Reflections on Ireland, Part II
“The Roads”
Since school vacation was coming up the week after I had to be in Austria on business anyway, I got the bright idea of bringing the whole family over to Europe for a great vacation. After all, the timing is perfect: the US dollar is worth about 3 euro cents, so your money goes really far.... you can get a whole glass of milk for only about $42.50 these days. And a hotel is only about half a million dollars per night, so it's a real deal. You should go, too.
But since we obviously don't really understand money or how that whole "exchange rate" thing works, we had a family meeting and decided on Ireland. None of us had ever been there, and it seemed like a lovely place to see, with lots of history.
In the weeks leading up to our great adventure, Susan bought some books and did some reading about Ireland. I did some "power skimming." I got about 1/3 through one of these historical treatments and surrendered. These people have not had an easy time throughout the ages... plagues, famines, oppression from Vikings, Normans, the English ... and that was just Chapter 1. Whew.
Irish superhighway
Most people have heard about the infamous "potato famine," (that's "potatoe famine" to you, Dan Quayle) but that was just the most recent one...there have been several famines throughout the ages, and millions perished. When you think about what they have had to deal with over the centuries, the equally marvelous inventions of whiskey and Guinness really make a lot of sense.
Since we had five people to cart around plus our wonderful exchange student from Chile, we needed a van big enough to hold us all in relative comfort, so we could move around a little bit and see more than just Dublin, which is on the east coast. We wanted to get out to Galway and the Dingle peninsula in the west, so we got the most enormous van that it is possible to rent in Europe. Nothing else would hold 6 people AND our luggage -- it looked like we had no option but to leave our luggage at Hertz and go naked all week. Or we could put on 7 sets of clothes and just take one set off each day. That didn't sit well with the ladies, so we needed plan B.
I spied plan B behind the Hertz building. It was a van so immense and so ugly, that they kept it in a special pen, surrounded by large Irish wranglers sporting tasers. Plan B was a snorting, diesel belching monstrosity created accidentally by Ford in an unfortunate accident in one of their factories, when crazed robots took over and created something truly unholy. The beast rolled back and forth, backfiring and slamming its own doors in a daring show of spite; daring the wranglers to tase it. From inside came a deep rumble, one part diesel and one part satan.
After trying to talk me out of it by telling me that we could simply hold our 12 suitcases on our laps for 7 days, the young Hertz guy finally gave in and agreed to rent me "the beast." After a quick call to the Vatican for approval, he crossed himself and looked upwards, then he pulled out a special whistle. When he blew it, no sound came out, but from the monster pen I heard a horrible scraping and grinding metal sound, the gate came off its hinges, and then it rolled into view. The other customers scattered, hiding behind their little Barbie dream cars... even the Hertz staff averted their eyes and vowed to go to church more.
The back popped open and the luggage was sucked inside. We exchanged uneasy looks and climbed aboard, trying to convince ourselves that this was a good idea.
It wasn't.
The white whale - aka Moby. It looks harmless, doesn't it?
You have to keep in mind that the scale of things in Ireland, as well as in Europe in general, is not the same as we are used to here. Over there, one of those little mini Coopers that I cannot even get into without lying down onto the ground first and then rolling over into the driver's seat, is considered to be a "mid size" car. A typical Honda Accord is looked at the same way you stare at Paul McCartney's 200 foot long yacht when it sails into Newport harbor. So your average American Dodge Caravan is nothing than any family would ever own, except perhaps to live in. So multiply the size of that van by 200% - what they called a "minibus" - and you can imagine what we were driving.
Hoping not to anger the beast, we we christened it the "White Whale," or "Moby" for short.
In the USA, driving the White Whale (call him "Moby" for short) would be no problem at all. It was about 33 feet wide and perhaps 180 feet long. No big deal on American sized roads.
But now let me take you to Ireland... when you are around Dublin, a relatively large city, the motorways are roughly the same as our small highways here, of 2 or 3 lanes. But if you leave the big city and go anywhere else (for example the other 99% of the country), you are immediately in big trouble. The main roads are about the same as a neighborhood street in Wakefield, except about half the width. On most of them it is actually not possible for a bus or truck AND a small car to pass each other... one or the other will need to either pull 2-3 feet off the road, or put most of the car off the road. Or you can slap side mirrors together, which we did twice. This sounds like a 50 caliber rifle going off in your right ear, and it really wakes you up better than coffee.
Yes, I know that England, India, China, Australia, Japan (most of Asia) drives on the left side, too, but I don't care. They're on the wrong side.
