#68

Some birthdays you feel like you got hit by a bus; 
other birthdays you actually DO get hit by a bus.
 

Well, OK; 
I hit the bus if you’re going to be sticklers about it!

In my defense, 
I was driving on the wrong damn side of the road; 
it was my third day driving in Ireland;
 it was raining and, when the police responded to my 9:15 AM accident, 
my “wee incident” report # was 319 -

for that day!

I clearly was NOT the only one having a bad morning.

For the record, I’ve never had an accident before 
(either outside the USA or inside).

Also for the record, it was clearly MY fault.

I was impatient and tried to go around a stopped bus – 
apparently without leaving enough clearance on the passenger side.

 The mirror got clipped and, even though I corrected,

 it didn’t do much good when the bus then decided to pull back over into the same lane 
and proceed on, 
leaving a ‘racing stripe’ of bus blue down the entire left side of the car …

 my very own Scarlet letter 

 marking my car for the rest of the trip as 
“crazy OLD American driver, watch out!”

Oh, the shame. 

Thank goodness for Officer Officer (yes, that really was his name.)

He made me feel like I was in a Monty Python skit – 
and not a dumpster fire of my own creation.

My navigator forgave me, told me to ‘shake it off’ 
and Officer Officer told me to have a cuppa and proceed on to the coast 
where there was a better chance the sun was shining.

So I did - and it was.

And it was glorious.

We visited – and crossed – the Carrick a Reed Rope bridge – 
my personal birthday challenge more daunting than driving in Ireland.

I got through it in much the same manner as I get through most things I’m afraid of –

by muttering to myself “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this; 
I’m almost done, I’m almost done.”

That land mass on the horizon to the right?
That's the Isle of Mull, Scotland -
17 miles away! 

After we recovered from the climb and the rope bridge,
 we stopped at Bushmill's Distillery – the ‘Protestant Distillery’- in Northern Ireland.

 (Until this trip, I didn't even realize distilleries HAD religious affiliations.

I treated my Viking and his friends to samples of his heritage.

 The Giants Causeway was our last site for the day -

 a spectacular geological formation of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns 
 caused by ancient volcanic eruptions – 
complete with a rainbow.  

the day redeemed by the promise of a better year.

We stayed in Portrush that night where I captured 
a fierce combination of haze, wind, surf and charming houses -
 one of my favorite images from the whole trip.

(BTW, if anyone wants to get me a belated birthday present, 
I'll take either a pale pink or yellow house!)

 Even less than stellar beginnings can surprise you with their endings!
 ~~~~~~~~
ps: my apologies that the font changed part way through the post. 
I have NO clue why, don't speak 'programming, can't fix it
and don't want to take the time to fiddle with it anymore!

As they say in Shakespeare in Love -
"It's a mystery".
 ~~~~~~~~
pps: 4 important words for driving in Ireland -
Zero dollar deductible insurance!