A FEW MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

DRIVING: It's getting better, particularly on the open roads. My palms are no longer sweaty, and I'm not freaking out every time we come to blind corner and suddenly face an oncoming car in what I still perceive to be the wrong lane. Driving in the cities still is more than just bit nerve-wracking though. However, neither of us can imagine  doing this trip in any other way than having our own car and our own schedule.
IRISH COWS:  It seems like at least 95 percent of the cattle we've seen are those black and white type from the "Eat mor chiken" commercials. Being basically a city boy, I've always assumed that kind of cow to be dairy cow. But if that's where the Irish are getting their beef, they've cracked the code - Irish beef is the best I've ever tasted. It's tender it almost melts in your mouth.
SHEEP: And speaking of livestock, I should mention the sheep. As you can imagine, they're everywhere. Looking up into the emerald green hillsides, they look like  randomly scattered white dots. Up close, you notice that they  have brightly colored spots of dye in their coats, which is the Irish way of marking ownership.
SHOWERS:  So far, no two have been alike. I could never have imagined so many different control configurations could exist. Some use instant electric heaters, which require you to pull a string hanging from the ceiling like an old-fashioned light bulb, to turn on the heater before you set the temperature. Otherwise, they all require a minute or two of head scratching to figure out how to get started before you step in. One thing they do have in common, though, is that they all are SMALL. I didn't think it was possible to design a shower smaller than the one in our motor home, but some Irish genius has done it - a couple of them can't have been more than two feet square!
WEATHER: Before I leave the topic of showers, I have to take a moment to mention the other kind. It seems like every place I've ever been has the same tired old comment about "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it'll change,"  Well, in Ireland, at least for the past few days, that statement is literally true. It seems to go from full sunshine to a brief, and sometimes heavy, rain shower which lasts only five minutes every half hour or so.
RICK STEVES: God bless him. Just follow the recommendations in his guide books and you can't go wrong.