I went for a horse back ride through the Gap of Dunloe . this has been the most beautiful sights i have seen in all of Ireland. I got to camp early this day and was told the man down the raod offeren to take the girls at the tent for a horse back ride and i took that offre. so i walked down the road with Cass to meet up with the man. when we got to his house we saw him Tim Conner up on the mountian side hurding his sheep. he saw us and said ill be down in ten min. we stood in his driveway and chased his chickens around in the meantime. whne he got down he saddled up his horses and we climbed abored. we turned out of the drivway and headed up the narow road into the Gap. when we had been riding for about 30 min we turned around and we could see all of the gap and it was so beautiful it took my breath away for a sec. I must say this will be one of the most memorablemoments on this trip for me.

Barley, yeast, hops, and water, four simple ingrediants that combines to make the best beverage in the world. The fusion of taste between coffee, caramel, and mocha is perfected at St. James’ Gate in Dublin, Ireland. The Thick creamy head was the trademark of this unique porter that taste nothing like anything you’ve ever tasted before. Some say it’s black gold, but in reality the real color of it is ruby red. The golden harp has been the face of this company for 250 years, and still going stong. The storehouse itself was shaped like a pint glass, shattering the world record by being able to hold 13.7 million pints. The storehouse in Dublin was educational in many different ways. It showed the historical influence on the Irish economy and culture. Manufacturing, distribution, and transportaion also played a big part of this company, obviously. Guinness, ladies and gentleman, was the company I was writing about. Guinness, the trademark and the face of Ireland, has lightened the woes and worries of mankind for over 2 and a half centuries, and made lives much more enjoyable by the pint.

we arived in ireland about a week ago and so far there has been nothing but good times and better people. everyone here is more than happy to help out and offer everything the have to us and moer than intrested to here what we are doing and where we have been. which i am mare than happy to tell them. I really enjoyed being in Dublin for the few nights we were there and i met some amazing people i even got the chance to sing up on stage with a guy at one of the pubs. the people here are wiled and i love it so much. the thing i love the most is walking again for the first few days i spent walking the wicklow way a trail that brings you through some beautiful sights all atop different mountian peaks. it has been some of the happest days for me so far on this trip lööking out over the lush green countryside of Ireland i love it here.

This trip is coming to a close with only 3 more walking days ahead of us. I have come to realize how short 4 months really was. I had never done anything like this before, and I couldn’t believe that I actually made it through this trip. The things that I have experianced here were once in a lifetime things. I would definately travel to Europe again, but not like this. I loved this trip with all of my heart but I will never do anything like this again. The transition between city and camping in the wilderness is too much for me. It is a life changing experiance and it is highly recommended if your like is in a pickle and you want to figure out things in your life.

You learn a lot about friendship and brotherhood on this trip. The trust that builds between friendship is clearly noticable and you find out what you and your friends are willing to do for each other. Being under the tent just lets you find out who or what kind of people you are with. The real friends and the backstabbers are clealy distinguishable. You can tell a person is faking to be nice or not. The experiances that I’ve had on the walk have taught me how to judge a person. Learning to know who I want to stay away from and who to trust. I’ve made too many simular mistakes involving trust, for me to fall for the fake bitches thats’ pretending all the time when your around is nothing new. I’ve seen it all and I can see right through these cellophane people.

Although the title of this blog may suggest that Spain was a terrible place, it really wasn’t. The reason for this title is to explain not the reason but the way I had left. I was chosen to drive the van with all of the groups’ gear from Santiago De Compestella to Dublin, Ireland. This was a long journey that Rich and myself had to accomplish by a specific deadline. We left Santiago at about 11am and were on the road. Our goal was to hit the middle of France as fast as we could. We each took  3 hour shifts, one driving while the other slept and navigated. This highly efficent system worked like a charm, and we made our way up north. Once the clock had struck midnight, our minds began to melt. Road signs, noises, and even names of places began to become the funniest things. One example in the Nort France, which still today is hysterical to me . We finally stopped to sleep at around 3 am, much to my delight. We were well into France, and were about to start the second leg of the Walk. Execpt on the other side of the road, in Ireland.

One couldn’t believe the temperatures we went through in Spain.  It was nearly nine in the morning and we were all sweating, skin burning from the heat.  The day was going to be a tough one and when its that early and that hot, theres not much you can do but fight it; we all had to walk.  The whole day consisted of dumping water bottles on our heads and shirts, drinking like camels.  Any source of water we passed that day we jumped in.  Spain was funny like that, random water holes surrounded by cement on the side of the road.  We hopped fences that day to get to the water and the only thing we wore were our bathing suits.  Eighteen Americans dripping in sweat and walking around in bathing suits… we looked like a bunch of nut jobs.  Nobody was out in this type of weather, they were crazy if they were.  We all reached a water hole and threw our backpacks on the ground and jumped in.  Now, Im normally terrified of swimming snakes, but there he was and I was too hot to care.  All of us splashing and swimming around.  I’ve never truly understood the expression, ‘the best things in life are free,’  but after this trip I couldn’t agree with it more.

-Cassidy Mahoney

October, Italy

Everyday van teams give us a route that we are told to follow and it’s marked with toilet paper. I’ve found though that being on-route is never as fun as finding your own way. During the start of Italy, I began on the beaten track and sometimes walking up mountain tracks is killer. James and I left the road one day. This seemed like a good idea since cars become very frustrating to deal with when they stop swerving around you and speed right past at lightning speed. “Where does this go?” I asked James with concern after having jumped off the road and into the woods. “I don’t know, but let’s go!” he replied. We started up the path, which only got steeper as we progressed. James ran off going the opposite way of the worn path. He yelled down to me, “There’s a path up here!” For whatever crazy reason, I believed him and climbed up a mud hill only to find that it was a small animal trail. We continued that way and the undergrowth got thicker and thicker. Our bags kept getting caught on branches with each step. We had to literally crawl through the woods, but we were laughing the entire way. It’s funny to think how nobody else would ever think to go this way and somehow we all signed up for the same adventure. It was asif we had never seen ground before we stumbled out. We found a bar not far from the “trail exit”. Well, shit! We thought we would be stuck forever in that damned forest and it was so rewarding to finally see a symbol of civilization that we have come to value highly on this trip. We sat outside trying to order what we could with the limited Italian we knew and it was great! You get better stories from not going on the beaten path and I guess it is true that not all who wander are lost…just looking for adventure on an animal trail.

Cassidy Mahoney