Driving to Derry

I decided a three-day getaway to Donegal was in order. This morning I drove to Derry, which takes me through the lovely Sperrin Mountains. None of my photos do justice to the beautiful two-hour drive.

I will never tire of looking at hills covered in a patchwork of fields, all of them different colours. Some of the fields glow, as if farmers used neon as a fertiliser.

The road through Dungiven Pass is a bit narrow, so you can't stop and take photos wherever you want. You wait for the rest stops and they seem positioned only to get you off the road, not necessarily for where the best view is.

I drove through Derry and on to dear Donegal--a very large county taking in white sand beaches, rocky cliffs, tidal loughs, quaint villages. I love Donegal. It's the Jersey Shore of Northern Ireland--where everyone holidays--yet it is as different from the Jersey Shore as you can get. I stopped in a little town called Fahan to get a good look at Lough Swilly.

Then I checked into my hotel in Buncrana. I then met my old buddy Julie Brown, whom I knew in high school. We went for a long walk along Lough Swilly that was breathtaking. Early this morning I went for a run along Belfast Lough near Cultra, which I thought was lovely until I walked the Lough Swilly coastal path. It makes Belfast Lough look like the Jersey Shore. Then I went to Julie's yoga class, which was so very very much what the doctor ordered. I felt so much better after an hour of stretching. The massage I had yesterday only began to touch the knots in my trapezius muscles.

Then Julie and I had dinner. She is a wise old soul, despite being a year younger than me. She does yoga therapy classes with: the blind, the deaf, the mentally disturbed, troubled teenagers. She is amazing. What is interesting is all of this has only recently come about. She's done a bit of this and a bit of that through her life (community work, classes, volunteering in restorative justice program). All the strands have come together now and she knows that she is doing exactly what she was meant to do on this earth. She feels totally alive and energised by working with people whom she knows she is helping. I want to be Julie when I grow up.
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