Monday AM...UPDATED...AND UPDATED II

Welcome to my Monday!

Actually, the problem came to the fore yesterday when I had decided to go for golf in Muskie ,and for that trip I attempted to fire up the Buick (after not doing so for a month).  Zippo!  Not even a suggestion of juice.  I tried to jump it with Margret, but no luck.  So I now get the pleasure of helping the economy with participation in the Service Department  of my local Buick dealer.  Always a thrill.

This is the first posted pic off of the new camera.  I think that I am actually going to read some of the instructions for it.  The instrumentation is similar to my earlier Fuji mini-digi's, but different, and I have struggled at finding the right buttons to push for various functions to review, delete, control the flash and other features.

Just to confirm, I missed the MTV awards show last night.  I know that the channel is on my Direct TV service, but I have no clue as to where.  And less interest in finding it.  Shock.

One of the small realizations that has occurred to me post-Europe, is that I have less interest in television.  Over those two weeks when I was off the domestic TV grid, I seem to have lost any connectivity with any shows that I have followed (like the endless NCIS reruns).  I do use the radio stations that broadcast through Direct TV.  I'm thinking that less TV is good for the soul.

More later.

UPDATE...Just got off the phone with my pal @bcbison.  He had been noticeably below radar the last couple of days, and I had called him and emailed him this AM to get a report.  Well, it wasn't a good one.  He too ran into Rule #1 this weekend; off a curb in central Davenport, over the handle bars and into the ER for some surgery to attach a tendon to an elbow or something like that!  Ouch!  Double ouch!

Still adding more here later.

UPDATE II...Low key evening on Maplecrest.  The report on the Buick is run-down (read...shot!) battery.  There's a shock.  Replacement cost, installed?  $300+.  I mean, why wouldn't you place the battery under the fixed-in-place back seat?  You certainly wouldn't want the average consumer to be easily able to swap out the battery by himself/herself, would you?  Now the question is, will whatever caused the battery to bleed down resurface and force another tow?  At no point in my discussions with the repair shop did "cause" enter into the debate.  Hmmm.

The touchy-feely folks at 1600 Pennsylvania floated the terminology "federal family" to describe their coordinated efforts to make their Irene response the anti-Katrina.  As in the "ABC University Family", or the "XYZ Directional University Family".  I know that I sure have the warm and fuzzies.  Yep, they bought into that same PR firm hired by Drake and the Cy-Hawk trophy folks.

Candidate Rick Perry was quoted in the national news yesterday on a campaign stop in Ottumwa, Iowa.  Can't recall the quote.  But he's some right-wing radical and was probably talking about some fascist (or at least, surely racist) concept like capitalism or balancing the Federal budget.  I love ya, Anderson!

I put the Operator's Manual for the new Fuji on to my laptop hardrive.  125 pages.  Right.  I'm reading that manual tonight.  Worth noting:  there were pdf files on there in at least 30 languages.

Make Tuesday a good one.
BCOT

Sunday

While the East Coast and the Southwest have enduring hurricane and drought conditions respectively, the Midwest is enjoying a run of really nice days.  Top Ten's for sure.  3 should jump on here and give us a first-person report on Irene.

My pal Terry O came over last night for a little BBQ on the driveway.  Brats and veggies. He supplied the wine (not a bad Malbec) and beer (a foo-foo import or local brew).  The original plan had been to do a ride and then find a spot for a sandwich, but I decided that another day of rest was more to my liking.  That tooth work wasn't awful, but not a picnic either, and there's a bit of lingering discomfort.  Besides, I liked the idea of another driveway evening.  It was a good call.

I actually went to my workout-calendar this AM to verify my 2011 "Days Out of My Bed" count, year-to-date.  45 thus far.  With a couple of TC trips in my future for certain, and maybe a C-town business conference also, the number for the year we be over 50!  A few years back, I would never have dreamed that I would have those kind of annual travel numbers.

RevKev ran into Rule #1 yesterday, and accounts for the spill on his blog.  Ouch!  I've been lucky this year to keep some rubber between me and the road, but I'll find the pavement sooner or later.  Sand, dirt, painted lines, grooves in a parking lot, a blowout.  Anything can happen.  That's why there is Rule #1.

