band from Limerick recorded a song titled “There’s No One as Irish as Barack Obama.”  If you have a sec, check it out, its pretty funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DerVmiZeUDw

Here's a picture of the Barack Obama Plaza

Back to the cliffs...

Something I will not be able to get over is how there is no railing, or people watching you making sure you don’t go too close to the edge.  Although this was surprising to me,  it is also what made it so great and natural.  The tallest point of these cliffs is 702 feet,  and there were plenty of people making me nervous getting too close to the edge for that perfect picture. 

After the cliffs, we stopped in a few other towns, one of those being the Village of Doolin.  This little village is known for being the center of traditional Irish music, and even has a festival every year which attracts many visitors.  It was a really cool little place, there were tons of little pubs and lots of Irish music.

 Tried to get a group selfie... it didn't really work

Matt and I at the cliffs

 We were lucky enough to visit on the clearest day of the year

 In order to not make it eye sore, they built the museum and gift shop into the hills. Pretty cool!

The group with our "Sharks Territory" sign

 Our TJ's "Wine Guy" Chris had a great time at the cliffs as well

I could have sat here all day!

Matt and Brian climbing the rocks

Oh, and I was told I have to watch The Princess Bride after this visit. So that is next on the movie list!

Scotland: The West Highland Way

The West Highland Way is a trail that runs from the Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, to the town of Fort William, 95 miles north in the Scottish Highlands.  Our job as a crew for our runner was to make sure they had whatever they needed when they got to each check point throughout a 95 mile run.  Whether it be food, new shoes and socks or just more water, we were there to give them what they needed along the way.  The race itself would take anywhere between 24-30 hours to complete, that is with no breaks for sleep.  We arrived in Milngavie with about 8 or 9 hours of time before the race started, which was at 1 am.  We were all amped up so we did not sleep much the night before, so running on adrenaline we set out at midnight to drop our runners off and head to the first check point. We dropped off Josh and Angela, then headed out to the first checkpoint. Lets just remind everyone that over here, you drive on the left side of the road(this takes a lot of getting used to!) Our first check point we were headed to a town called Dryman, we hate this town.  I am sure it is nice and the people are great, but it is impossible to find in the dark with a map and signs that always apparently lead Stirling.  ALL ROADS LEAD TO STIRLING!  We were a mess.  After about two hours of endless driving and getting lost, we ended up making it to the first check point and met up with Angela.  She did not need much, but it was nice to know we were capable of actually getting to a check point.  The next check point was a bit more terrible because the group was introduced to a tiny insect called a midge.  These flying insects are much like mosquitos in the sense they fly, bite and leave little marks on your skin, but are worse because there are a ton more of them and they attack in large groups.  We only had two insect head gears, so only two people would go out at a time and the other three would stay back and try to sleep. Whitney and Amy couldn’t sleep, Shae and Kiki could kind of doze off but still not really, and Matt could have slept just about anywhere.  For most of our day it was sitting and waiting at check points for her to run by for five minutes and get what she needed, but the honor of helping someone complete a goal in their life was something we were all proud of and helped us carry on throughout the day.  One positive thing about being up so long was getting to drive through the Highlands.  Nothing can describe the awesome beauty of Northern Scotland.  The rolling hills, vast grass lands and mountains cut out by glaciers is almost unreal, the entire time you had to remind yourself that this was a real place and not something from a movie screen.  Every time we stopped we tried to sleep as much as possible, but we were in a mini van and sleeping comfortably was not really possible.  After being up from Midnight to about 3 am the next morning, we finally finished crewing and were just waiting for Angela to be done with the race, we missed it.  Her husband’s plan was to wake us up about 30-45 min before her projected finish time and meet her at the finish, but somehow she put on the turbo and finished an hour and a half before her ETA, moving up about 20 spots in the process.  We slept that night on the floor of their hotel room, not getting a room of our own because we did not know if we needed it or not.  We were so lucky they were nice enough to let us crash on their floor or else we would have been spending even more time in that damn van.  The day was a success and a great experience, but we were spent and completely depleted of anything, good thing we had the whole next day to just relax and sleep in the nice cozy highland town of Fort William. 

They had really crazy meats at one of the checkpoints... all we wanted was coffee.

This is what the checkpoints consisted of... food, water, restocking her backpack, changing socks, and telling her how far until the next checkpoint.

Our awesome crew, Team Skate Works

It was a very long two days, but I'm sure we would all do it over again in a second.  We had a lot of great laughs in that van over two days, and we enjoyed every second of it. We even got to see the Harry Potter Train!  If you ever are looking for an adventure, and something a little out of the ordinary, be sure to look up The Highlands!

Scotland: Days 1 and 2

When we arrived in Edinburgh, the city became magical.  Even though it is designed to bring in the tourism, there is something about this city that brings someone into another world.  Getting off of the bus our group thought it would be easy to walk to our hostel from the bus station with very little knowledge of the area, were we wrong.  Lets just say we took the long way and eventually made it, just slightly broken.  The first hostel had a tremendous view of Edinburgh Castle and was at the beginning of the Royal Mile.  We did not have much time that night to do anything more than find something to eat and explore a little, but from what we saw it was going to be great.  A friend back home(Major kudos to the fabulous Stormie Lew) recommended we try this baked potato shop right in the heart of the city. Imagine a frozen yogurt place, but for potatoes.  Even more amazing was the walk through what is considered Old Town.  With churches, street vendors, street performers, and some of the most beautiful architecture we have ever seen, Edinburgh is one of the prettiest cities.  The Royal Mile has everything you need, but at a price.  There is food and bars on every corner for sure, but it is much more expensive than if you walked down to Grass Market or Cow Gate.  We pretty much walked the entirety of the mile when we visited Edinburgh and Hollyrood Castles.  Edinburgh Castle has been inhabited since the 1st or 2nd centuries, with a fortification built on it since the Roman Empire controlled the British Isles.  It is a stunning fixture on the landscape of the city.  From almost every point you can see the fortification sticking out over the edge of the cliff, almost as if it was still looking out over the city.  Learning it was not where any royalty stayed, we decided to walk the mile and quarter to Holyrood just to check it out.  Holyrood Castle is where the Royal Family stays when they are visiting Edinburgh.  It is expensive to tour the castle, something like 22 pounds each, so we walked outside of it and took some pictures and went on our way.  Nice castle, but we liked the pubs and shops we stopped at along the way and on the way back much more than we liked the castle itself.

The View from our first hostel.

Our first of many walks down The Royal Mile.

The Baked Potato Shop, thanks Stormie!

One of our many stops along the way

Pictures of Edinburgh Castle

 It was a couple great days exploring, but the next two days became some of the most challenging and exciting days on our trip, crewing for the West Highland Way Race.