The Kindness of StrangersSidetracked Sisters

This is a random friendly Irish cow that said “Hello” and made us feel welcome while traveling the beautiful country roads.

What is a common fear when traveling?

Getting lost. Yup. Been there done that…

But it wasn’t as big of a problem as I had feared.

It was on our trip to Ireland. Mom and Melanie flew in first and rented a car. They got to our rental house first. Michelle and I rented our own car. We were told to rent a larger car with automatic transmission. The thinking was, if you have to think about driving on the left side of the road, shifting gears would be one more thing to think about.

Michelle and I disagreed. We opted instead for a sportier model with manual transmission. We were opting to be more adventurous.

Adventurous. Yeah, like I need to work to set myself up for this.

Well, we set out with me driving first…since I’m the oldest. So I go first. We drove to County Cork and quickly found the turnoff to our cottage rental. We were mesmerized by the rolling hills, stone houses, ancient hedgerows, and narrow roads. The directions provided by our GPS were perfect…

…until they weren’t.

We seemed to be driving on a country road through a marshy area. Our destination was a short 5 km ahead. And then we saw it…the road closed sign. We pulled off to the side of the deserted road. No wifi for our phones, only an old GPS with one highlighted route to our destination. There wasn’t even a map.

I think we sat there, figuratively speaking, I think we actually got out of the car.

What do you do in a foreign country when you are lost?

Four traveling friends, ready for an Irish adventure.

You wait for kind strangers to help, of course.

And that is pretty much what happened. After about 5 minutes of standing there, a car finally came along the road and parked next to the “road closed” sign beside us. As luck would have it, they had planned to take this road to their home (and our cottage) on the southern end.

We drove out of the marsh, through the village, and to our cottage from the opposite direction. As we came to our turnoff, the kind strangers (the driver actually) vigorously pointed to the right for us to turn.

Thank you kind people of the world.