A final few words on the European trip.  I had meant to add the "Bad/Poor/Questionable" moves list in follow-up to that good move list that I posted early last week.  Not that there were really any awful things to spoil the adventure, but there's always some things that can go better than what gets handed to you.  Here goes:

1.  Shattered car window/Lost mini-digi. Both on the same day.  Double bummer.
2.  Staying that fourth day in Vitoria...Sunday when everything was closed.
3.  Getting lost driving in Bilbao...twice.  Worst experiences on the trip.
4.  Not getting quite as many pics for posterity.  Blame it on the mini-digi!
5.  Not anticipating/recognizing the foreign transaction fee rules on my credit cards.
6.  We probably should have done some gift-shopping.
7.  I left my crossword book on the plane going to Paris.  Ergo: 11 days...no crosswords.
8.  The day we drove up the Tourmalet to scout the route turned into a way-too-long trip when we went down the other side and ended up all the way back at Lourdes.
9.  No pre-planning for bringing the bikes home added stress from all of the associated uncertainties in completing those arrangements the last two days of the trip.
10. 4's road-rash experience on the descent of the Col d'Aspin.

So all-in-all, there wasn't too much to carp about on a twelve-day trip with all those variables when you have a very loose plan and are not on a guided tour of anything.  We did okay.

Sounds as though Aunt Martha and family took in the sights of the pro bike race in Breckenridge yesterday. http://www.examiner.com/cycling-in-boulder/elia-viviani-wins-second-consecutive-stage-of-the-2011-usa-pro-cycling-challenge.  This high-talent-level, week-long race has several European teams entered, and includes among it's participants Cadel Evans, winner of this year's TdF.  I think that the state of Colorado has some sponsorship money in the pot to promote tourism in the state.  In recent years, Georgia and Missouri have tried to make similar races annual events, but both ran out of long-term money support.  It always comes down to the money.

I may get back here later today.  Make it a good Sunday.

BCOT

Friday

Irene looks to be the news of the day.  We're probably okay here, but The Big Apple crew is definitely in the line of fire.  Reports from the front are welcome.

High school football season comes into full swing tonight.  They actually had the first game of the season locally last night in Davenport as the city's three public schools and the Catholic school all share the same stadium for home games, and they need most Thursday nights to make the schedule work.  Pretty nice weather for kick-off.  Does football mean that it is now officially Fall?

I'm not sure if my faculties fully processed the fact that my VISA and AmEx cards were both subject to a 3% foreign transaction fee for each usage while we were in Europe.  I understood that obtaining Euro's at a bank or ATM would have that charge, and I think that when I notified both card companies that I would be in Europe they reminded me of that fee, but it just didn't register with my synapses.  My activity statement now carries separate line-items for the fee for each incident of card usage, even the 2 Euro tolls on the freeway.  I think that there are some cards out there that specifically market the feature of no-foreign-transaction-fees.  Probably worth the price of admission for the next trip.

RevKev's mention on his blog of his interest in acquiring a folding bike sounds a little Left Coast-ish.  Very green.  It all depends on the objective.  If you have a good purpose in mind, I say go for it. 

My next bike will be another up-grade to my road-er.  That will make my current bike my back-up, which then becomes the sorta-expendable bike that I will ship/carry-on for my next trip.  This most recent, generally favorable experience with the carry-on bikes has piqued my interest in bringing my own for that next trip.

My pal Ron has maintained custody of my pal Roy's 40-foot motor home (Holiday Rambler), that Ron's group used for RAGBRAI.  And Roy has secured RV parking at Kinnick for the up-coming football season.  Do the math, folks.  We should have a place to call home for any game that we choose to attend.  Suite!

I don't think that I fessed-up here that I lost my mini-digi in Spain.  It happened the same day that I had the window problem with the rental car.  I'm guessing that I had set it on the car at some point getting the bikes ready to ride and forgot to pick it up.  In any event, I've already replaced it with a similar model, a slight upgrade as the particular camera that was lost was out of stock with my dealer.  The new one is a blue Fuji FinepixXP20.  My only gripe is that its a smidge bigger than my previous camera which matters when the normal carrying spot is the back-pocket of a cycling jersey.  Sometimer's strikes again.

I don't have a Bucket List, but I do have the recurring thought that I'd like to go to the night race at Bristol Motor Speedway.  It happens to be this weekend every year.  Bristol, Tennessee.  I actually considered going last year, but just couldn't muster the energy (nor justify the expense).  This is short-track racin' in an amphitheater setting where you can see the whole track in front of you.  Its one of the most popular races of the year.  Any takers?

Looks like a Biaggi's night here in River City.  Hello Weekend! 

BCOT

Thursday

I had great intentions of posting yesterday, but that dental procedure put the damper on any creative thinking.  Fortunately, there's been little residual aches or pains today, so I'm hoping that I can just move on and let the implant heal over the next few months.  And back to normalcy in daily life.

Hardly shocking news here from the NASCAR garage.  I'm not sure how good of a driver Danica may be, but I certainly hope that she succeeds.  She brings eye-balls to the TV broadcasts and the more viewers for the sport, the better for everyone involved.  There's been lots of empty seats at many of the venues over the last couple of years, and the TV numbers are down as well. 

