We Might Not Be Back: Exploring Our Backyard and Shopping in Dingle

It's laughable to think that there was a single day of this trip where we claimed to be "taking it easy." We decided on our last full day that we should finally take advantage of the beautiful property right outside our rental cottage. We stopped and said hi to the donkeys and then headed for the mountains for a leisurely stroll. Once again I had to stop myself from singing "Climb Every Mountain" out loud. I realize that was a different country but trekking through mountains in Europe with little children just evokes images of "The Sound of Music" for me. Dan was sad we wouldn't be heading to the top of the fourth highest mountain in Ireland, but sometimes you have to let some dreams go when you have kids. Instead we settled for making it an hour up the hill to a small wall. Everyone but me was excited to find some sheep bones lying in the field. We had to stop every once in a while to pick "prickle pines" (that's what the girls called them) out of boots and pants. And of course we stopped for multiple photo ops. Dan decided it would be a good idea to head into a small gorge to get back because it would be drier. I vetoed this because it was steeper. I was then blamed for a somewhat traumatic trip through a peat bog. Gabby and I went first. She panicked when we started sinking. My strategy was to just keep moving because standing still made us sink more. Dan wasn't wearing his Wellies and was carrying a little more weight so he had some problems and Lottie kind of freaked out. When I started laughing at them that only made things worse. Luckily we all made it out relatively unscathed.
In the afternoon we drove to Dingle for more souvenir shopping. The stores there were significantly cheaper than Killarney. The one store we went to exchanged money for us without a fee. The town and the harbor were beautiful and it was a great day to walk around. This was a great end to our time in Kerry.