6/12/05 This morning I spent doing my laundry at the hostel and packing up my stuff, once again my panniers were completely empty with the contents strewed throughout the room. After my laundry was done I said by to everyone and headed out. Today is really the first day I have no where to be, it felt kinda nice so I decided I would take it easy today. First on the agenda was to find a pub which had Barcelona Moto GP race on the tele. I found a great little pub with a 42” plasma that was happy to put the race on for me. After watching Valentino Rossi destroy the competition as usual I was back on the road. I found a nice beach with a few people on it so I decided the probably wouldn’t mind if I took a spin up and down the beach. Well to the common onlooker it may have looked like I got the back tire completely buried and utterly stuck but in reality it you see I was training for Africa. See I need to learn how to get the bike out these situations, so I quite enjoyed taking all the panniers off and dragging the bike across the sand. I am quite happy I chose a huge overweight bike opposed to a lighter 650. Well after an hour of providing entertainment for the fellow beachgoers I was back on the road and quite tired. After another hour of riding I found a nice little beach where I was able to pitch my tent for the night. After a quick dinner of spaghetti-O’s and a walk on the beach (see now I can put on my dating bio that I like long walks on the beach and I can cook) it was off to sleep. Today’s Specs Weather: Cloudy, 65F Distance: 75 miles, Colaghne to a beach 6/13/05 So today was one of those days that started out, how do you say hmmmm ..oh yeah sucked. It always seems that bad things happen to me in 3’s and today was a perfect example. Today after I packed up camp and was riding down the dirt road from the beach the road changed from packed dirt to deep soft sand, well needless to say I got pretty stuck, uhhmm Josh when the bike is on its side from a sudden stop I wouldn’t call that stuck, well whatever you call it, it took about 40 minutes to get the bike upright and back on the road. So once on the road my GPS died on me adding to the frustration. I decided I would deal with the GPS when I got to Limerick which was an hour away, I was hoping it was just a blown inline fuse. I got to Limerick and it was quite a busy little town. I parked the bike and took the seat off to check the inline fuse but for some reasons the wires were pulled out of the voltage regulator and was not getting any power to the GPS, well this definitely sucks. I decided to take a deep breath and deal with this issue a little later first I am going to get some food then update my website. After getting a small pizza for lunch I found an internet café. Well as I was updating my website I ended up messing up half the website, well I was actually quite relieved that I got all three out of the way in quite short order. So after 3 hours of fixing my website I figured I would deal with the GPS issue. I went to a couple different electronics store when I came across a guy one shop who knew a guy in the next town over who could help. So with directions in hand I drove to Shannon to meet John who would solve my GPS problems. When I got to Johns house he made quick work of my wiring problems and it is back to working like a charm. John refused to take any money and said it was in honor of Irish and American relations. After talking a little longer he offered to let me stay in their guest room if I wanted. It turned out to be a very enjoyable night sitting up talking till almost midnight before turning in. I have to say there is no better way to feel like you have truly visited a country than being invited into someone’s home and getting to know them and their culture. I am going to make it a point that whenever someone offers a place to stay I will take them up on it even if it means altering my schedule. Today’s Specs Weather: Cloudy 65 Distance: 70 miles, Beach to Shannon     6/14/05 This morning I rolled out of bed about 9:30 feeling completely rested and ready for the road. Once I was up my new hosts had a great Irish breakfast prepared before sending me on my way. Many thanks again John for your hospitality. First stop was Bunraddy Castle which was only a few miles down the road. It was a beautiful castle that had been restored quite nicely. Unfortunately it must have been field trip day because there was about 1000 screaming kids everywhere and on top of that there was a ton of “Tourbusians” running about eating their ice-cream huffing and puffing up the stairs of the castle. Tourbusians , are generally American but can really be any nationality, it is a phrase I came up with for people who go to a country hop on the first tour bus, go around a country looking at it from a bus window, get back on the plane and fly home. They never really get to meet the people or really interact with the culture but when they get home they think they know everything about the country. They are usually easy to spot because they are wearing a local t-shirt, for example a green shirt with a shamrock on it, typically overweight and eating something (usually ice-cream), they will also have a large camera and may wear a “fanny pack’, they can be located in close proximity to tourist traps and finally they are never far from a tour bus. After