There will definitely be a sizeable amount of skepticism from those who think that she made the team based on her looks and sex-appeal.  I won't argue the point, but most entertainment stars need a "look" to attract the fans.  So she looks good in a bikini.  If she can run up front with the boys, the grousing will go away.  If she can't cut it on the track, she'll fade to the sidelines.  That doesn't mean necessarily that she has to win.  She just needs to run well.  Go-Daddy will keep funding her ride as long as she keeps in the news.
 http://m.yahoo.com/w/sports/home/news/article?urn=urn%3Anewsml%3Asports.yahoo%2Cyhoo%3A20050301%3Anascar%2Carticle%2Cyhoo-ept_sports_nascar_marbles-wp3411%3A1&.ts=1314306971&.ysid=GzYt5vBbEABii3c.ZRoLR5jl&.intl=US&.lang=en 

Craig Wilson took the opportunity in his Wednesday USA Today column to take some shots at the Hawkeye state.  I'm a bit reluctant to link his article, but here it is: http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/story/2011-08-23/Final-Word-Getting-in-deep-fried-at-the-Iowa-State-Fair/50113130/1  The mainstream media has had a field day with not-so-thinly referenced guttural humor on the politicians at the state fair eating the corn dogs.  Wilson just couldn't help himself with a related, gratuitous smack at Michelle Bachmann.  Like Wilson was the first to come up with a column lampooning fried food at a fair out in the boonies.  (I'm no Bachmann fan, but I'm not letting an East Coast snob like Wilson get away with a free editorial shot either.)

More deserving of ridicule is (was?) the new Cy-Hawk Trophy for the Cyclone-Hawkeye rivalry.  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hjqv-ynRCIjmO92jkgoJI7aks8cw?docId=da61885998334142b6437d6c1275fdf4  The great minds that came up with the trophy worked for the same firm that did the Drake campaign last year.  Seriously, who can take a swing at these things and just consistently miss by a mile each time?

More later today.

BCOT

Tuesday AM

I'm doing just a small entry this AM to kind of get back to something close to normal.  By my rough calculations, I'm still about a full night's sleep short of my regular rest.  That seven-hour time difference about equals one night's sleep for me.  Hmmm.

As I reported on Twitter, I got out for a routine, week-day ride on the bike path last night with a feeling-good result.  I figure that I have a couple more weeks of riding before I shift to the Turkey Trot training schedule.  There's less than 100 days before the start of the race.  Ugh!  I hope that The Winniferous is ready to run.

I've thus far encountered no surprises either at home or at the office from my two-week absence.   (Definite knock-on-wood in making that statement!)  August is always a slow month business-wise, and I have that Perfect Neighbor watching the homestead.  My RCL had been through last Wednesday, so my house was guest-ready upon my return.

That travel home on Saturday was no where's near as painful as the outbound-trip.  The flights were pretty much on-time, the gate agents in Bilbao and Atlanta did good work with the bikes, the plane from Paris to Atlanta was an older model than from our flight over there and it actually had an extra inch or two of leg-room (which made my comfort measurably better), and for whatever reason, the gate agent in ATL upgraded us to first-class right before boarding for that final leg.  Whoa!  Three Bloody Mary's on the way to MLI.

The bikes made it all the way with us, with no significant damage.  The madam at our hotel in Bagneres, the bike shop owner there who helped us box the bikes, the hotel folks in Bilbao who accommodated us on storage and shuttle transportation, and the Air France/Delta personnel who took various efforts to complete the transport, all contributed to a very positive end to our journey.  A bit surprising, actually, to me.  Especially once we placed them in the care of the airlines.  That result may impact how I plan for the next trip, even to Tahoe next Summer.

Here is a Top Ten list of the Good Moves from our trip:

1.  4 electing to bring along her laptop computer.  With wi-fi in all the hotels, we were able to stay connected throughout the trip.
2.  Ordering the Amazon travel books for references.  They weren't flawless, but they were pretty much on-point.
3.  By-passing Lourdes on our August 15th travel day.  Lucky move, for sure.
4.  Using Hertz and American Express.  The small problem with the back window was a non-issue.
5.  Efficient packing.  Neither one of us over-packed, and we seemed to have the right amount of changes.
6.  Getting up the d'Aspin and the Tourmalet will always make the TdF a bit more personal.
7.  Making Bagneres de Bigorre our campsite in the Pyrenees.  Great location.  Plenty of services.
8.  Visiting the Guggenheim.  Striking facility.  Always a conversation piece.  But curious art.  Two hours was the right allocation of time.
9.  Being a bit choose-y on food selections.  We never had that bad-shrimp feeling.  (With the vino either!)
10. 10 days of visiting places and two of travel was the right amount of time.

