May 15 - St. Kevin

Our last full day was ahead of us. Always a sad time maybe, but we both agreed that we were ready to go home. We agreed that our trip was neither too short nor too long. As much as you want vacation to be forever, we were ready to make this our last full day.

As good as the weather had been for us, today seemed to be a particularly exceptional day. We first headed off to St. Kevins Monastery in Glendalough. After touring the remains, we found an ice cream truck and had our last taste of soft ice cream in Ireland. This one was a bit different though in that you could get a few different flavors. I got chocolate, which was vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup somehow twirled into it. We sat and enjoyed our ice cream while taking in the beautiful weather.

From here we proceed onto Powerscourt House & Garden. It was a beautiful place, but really not a lot to see. I was trying to take a nice shot of the fountain, but there were these darned people picnicking on the lawn (which your not supposed to do). Darn people are always getting in the way. We toured the gardens and also the gift shop (of course). In one area of the gift shop they were selling some fresh scones, so we bought one to share. It was very yummy, so fresh.

After the Gardens, we proceeded onto see the tallest waterfall in Ireland. We were able to drive almost right up to the base of it. I took several photos but then my camera batteries died. I brought 4, and my last one went dead. Perfect timing I guess because it was the last thing I was going to photograph. I could have charged it, but was a bit leary about the power differences, even though we had a converter with us. I still had my little pocket camera, if there was anything I needed to take, and as a very last resort, I had my camera phone.

By this time we were getting hungry so we went to look for a place to eat. We stumbled along this place called Johnny Foxes, which apparently is quite famous (we didn't even know). We both had some cold seafood dishes. The place is loaded with atmosphere. It looks like they decorated it by finding things people were throwing away. A real mishmash of stuff, but it was our kind of place. I wish we had something like that by us.

We found out that they have music every night, so we decided we would go back later that night. We went back to our hotel and packed up all our stuff and various purchases we had made. We rested a bit and headed out back to Johnny Foxes. The place has two parking lots, one small one next to it, and a very large one close by. When we went there to eat, there was hardly anyone there, but that night that lot was full and the other one was partially full. Apparently it's a place for bus tours to stop. When we went in, we saw a separate room where there was an Irish band performing and dozens of people sitting in tables that probably had 30 or more people each. It was full. We decided to sit near where we were earlier and there was another performer there. He was singing some Irish classics on guitar.

It was a perfect place to spend our last night. We had a few pints and listened to the musician. He did a bunch of sing-along songs most anyone would know. He even took some requests, which I asked him to sing American Pie. After a few other requests (not sing along songs), he played my request and everyone sang.

We ended the night with an Irish Coffee, which was the best I ever had. I generally don't like Irish Coffee as it has too strong of a whiskey taste, but that's in the US. In Ireland it was purely yummy. Rich cream on top and wonderfully rich coffee with just a hint of whiskey.

It was a good day and night!