If It Smells Like Peat, Part 3: I Fell Into a Burning Ring of Kerry

Yes, beer was how Tom and I wound up on one of those day-long bus tours, falling into a burning Ring of Kerry (and I think we heard that song in the lounge in the Galway Clayton a couple days later).
See, after a near death experience driving down a detour in a deluge to a hotel where the wind was rattling the window, it was time to kill some brain cells in Killarney.
Though tempted by a fancy kangaroo dinner at a nearby restaurant, we hit a pub recommended by a buddy, then another place recommended by the bartender (who gave us passes, which I am not sure we even needed). At the latter, The Grand, a trad band was finishing up and a act called the Waxies was getting ready. The Waxies big drummer had on a Ministry t-shirt, which for a second we might be hearing Irish industrial metal. Another Waxie appeared to be wearing a thong, which showed when he bent over to set up a piece of equipment. Tramp.
Meanwhile, in the back room, a few dozen people were doing traditional Irish hooley dancing, including a dude about my age dressed in a sleeveless white T-shirt and long khaki shorts.
That revelry soon ended, making way for fog-infested euro dance music. Finally, the Waxies played and turned out to offer a good-natured mix of slightly alternative rock and Irish tunes in the front of the house.
They had a 20 euro minimum if you used a credit card, which, as an American I felt obligated to do.  
Heading toward my total, I found it odd that Irish were ordering Coors Light and that the young drinkers of Killarney, too, had been taken in by the Satanc potion that is Red Bull and Jaegermeister. Only in Ireland, they put the Jaeger in a shot glass and drop it in a glass of the energy drink.
I stuck to Guinness.
Before we hit the bars, in the hotel lobby, we ran into this guy named Paul from Zanesville, Ohio, who appeared to be in his mid to late 50s and who was traveling with him mom. We first saw them at Kilkenny Castle. And we would spot them again in Galway.
Paul claimed to own a furniture store, but the way he kept to himself and his chain smoking led me to believe he was CIA or NSA.
Tom’s leather trench coat probably set off a system at O’Hare that led to us being tailed - and to Tom having a four-in-one tool taken from his stowed luggage sometime before we left Dublin and got back to Chicago.
Anyway, Paul mentioned that he and his mom would be taking a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry, taking in the scenery.
Maybe it was a contact buzz from smelling burning peat, but on the way back from drinking, I thought it that this would be a funny thing to do. And good practice for life one day at the senior center.
So I asked the Malaysian guy working the front desk about it and find out the tour is only about $20 and all we had to do was be in the lobby at 10 a.m.
Easy enough.
Over breakfast, I scoured the tables and the lobby for possible fellow travelers. There were some whiny, elderly New Yorkers. That’s redundant, isn’t it?
Then there was a New Jersey like woman with a basketball shorts-wearing teen-aged boy who probably was her son. Was she home schooling him? Were they on the witness protection package tour?
And there were two good looking black women.
The room was rife with comic possibilities. But if you chose “None of the Above” as  your answer, pour yourself a shot of Jameson.
Nay, it was Paul and his Mammy (resplendent in a heather gray knit cap with silver sequins) from our hotel, and from other spots a Dublin guy and his Chinese girlfriend, and a quiet couple, sort of snooty, probably American, probably on their honeymoon, sitting up front like teacher’s pets. That was it. And they were all so well-behaved. I get that way when I am tired.
Our friendly bus driver looked like Phil Collins does now on his Twitter account. And he provided the tag line for the rest of our trip: Get off the bus, take a picture.
Because that’s pretty much what we did for the next six hours. Well, that and nap a bit on some of the longer stretches of the drive.
It was a beautiful ride - though by sitting on the side of the bus by his lonesome as  he did, Tom confessed it was sort of optically scary being in the passenger’s seat.
We hit a faux bog town, saw a statue of  Charlie Chaplin on the coast off Waterville, but didn’t kiss in the tunnel. Or the Blarney Stone at any point on the whole vacation.
Lunch wasn’t until 2:30 or so, and we wound up at this roadside place that was the opposite of an American truck stop. It was all cheerfully done up in pink and raspberry, like a parfait,  and filled with middle aged and older women who seemed to have coordinated their outfits with the decor. And the food was healthy stuff women the Western world over love to eat - salady stuff.
Best of all was one of the last stops, a waterfall flush with rain in a forest where the trees were covered in iridescent moss. Tom struck a Highlander pose for the folks back home. It felt more Hobbit to me. Plus there were people walking their limping cocker spaniels like a dog park back in the states - albeit a prettier one.
There was one more get off the bus stop, where there was a huge red deer stag. Had this been Wisconsin, Tom could have bagged his first ginger tail. Instead, he took a picture, one in which it appears a leprechaun is sitting on the beast. I am not making that up.
Back in town, that night was the start of the holiday shopping season, repleter with a long line at a department store. I bought Tom his Dalek Advent calendar, and we ate at a  new place run by women that had an indie or Hallmark film vibe about it. Either way, they served big, American-sized portions, on special for the festivities at just 20 euro for  each 3-course choice.
Our bellies full, we’d be Galway bound in the morning.