So I will add some pic's and other commentary later this evening.  Have a great day!

BCOT

Friday

Homeward journey in process.

Now in Bilbao for the night.  Scheduled to depart at 0345 CST Saturday, with arrival in MLI at 2200 hours Saturday night.  Delta is involved.

Best wished to 1 and 1.1 on boys names.  Hmmm.  Never really had to worry about that myself.  A new adventure for the fam.  I'm wondering about how 1.01 will react to a shared stage?

We may Twitter before we leave the hotel in the AM.  Otherwise, the next entry from me will hopefully be on Twitter from an operational Android phone from the ATL late Saturday afternoon.

Thanks for reading.  Enjoy Friday night!

BCOT

Thursday II

I tried to update the posting from earlier today with the pics, but Blogger was doing strange things, so I folded and just started a new entry.  4 is definitely Daughter of the Day in the first entry's primary photo.

(The new home page photo was taken about 5-6 kilometers from the summit, when we stopped briefly on the way down the mountain.  We coasted (quickly, with a steady, hard break) all the way to those little buildings at the far end of the bottom of the valley.)

The climb up the Tourmalet was everything that I wanted...and more.  A much busier road than what I dealt with in the Alps on the Galibier two years ago.  Plus sheep, goats and alpaca's.  Seriously.  And plus due, the entire population of France had to be on "holiday", and on our road.  Unbelievable number of mid-sized RV's on this narrow, mountain road.

We started in the village of Campan, about 4-5 kilometers from the base of the climb in the town of Sainte Marie de Campan.  Here I am filling my water bottles at the fountain by that town's church.  From here, we ground our way 16.9 kilometers UP.  Each kilometer was marked with a sign, counting the distance down, and the average gradient over the next kilometer.  8% is really hard.  When it cranked up to 10%, I was crawling.

I'll write more about this some other time.  4 deserves lots of plaudits for her accomplishments here in the Pyrenees.  Our rides were not walks in the park.

Dinner tonight was at a quiet restaurant in town.  We were in a covered, upstairs balcony as there were sprinkles in the air.  French dishes off their menus.  We were the only ones in the place who spoke English.  But it worked out.  I judged my meal to be my favorite of the trip.   Beef with salad, potatoes (not unlike what I do on the grill, but with a spiced crust), and a couple of other interesting sides.  House wine.

The English-speaking lady at our hotel helped me line up packing-boxes for our bikes at a local cycle shop.  We'll do that chore in the AM, check out, and head back to Bilbao.  If its nice out, we may do that side-trip to San Sebastian.

We're tired.  Bond was on earlier.  I think Clint is the late show.  LtPC is doubtful.  Thanks for reading.

Au revoir!

BCOT

Thursday

Wednesday

Here's today's pic of Daughter of the Day.  We made it up the meat of the climb to the Col d'Aspin this morning with little difficulty other than the climbing.  4 did great.  She's only been actually out on the road for rides less than a dozen times, so today's finish was a great accomplishment for her.  Way to go, Kiddo!

There were a lot of people at the summit.  Many hikers, lots of sight-seers and biker support folks waiting for their riders.  And a widely dispersed herd of cattle!.  They wander all over this mountain.  We actually had to stop on the drive up for several members of the herd to walk across the road to graze on the other side.  Couldn't help but think of Grandpa H and wonder what he might think of the situation.

I place this climb in the category of the Brockway summit at Lake Tahoe (coming in from the Truckee side).  The gradual part of the climb which we did yesterday goes for around 12 miles.  The flight to the finish is around 3.5, all up, at around 7-8%.  Many riders on the hill today.  All passed me.  4 was gracious enough to stay with the tired, old man.

To manage our transportation this AM, we parked at the top of the climb and coasted down on our bikes, and turned around at the base where we had stopped yesterday.  4 had a small problem on one of the switchbacks, running into an example of Rule #1.  And has the road-rash to attest to it.  She popped up like a champ, with scrapes and some mangled handle-bar wrap that I quickly fixed with the electrician's tape that I keep in my seat bag.  She medicated when we got back to the hotel with soap, water and the hydrocortisone cream that I keep in my travel kit.  A little ibuprofin this evening.

The d'Aspin was enough riding for the day, and we needed to get the scrapes cleaned up, so we came back to the hotel, showered and then drove up to tomorrow's challenge, the Col de Tourmalet.  There's a ski village, La Mongie, a couple miles from the summit, and we ate lunch there before going to the top of the mountain.  La Mongie is a very metropolitan place; lots of high-rise condo's, cafe's and ski shops.  Kind of a small Vail.

