Ireland/UK Day 12 July 2, 2023 15.4 miles hiked Despite feeling like absolute death last night, I feel pretty good this morning—after stretching anyway. I guess this achilles thing is just going to be for life. I need to make sure I do better with doing all of my stretches every single day, before and …
Ireland/UK Day 11 July 1, 2023 19.3 miles hiked I’m out of practice with getting ready for a long hiking day. I fumble around with the coffee maker, pack some things, forget some other things I was going to pack, have to repack, mess up the Nespresso somehow, the simplest coffee maker ever, have to …
Continue reading West Highland Way Day 1: Milngavie to Balmaha
Friday, June 30, 2023 How is it already the last day of June? I don’t know where time goes and why it still surprises me that it goes there. Today’s a travel day. We wake up with the alarms and pack up our stuff in the Dublin apartment. It was really nice to stay in …
Thursday, June 29, 2023 Today is our last day in Dublin, and it’s a full and joyous one. We start off a the Little Museum of Dublin, which is just down the street and on the other side of St. Stephen’s Green. We’re a bit too late for the 10:00 tour so we go next …
Wednesday, June 28, 2023 *Note: This post contains a lot of historical and political information that was told to us directly by a person with a clear bias. I fact-checked afterwards with research of my own, but it's still likely that I got things wrong. If you're an expert in this area and have a …
Continue reading Ireland and UK Day 8: Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway
Tuesday, June 27, 2023 Mom goes out for a walk this morning for a few hours. I drink a couple of slow coffees, write, and mess around on the internet, and am reminded of zero days on trail. I didn’t often succeed in getting up before my tramily on these days, but there were a …
Monday, June 26, 2023 This morning is luxurious because I have instant coffee in the room, and I can actually drink it and become human before we leave. Once we do leave, we take the bus towards the center of town and gather with a large group of tourists, largely American, and wait for our …
Sunday, June 25, 2023 Bye, cute Airbnb! We’re exhausted after our big Aran Islands and Cliffs of Moher tour yesterday, but we manage to get ourselves up at a decent time. We pack up, enjoy another delicious breakfast prepared by Ronnie (but I opt for tea instead of coffee this time), and set out for …
Saturday, June 24, 2023 This post is a bit of a novel. Feel free to pour yourself a nice cup of tea or a fizzy water, or heck, even a Guinness, and take your time with it. Settle in. We’ll be here for a while. I’m groggy when my alarm goes off because I stayed …
Continue reading Ireland and UK Day 4: Aran Islands and the Cliffs of Moher
Friday, June 23, 2023 This morning we catch a National Express coach to Stansted airport at the ugly time of 5:00 AM. I accept my fate and go without coffee for several hours, and, if I’m being honest, I think I do a pretty good job of not biting my mother’s head off, or the …
Sarahmarie Specht-Bird 