After a two-year delay caused by the pandemic, we were finally able to complete our tour of the Iberian Peninsula. We stayed overnight in Nashville on 27 April before catching our flight to Madrid's Barajas Airport through Atlanta.
From Madrid, we travelled by bus to Toledo, Segovia, Ávila, Salamanca, and Zamora, Spain before crossing the border into Portugal. In Portugal, we visited Porto, Fatima, ancient Obidos, Sintra, and Lisbon. Crossing back into Spain, we spent time in Seville and Cordoba. On our way to Mijas and the Costa del Sol, we spent a few hours in Gibraltar. After a few days on the Mediterranean coast, we travelled to Peñíscola, Grenada, Valencia, and ended our tour in Barcelona.
We picked up a second tour in Barcelona that continued our counterclockwise tour or the Iberian Peninsula, stopping at Zaragoza, Pamplona (no we didn't run with the bulls), Bilboa, Santander, Oviedo, and Santiago de Compostela, the end of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. From there, we made our way back to Madrid through Zamora and Salamanca.
Along the way, we saw ancient cities and Roman aqueducts, cathedrals, Picasso's birthplace, the barber of Seville's balcony, the Alhambra palace, and Guadi's Sagrada Família. We cracked our own crabs, dined on salt-encrusted sea bass, drank ginga in chocolate cups, ate and learned to make paella (pi-ay-ya), visited Hemingway's favorite café, and learned the flamenco dance. Ron always carries a travel guitar, and he performed a show for each of our two tour groups.
A grueling 6,000 kilometers and 28 days later, we landed at the Nashville International Airport at about 7:30pm on 24 May having circumnavigated the Iberian Peninsula. We stayed overnight in Nashville and got home around 11:30am the next day. We were exhausted, but we look forward to our next international adventure to Ireland and Scotland.
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Our fall RV trip started on September 13, 2022 and ended it 40 days later on October 23, 2022. Our two goals were to visit with our son and his family in San Antonio, Texas, and to spend some time with Ron's friend Don in DeRidder, Louisiana. Don is a jazz guitar player who used to visit Ron weekly when he lived in Huntsville. He moved back to DeRidder a few years ago, so we try to visit occasionally. Ron carved our new RV sign on the left for this trip with his new Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine.
Debi spends a lot of time planning our trips, so we always have great campsites. We like to stay in State Parks when we can. They don't have a profit motive to pack campers as tightly as possible, and they are usually on a lake or river. We break the trip up into small chunks, so we don't have to drive too far, and then we stay a few days in each location. We look for wineries, nice places to eat, museums, live music, ghost tours, and other interesting sights to see on our trips.
While in San Antonio, we visited Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery to visit the graves of some of Debi's family. Our last day, we tried an escape room with our son and his family. Our Extreme Escape from the Lost Tomb crew included, Christina (our daughter-in-law), Julia (Hunter's girlfriend), Debi, Ron, Evan (grandson), Hunter (grandson), and Aaron (son). Spoiler alert! We failed to save the world from the tomb's curse.
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We spent Thanksgiving with Candace and her family in Tacoma, Washington. Their band, the Scuppermonkeys, was recording their second album during our visit, and they invited Ron to play on the album. Candace made a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with help from Penny and Gwenny, and we got to help decorate their Christmas tree.
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If you ever find yourself in south central Tennessee, please give us a shout. You’re welcome to stop by for a visit … if we’re in town. We hope that you and your family have fared well this year, and we wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
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