The Tourmalet Pass is lower than Mt. Rose, but it qualifies as one of the world's most storied climbs.  I estimate that it will take us 3.5 hours to traverse the 16+ kilometers from the base of the hill in the village Ste. Maria de Campon.  (We actually drove down the opposite side of the mountain on our way home, and, while neither side is easy, the other side is a bit less-appealing for general "feel" reasons, so we'll ride up this side.  The distance is basically the same.)

As reported previously on Twitter, dinner was at our hotel tonight in their restaurant, fixed by the owner and her husband.  Really not bad, and we were served very cordially in all respects.  She has good English skills, and I asked (she consented) her to call Air France with me at her side in the AM to confirm the carry-on information/requirements for the bikes.

Again, a travelogue.  Sorry.  To bed for me.  Big day tomorrow.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT

Tuesday

Late Tuesday night here now.  We had a full day.

The preliminary portion of the ride to the Col d'Aspin turned into a little more work than we actually needed, so I made the command decision to save the last three miles constituting the true meat of the climb for tomorrow.  It wasn't brutal this AM, but it was mostly all "up" for 13-15 miles, and you really understood that when you mostly coasted all the way back to the hotel.  It was a good preparatory ride.  A bit like the first 6-8 miles up Mt. Rose from the gas station start in Reno.

We'll do the summit to d'Aspin first thing in the AM and then a more forgiving route for the balance of the Wednesday ride.  We need to save our energy for Thursday's ride up the Tourmalet, the beast of the area.  Then we will be done with the riding portion of the trip, and be getting ready for our return to reality.

So we made the pilgrimage to Lourdes today, and I was not prepared for the overt commercialism that now defines the town.  Our travel books had warned us that the religious aspects of the town were absolutely still there, but the economics had taken over Main Street.  I was stunned at the tourist-trap character of the streets.  Think Wall Drug stores side-by-side for several city blocks.

The main cathedral was impressive.  We didn't go inside, but we did walk along the side of the church where The Grotto is located, and we lit a candle in honor of the extended clan.  I'm sure that Margaret felt the ripple in the force.  I told 4 that I felt a little closer to the Blessed Virgin at The Grotto version 1.1 located on campus at ND.

4 and I also did our domestic work today and visited the local laundormat and ran a load of clothes through the wash.  Our self-portrait is included here.  We had found a supermarket on the edge of town and re-stocked consumables as well. Our deluxe room here does not have a mini-fridge so we are thusly limited on the stuff we might keep in the room.

Lots of cyclists out on the road today.  Dozens at least.  No teams, but numerous groups of three and four.  The roads are narrow, and riders need to be careful, but the drivers really need to give space.  It seems like they do.  I'll get some pics up tomorrow of biking in this area.

Dinner tonight was another open-air cafe here in town.  We each had beef (that was no where near as good as that served off the grill on Maplecrest).  A nice bottle of regional vino.  Good times.

Sounds like the only viable option to get our bikes home is as carry-on with Delta.  What could go wrong with that?  UPS and FedEx are priced to say "no".  Now I need to coordinate with the airline.  Friday could be interesting with that challenge.

Off to bed.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT

Monday

All things considered, we have had a good day.

The distance from Vitoria-Gastiez in Spain to Bagneres-de-Bigorre in southern France is not all that far...maybe 150 miles or so.  But we had to take that side-trip to Bilbao to do a car exchange, so we added a little mileage and some time to the journey.   Hertz was very professional in all respects, and our call for 90 minutes as the Over/Under bet was way off.  (We both took the Under.)  It should have been set at 60 minutes, and the Under would have still paid.

The possible look-see at San Sebastian didn't happen.  We got just a little bit of a late start, and jumping into another city where we would be driving on unfamiliar roads just didn't sound that good to us.  We did get a few fleeting glances at the Bay of Biscay as we drove by in the highlands above town.  I guess that qualifies as our visit to the beach for this trip.

Google Maps had us driving on toll roads almost all of the way today.  Except for a couple of quick 2-Euro-each stations near the Spanish-French border, I used the Visa card in the automated lanes.  No lilt-y greeting from the machines after payment like we had in Italy two years ago.  We stopped inside the French border for lunch at a very-Western Interstate-like restaurant with buffet-like options.

You should check out Bagneres-de-Bigorre on line.  Its a tourist-trap town of some note.  They have natural, thermal spas that have made it a destination for people throughout Europe for quite a while.  Lots of native hotels...no Marriott's or Hampty's.  This is our room at The Tivoli...and this place got decent reviews!  (This back-to-nature part of the trip makes it feel a little like Indian Princesses, as in our over-nights at Camp Abe Lincoln.)