leaving the castle I headed up the coast towards Mohr Cliffs. The scenery today was not as spectacular as the previous days, there was allot of cows and farms. A big change from the rocky hills that were filled with sheep. I have decided that there must be quite a career for rock stacking in this country. Every where I look all the fences are made of stacked rocks, quite amazing. I wonder if one has to apprentice with a senior rock stacker before going out on their own to stack. I mean if Ireland relied on someone of my abilities and ambition to make there fences they would have some short and fallen over fences. It looks like it would be bloody hard work not only stacking these rocks but gathering them would be a pain in the ass as well. The Mohr Cliffs were quite spectacular but once again over run with tourbusians so I only stayed long enough for a couple obligatory photos and then headed on. I came across a little town called Doolin which had been recommended by a fellow GS rider who emailed me from Arizona and said it was quite renown for its folk music. Finding a hostel in Doolin was quite easy as there were several to choose from. I choose a hostel that had camping as well as dorms, I opted for camping since it was 4euros cheaper and it didn’t look like it was going to rain anymore. Bad Choice. Once I got my tent set up I met a couple other BMW motorcyclists who were staying at the Hostel. After the obligatory 30 minutes of standing around admiring each others bikes, wow your bike is really nice, no no yours is quite nice as well, to the common person walking by they were the same bike. So after we were done admiring our bikes we went off to the pub to hopefully find some good Irish Folk music. It was still fairly early so the music hadn’t started yet so we ordered some Irish whiskey and started talking about bikes. Chirs, a german fellow with a 1150GS who is on his way to Iceland after Ireland for a few months of motorcycling, began telling me about a book he read where a German guy had ridden around the world and when they got to the Amazon he had created a paddle wheel boat powered by his motorcycle. I was quite impressed with this and commented that the guy must have been a good engineer, Chris politely replied “No pause He was German, Dat was enufff!!” When the music finally began I was quite impressed and glad I had stopped here for the night. As the musicians were playing in this old Irish Pub I didn’t even have to close my eyes to imagine I was hundreds of years in the past, it was one of those places where time seemed to pass by. After a great evening of Folk music I headed back to the Hostel for some sleep. Today’s Specs Weather: Cloudy/Rainy 65F Distance: 150 miles, Shannon to Doolin     6/15/05 Mental note: when you can stay in a Hostel for an extra 4 euros do it. I woke up this morning to the sound of it pouring down rain. After laying in my warm sleeping bag for another 15 minutes pretending it really wasn’t raining, you know the ostrich theory, I figured I had better get up. Once up I utilized when one of my best qualities and that is the ability to make lemonade out of lemons. So I easily convinced myself I was going to see Ireland in its natural state, rainy. The plan today was to make it to Castlebar which was about 140 miles away. The scenery was absolutely beautiful today. The scenery combined with the rain and fog is what I pictured Ireland to look like. I was about 15miles outside of Castlebar driving through a town called Westport when I came up to another GS sitting at a stoplight. I pulled up next to the guy and said hello, he replied with a hello and paused for a second then asked if I was the american riding around the world. YES, my first citing as a celebrity. Ok well not really a celebrity, more like he had came across a link for my website and recognized me. The guys name was Willie and we ended up chatting for almost 30 minutes. I made it to Castlebar about 7:00 pm and found a dump of building they were passing off as a hostel. After checking into the hostel I went to the local movie theater and watched my girlfriend, Angelina Jolie, in her latest movie, OK she is not really my girlfriend but she did put a restraining order on me, does that count. Today’s Specs Weather: Cloudy/Rainy Distance: 150 miles, Doolin to Castlebar 6/16/05 I woke up this morning in my kinda sorta hostel and quickly packed up my stuff and ready to get on the road. I was looking at the GPS looking where I should go today. I scanned the map and decided I was going to have to go forgo my principles and get on the freeway and make some time to travel to Belfast. I made it to Belfast in short time and saw some more beautiful scenery before I got on the major freeway. I got to Belfast and found a nice hostel, it actually had the nicest bedding I have came across to date. On their flier they even stated they had professionally cleaned sheets but they lied about their high speed internet, you win some you lose some. After getting checked in I went out to find some of the local nightlife. The hostel located right next to two universities so I thought the odds were good to meet some Irish girls. Well either the girls looked like guys or the girl to guy ratio was about 1 to 10 and this city was a dude fest. Today’s Specs Weather: Cloudy/Rainy Distance: 150 miles, Castlebar to Belfast