May 13 - The Psychology of Natural Environments

Bridge incident

The roads in Ireland are narrow at best. In some cases we even had what appeared to be 2 way roads that were about 1.3-1.6 lanes wide. This usually wasn't an issue for a 4-door sedan passing another car of similar size but we were in essentially cargo vans. Another obstacle that was seldom thought about were the bridges in smaller towns throughout the country side. Typically the smaller vehicle yields. I think this is because the smaller cars are more capable and have more opportunities to pull off to the side of a road than a longer, wider van. There was one bridge in particular, that is, from our empirical experience, at least a cargo van and a 4-door sedan wide... minus half an inch.

One professor had already drove onto the bridge and the oncoming traffic, rather than yielding, abruptly swerved onto the bridge despite the cargo van's commitment already being made. Honestly, from my point of view, if these two vehicles were the same height, I think their mirrors would have collided. On the other side of the van was a stone and mortar wall which ended up leaving a nice scratch all the way down the side of his van similar to a racing stripe. We pulled over and took a look, no damage to the sidewall of the tires, no damage to the rims, just the scratch running the entire length of the body of the van.

In my opinion, I think this professor essentially threaded a needle given the circumstances. Had he swerved any less toward the wall, I think it would likely have been a side swipe if not a head on collision. Had he swerved any more toward the wall I imagine his tire/rim would've caught onto the rock wall and bounced him back into oncoming traffic. The way he handled it resulted in insignificant damage to the car, no one was injured, and we were able to just hop back into the vans and continue on our adventure for the day! After a short rest so everyone could calm their nerves, of course.

Ladies view

Our first stop was a beautiful vantage point overlooking a portion of Killarney National Park. We had a few photos taken and purchased some paintings from a vendor set up at the parking pull off.

Misguided

Our group wanted to go to a couple waterfalls. Unfortunately the students that had planned out the route had been misguided and we ended up not finding the first waterfall before it was time to start heading toward the major activity for the day.

Ross Castle

Ross Castle was a smaller castle and after the others we had seen there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy. There were a few companies that were willing to take tourists out to an island nearby however we had come at just the wrong day and time for that to work into our schedule so we just spent a few moments in the tranquility of the surrounding environment.

Torq Waterfall

This was an extremely serene environment and we opted to hike quite a ways up higher. We ended up at a beautiful bridge so I took the time to break away from the group and went down to the side of the stream. I found a nice little spot that was in line of sight with the rest of the group yet far enough away that the sound of the river drowned out any noise they were making. This was one of the highlights of my trip. I took the time to practice some mindful meditation making sure to get a really good remembrance of the serenity of the environment here. I found it remarkably peaceful.

Westcove Estate and Ping Pong

Ping Pong exploded in popularity at this point in time. We ended up just doing a king of the hill style tournament (winner stays at the table). I had so much fun despite being the bottom of the totem pole within a bracket of people that considered themselves above a beginner level. It was an extremely fun bonding experience for a significant portion of the group from what I perceived.