Every former English colony drives like England except one .. us! Thank God, we did something right.
Ireland is a left-side driving country, and all the cars have their steering wheels on our passenger side of the car. The only thing stranger than sitting on the right side and having a steering wheel in front of you, is to have to shift with your left hand. Thank God I am mostly ambidextrous, or else Moby (and us) might have gone for a real swim a few times. But Susan tells me that while I had it "strange" as the driver, she had it "terrifying" as the passenger, sitting on the left side but not having a steering wheel, and watching as rock walls and poles went by at 100 kph three inches from the side mirror for a week. Maybe she has a point there. She called the left seat the "suicide seat," while I more generously referred to it as the "screaming section."
Luckily, having spent a week in Austria, I was not jetlagged when I arrived in Ireland, so the adjustment was easier than in years past. Within moments I was terrifying everyone and making them scream so easily it was as if I had been doing it my whole life.
The amazing Cliffs of Moher. Wasn't this in Lord of the Rings?
On the fourth day we drove down from Galway, stopping at the Cliffs of Moher (incredible), and then driving Moby onto a ferry and crossing the Shannon, then onward to Dingle. This drive was the most taxing and difficult of the entire week. The Hertz "ever lost" GPS system was obviously programmed by a cow, because it insisted on taking us down every cow path in western Ireland. We drove several miles on a road that was no wider than a tongue depressor.
Just south of the Cliffs of Moher it took us up and down a mountain where the road was a real switchback ... you had to turn the wheel all the way to the left, then all the way to the right, and so on, for about 30 minutes. It was a real good workout and I appreciate the chance to work my lats. Looking at shape of the road on the GPS, it looked like a very angry pre-schooler had scribbled back and forth 50 times with a black crayon.
Moby rides the ferry across the Shannon.
Looking back at the driving experience, I got the idea that one day in the past, Ireland set about to create the most amazing system of bike paths that the world has ever seen. They did that, and it is truly impressive. But then they ran out of money before they could build the "real roads," and decided to just let the cars, trucks, and busses, drive on the bike path system.
At the same time, the scenery all over Ireland is so stunning, and so amazingly beautiful, that you can't even describe it. Even the pictures that we took don't do it justice. It is really a beautiful country overall.
During this time, the plight of the US car makers was very much in the news (and still is). It occurs to me that we Americans are not terribly good at making cars. The Japanese make the most reliable cars, and the Germans make the highest technology cars. Our cars, well, no offense to anyone, but they get a C minus. Granted it is a very important industry here that employs a lot of people, and it would be a shame to lose it.
But having traveled a lot around Europe and Asia, there is no doubt in my mind that American roads - even the worst ones - are head and shoulders above what I see elsewhere. The way we clearly and logically lay out roads, and then mark them with unambiguous signs, is second to none. We have these crazy things called "shoulders" and "turn lanes" and travel lanes that are wider than trucks and busses ... cars actually fit on them. These are alien concepts around the world. We do this really well.
Can you say "right on red" ? I wouldn't try it anywhere else... it's not allowed. (OK, I guess it would have to be "left on red" where they drive on the WRONG SIDE, but that's not allowed, either).
The other great American invention of driving while eating a Burger King original chicken sandwich, texting, and calling your mom while finding a good station to broadcast your iPod to is also not possible over here. You have to pay attention 100% of the time and use both hands for driving.
At one point I realized that I had been driving for 34 years, but in this one week, I finally learned HOW. Driving the Battleship Rotundo on roads that resemble a demented scribble, with your most precious loved-ones in the back holding each other for emotional support and trying not to cry, was my final exam.
Getting back to road design; we don't do interesting things like put Route 95 through 500 villages and 4000 round-abouts. So instead of averaging say 70 MPH on your trip, you go 70 for 10 minutes then you average 10 MPH going through a village for 25 minutes, then 70 for 10 minutes, then another village and 10 more round-abouts... you get the idea. I have driven from Warwick to Los Angeles, and the trip was 99.999% highway, and I could travel 3500 miles in four days. That was back in 1984. If that drive had been across Ireland, I would be right around Topeka Kansas by now, 25 years later.
So it got me wondering why we don't try to export the thing that we're really good at, and forget about making mostly crappy cars? If the whole world had the same quality and design of US roads, it would truly be a better place. I am sure we could make more money building roads than cars, and everyone would love us again for it.
Just my opinion - I could be wrong!
(c) 2009 Grant Maloy Smith