We got into town a little too early.  It is August 15th, and I'm sure that all you Catholics out there recall that that means that today is the feast of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And they were definitely having a celebration here to mark the occasion.  Not a parking spot in town.  Fortunately, The Tivoli has free parking on site, and we were able to slide into rock-star parking next to our hotel.

We took a walk downtown after checking-in, made our way to the local tourism office (that was actually open and helpful!), and took our brochures to seats at a cafe table in the boulevard in the center of town.  We had beer, not wine, but it was a very Continental moment.  (Wesley Snipes -not my fav by a long stretch- did a movie many years ago called The Art of War that ended with him and his love-interest finally getting together after lots of blood and back-stabbing at a cafe in the South of France.  For a non-movie-person, that scene stuck with me.  Sorry.)

We tried to find an open wine shop, with no luck, and then decided to check out a shopping area on the edge of town.  To no avail.  Everybody closes early here, I guess.  After a drive up the Col d'Aspin to scout tomorrow's ride (a bit scary!), we had dinner at a small pizzaria with a bottle of regional red called madiran.  Not too bad.

Sorry to make this a bit of a travelogue today, but you get what you get.  After our ride in the AM, the plan is to drive over to Lourdes in the afternoon.  We are a little apprehensive of the crowds (which makes today's following of Google Maps rather than an alternative route through Lourdes that I had originally considered an unwitting bonus based on the crowds here today!)  We'll see.

OK.  To bed for us.   Fare on the local TV?  Law and Order SVU...in French.

Sunday

We weren't quite prepared for the city's Sunday shutdown.  On a prearranged plan, I had let 4 sleep in for some extra shut-eye, and I had simply taken a leisurely 90 minute ride within the city limits.  I stopped at a nearby bakery and brought some fresh things back to the hotel.

Again, as planned, we did the "touristy" thing after showers and visited the art museums and the big cathedral.  All on foot.

The next item on the agenda was to be laundry.  But we were told that the local places would be closed on Sunday.  We took another walk and confirmed the closure at the one place that we had an address, and also confirmed that 90% of the commercial places in town were closed as well.  Other than a few cafe's and bars, most of the shops were fully shuttered.  And more than a few were on a two-week vacation.

So after our second walk, we enjoyed Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder...in Spanish.  (I've grown tired of BBC and CNN, the only English channels on the tube.  Their constant drum-pounding of the world news of war, famine, the-USA-is-a-pig, and save-the-planet mentality gets old quickly for me.)

Tomorrow is moving day.  The plan is to leave before 1000 hours for the Pyrenees.  We have a small detour back through our favorite town of Bilbao to swap out cars.  The LtPC had a relatively minor problem in the hotel garage the other night.  The over-hang in the garage is not an issue when you pull into the spot front-first.  Not quite the same when you back in as I did Friday night.  Maybe my first ever accident in a rental car.

I had an email exchange with American Express and they say that a switch of cars should be no problem with my coverage.  Hmmm.  There are a number of moving parts that make "easy" not the word that comes to mind here.  I guess we'll see.

Obviously, not much news here.  I'll maybe jump back on after we get back from dinner.

BCOT

Saturday

Another day in paradise!  Good ride this AM in the country South and West of Vitoria-Gastiez.  Weather remains very favorable.  I don't get the impression that this area would be categorized as arid, but we've seen no rain in our time here, and there's not an abundance of streams and ponds near the roads that we have ridden.

Here's today's pic of the Daughter of the Day.  She broke out the Hawkeye colors for Saturday.  (Is there football in the air?)  We chose a route South of the town where we are staying.  If we were hard core, we would have taken to the bigger hills that jutted onto the road that we had selected, but decided to bypass that work.  This area is jigsaw-puzzle pretty, but does get a little old after a few hours on the bike.  I'm thinking that the Pyrenees will kill me if I find these "bumps" imposing.

Just to remind us that we are not that far from home, here is one of the pieces of local faming equipment.  The "green machines" have been frequent sightings in the farming areas that we have visited.  (It appears to have been just past harvest here of either oats or a similar grain.  Many of the fields are littered with large bails of straw, bailed after the grain has been harvested.)

And here is a sample stack of the bailed straw.  I mean, Tahoe Phil could have done this in an afternoon, easy.  Imagine Grandpa H. throwing that last bail from the wagon while he was standing on it!  With these size of bails, that would be quite the trick.

