To say that the weather in western Ireland is dynamic is to substantially understate matters. Dramatic often feels like the right word, and in cases like today, erratic and tempestuous might be more accurate. Between bursts of heavy rain, gusts of wind off the North Atlantic and beautiful sun breaks, today has it all. Our ride takes us around the wide Dingle Bay and Castlemaine Harbor. From start to finish, it’s about 20 km as the crow flies and 110 km cycling along narrow and winding country roads that drop down to the ocean and back up into the hills, past sheep and dairy farms.

We stop for lunch in Killorglen, where we enjoy the remaining vegetables our B&B hosts gave us last night. Traffic crossing the stone bridge over the River Laune trends towards tractors and other agricultural machinery, frequently driven by boys who look highschool age. The farms here seem to be smaller scale than what we typically see in North America. Can families make a living farming in Ireland? It makes us think about scale in general and how (despite a national ethic of self-reliance and independence) operating virtually anything at a small scale in our country has gotten harder and harder, from starting and owning a small business to farming.

We get a charming reminder of this difference a bit later in the afternoon. Allegra forgot a prescription and as we ride through the village of Milltown, she sees a pharmacy and decides to stop in. A friendly pharmacist suggests she pop into the family doctor around the corner, who sees her within 20 minutes and writes a prescription (after calling the same pharmacist to make sure the item was in stock). A few minutes later, the pharmacy fills the prescription and charges €13. Nothing about it is fancy but it works and is simple, humane and inexpensive – three words rarely applied to healthcare in the U.S.

Milltown behind us, we turn west and the headwinds off the ocean are unrelenting. The scenery is spectacular but it’s slow going.

By the time we arrive in Dingle, we are starving. A walk through town reveals a beautiful high street with lots of little shops and a few lovely looking restaurants. We opt for pizza with shrimp and mussels, a big salad and chocolate cake. I top it off with a nightcap of a couple bowls of muesli and yogurt back at our B&B.