The Cliffs of Moher

When I first visited this amazing natural site more than a decade ago, it was free. You’d park in a dirt lot and walk about fifty yards and boom – there they were. The Cliffs of Moher would knock your socks off, even if you weren’t wearing any. And, they were free. Now the entire area has been “improved” with an interpretive center (who is so stupid as to need to have cliffs plunging 600 feet to the sea ‘interpreted?’ Evidently, a lot of people) along with a slew of expensive knick-knack shops and a much larger, still unpaved parking lot which charges the princely sum of eight euros (around $11) to park on the far side of the road for a walk of some 250 yards to the cliffs. What a rip. I bet Mother Nature is hopping mad. After all, she created these wonders for our enjoyments and just think of how many stupid cows have plunged to their deaths, thinking they’d get one more big mouthful of juicy grass “just over that little hump over there.”

Now, those stupid (and long since dead) cows have been replaced by the two-legged variety, who routinely ignore the huge warning signs in multiple languages to STAY THE HELL OFF THIS PROPERTY YOU BLEEPING MORONS! YOU’RE GONNA DIE A HIDEOUS AND PAINFUL DEATH! Oh well. Darwin needs some help in his natural selection process. Amazingly, or perhaps not, a well-known writer of blue covered travel books actually encourages people to climb over the tall stone barriers and shimmy over to the edge. Maybe if enough of his readers follow this advice, I can take over his Kingdom and rule supreme over the Land of Moroni!