4 and I enjoyed a quiet picnic in a park near the hotel just a while ago.  We found low-quality substitutes for chips and salsa at the local grocery mart, and opened a bottle of Rioja to pass the late afternoon.  Not a bad choice.  I'm guessing that we have the low 70's, little humidity and generally, top-shelf weather.

We are now headed out to find a dinner location.  I'll report on our success later.

Hey to the fam in NYC and the TC.  And 2 and The W back home.

BCOT

Friday....UPDATED

The new Home Page photo was taken today on our ride.  Pretty picture, eh?

Here's the Daughter of the Day beside one of the several sunflower fields that we saw on our ride in the country earlier today.  Click on the image to get a full-sized view.  We were in an area of smaller towns just East of Vitoria-Gastiez.  It was no more than 30 minutes by car to this area from our hotel, although we managed to make it in closer to an hour with our navigational skills.

I suppose that if you drove enough in Europe that you would get used to the traffic patterns, but for a rookie driving crew, we keep under-estimating the flow logic employed by the planners.  Just when you think that you have it figured out, they change the street names in the middle of the block, or fail to mention that a road carries two number designations.  Good excuses all to my American Sometimer's.

Here's a pic of our Hertz rental and our bikes.  4's is on the right.  It's a little older model, but it has the same Shimano componentry as my good bike back home, is lighter than mine on the left, and the bike mechanic put the triple crank on it as well!  She'll absolutely kick my keister in the hills.

I really don't have much to add, philosophically, to day, so I'm just going to post a couple more pics.  We're on vacation!  The one is just a scene across the valley that we were riding in this AM.  The second is of our hotel as we came to it this afternoon. It's the building on the left of the pic above the street light.  And the final one is our entry into the lower level parking that I mentioned in yesterday's entry.

So we're off to Italian tonight..in Espana!

BCOT

Later...We did Italian tonight...with Spanish waiters, cooks, wine and everything else!  4 had a Hawaiian pizza, but they called it Piedimonte for the menu.  I did spaghetti with red Bolangese sauce.  Neither was too bad.  Nor was the wine.

Thursday...for Sure!

We are far from fully adjusted to the time difference, but today has approached normalcy as we had only the smallest of travel issues.  The exit from Bilbao was not without a couple of wrong turns and subsequent u-turns, but all-in-all, we found our way to Vitoria-Gastiez in less than an hour, 4 had our hotel pegged to the right street, and the hotel has on site parking to boot!

This hotel carries the Marriott brand in it's sub-heading, and it definitely has the modern, Western feel in the facility.  The underground parking requires the opening of an entry door from the street, but the access is wide enough that there is no problem getting to the parking like 2 and I had in Verona.  I'll post a pic at a later time.  The parking is included in the room fee, unlike the Internet access that runs 12.5 euros a day.  What a rip!  Then again, we are in a Marriott.  (The Bilbao hotel had free Internet, but charge 15 euros a day for parking.)

We found a wine shop just down the street, and the proprietor up-sold us to a 2008 bottle of Rioja red for 25 euros.  It's ok, but probably not quite top-shelf quality.  4 agrees.  We'll experiment with a lower cost bottle tomorrow to compare.  We had bought a cheap bottle of Rioja for under 10 euros yesterday, and it was just fine.  Not sure if the Rioja grape produces as dry of a wine as I prefer.

Housing for the local population is predominately 6-8 story high rises that are located from one side of the city to the other.  Some are older than others, but on our bike ride earlier today, we got out to the outskirts of town, and the newly developed areas are laid out with more green space, but the housing is the same...new 6-8 story buildings.  And there wouldn't seem to be that many cars with each building; certainly not the parking-lots-full that you see at the apartment complexes back in Iowa.  Either there is a huge amount of underground parking (not likely), or people take the bus or the tram (quite likely).

Hope 1 and 1.1 enjoy The Big Apple!  I'll be curious to hear how @srh4 gets along with 1.01 full time for the weekend.

4 and I have both noticed that public places here that play recorded music (bars, cafe's, etc.) most often use American artists.  (Although not a lot of Brad Paisley..!)  And the Spanish TV stations broadcast a lot of US programming with Spanish voice-overs.  BBC Worldwide is one of the few English-speaking channels, and while much of their programming is repeated during the day, the ticker at the bottom of the screen is in current time.

I owe my pal Bill big-time for running cover for me at the office during this trip.  He has a nice weekend get-away on me in his future.  If he can figure out the market successfully, I might spend more time off the grid.

I see where Tiger was able to card a nice little 77 in the PGA golf tourney this AM.  Hmmm.  I think that he has the possibility of never coming back to his old form.  Another 77 tomorrow and he misses the cut, meaning that he doesn't play the weekend.  It used to be that the bookies would offer bets of Tiger versus The Field (all others) in the big tournaments.  I'm not sure if those days will ever return.  I don't lose much sleep over this issue.

And what's with this rioting business in England?  It sounds like there were opportunists who used a smaller controversy to ignite an outbreak of thuggery.  The roll of social media on the Internet in the riots will be looked at to determine if sites like Twitter and Facebook need to be shut down in certain instances.  (Pretty sure that 4000 Days is safe.)

The plan for tomorrow is more of today.  We'll get our ride done in the morning and then spend time exploring Vitoria after lunch.  There's an art museum of some note here, and we'll give 2 some props as we check it out.

Looks like it is time for 4 and I to head out for dinner.  I may jump back on here later.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT

Wednesday...I think

OK.  So we are ensconsed in our hotel in Bilbao.

Let's get this settled up front.  4 is Daughter of the Day.  And likely so for the next several days!

The trip over was certainly an adventure.  Makes you wonder why you do months of planning only to have the airlines make it like a new deal when you show up for takeoff.  I had received probably four revisions to my itenerary by email notification from the time that I made the original reservations in early Spring.  And I had checked just last week to make sure that we were copying the right one for our travel files.  I had received a short courtesy notice last weekend to remind me of the trip.

When I tried to check-in online on Sunday, I wasn't allowed to do so, and I figured that it was because of international travel.  On Monday at airport check-in, the kiosk wouldn't work for me, and a decent agent in the Priority Club line saw that a revised departure time for out homebound flight to Moline next week from Detroit was before our arrival from Paris.  So she had to rebook that leg before we could even get boarding passes for the departure from Moline.

I'm not going to bore you with the details from the stop-and-go aspects of finally getting here to Bilbao.  It just wasn't a lot of fun.  The seats in the trans-Atlantic flight were very tight for me.  Sardine-ish.  We were in the middle section that had three seats toward the rear of the plane (with there being two seats each on the other side of the aisles that bordered our middle section).  French crew.  I don't think that either of us slept much, if at all, on any of the flights.

We missed our Paris connection to Bilbao by 10-15 minutes.  Which gave us an extra four hours to contemplate life in the distant terminal that Air France used to service regional destinations.  It would have been highly unlikely if our bags would have caught up with us for that flight.

We coud tell from the air as we were approaching the airport that Bilbao is hilly.  Temperate climate.  Plenty of trees and green grass.  The streets are European-narrow and the lay-out is hardly straight.  We were really lost last night trying to get back to the hotel from an evening excursion.  It seems a little easier in the daylight today.

We are driving a little Hyundai four-door wagon from Hertz that is serviceable.  The rental process was very easy.  The hotel is fairly modern,  and our room is fine.  We both slept hard last night when we finally hit the hay.

We are seven hours ahead of Central Time.  That's nine for you folks on the Left Coast!

The Guggenheim was interesting.  Actually, the building itself is probably the most intriguing thing to me.  They had some very modern exhibits going that stretch the term "art".  I liked the two Pollack's that were in the abstract galleries the best.  I'm going to try and post a couple pics here that we took at the museum before I sign off.

The plan from here is to go pick up our bikes, do dinner, and find some wine!  We check-out  in the AM and head South for about an hour to the town of Vitoria for four nights.

We're dong fine in Espana.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT...in the New World.

Thursday

Well, we are getting very close to departure, so why shouldn't we put The Guggenheim Museum up for the Home Page?  At a later date, we'll get a pic off one of our own cameras to record the Bilbao scenery.

And the heat wave has backed-off some, so that blizzard photo doesn't quite have the same appeal as last week when we were dealing with those extreme temps.

4 and I got out last night for a little 20-miler to stretch our legs.  She may not have the mileage in preparation of the trip, but she'll be plenty strong enough to do any hill that I might want to climb.

Did anyone else out there experience the Yahoo mail blackout yesterday morning?  I haven't checked out their story today, but I think that most of their mail system was down for several hours.  Initially, I got rejected password notices on my smart phone, and re-inputting of the existing password failed to gain access.  So when I got to my desktop, I went through several iteration of the Password Reset feature...to no avail.  I began suspecting phishing as the problem. 

I put the issue aside for a while for some client business, and when I went back to the website later in the morning, I was able to get on with a new password.  I had seen on a user site that there were people internationally who had had the same problem, so I figured that Yahoo had had a software glitch on their main servers.  Goes to show ya', we are really dependent on these provider sites for our communications.

Looks like my schedule over the next three days will also include The Winniferous.  2 is headed to the TC for business and pleasure (Hello 1.01!!!), so I get the extra company at my place.  4 declined to just step-in at 2's house.  Shock.

More later.

BCOT