So upset/sad over Notre Dame :(

April15

I am devastated, Notre Dame is one of my favorite churches and buildings in the world. I have visited it so many times and had so many beautiful quiet moments within it. It was one of the first places I visited when I was young on my own on a solo trip :(.

My thoughts are with the French People and France tonight :(, an absolute tragedy for a symbol of France. It can be rebuilt and will be rebuilt. I hope I can help in some small way when that starts.

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Valencia Part Deux

April3

Just some shots of things we’ve been doing around Valencia :), we love this city!

This is the BEST cheese I’ve ever had, Manchego has been my favorite cheese over Asiago for a while now but this stuff is crazy good.

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Spain Road Trip 2019!

April3

We went on a 2-week road trip around Spain and had a blast (plus a few stops in Portugal).

Where did we go? Here is a rough sketch…

… so all over!

Our first stop was in Merida which is the old Roman capital of one of the 3 Spanish provinces. The ruins were amazing! I’ve been on a big Roman kick for a while now! They also had a fantastic Roman museum.

I brought my bike, but after an injury I discovered on day 1 I took a break the rest of the time :(. I hope to come back and do some serious riding next time.

I’ve always wanted to see an olive tree up close :)

Calico also had his first real cake on this trip, which he enjoyed a lot as you can see here (we usually call it mama cake and explain it is just for mamas):

From there we went up to Caceres Spain. Many years ago I started part of the silver Camino route from there. We stopped there for a few hours to wander around. Then we packed up and drove to Coimbra Portugal. This was one of the many beautiful drives of the trip. I tagged a few castles I’d like to go back and explore. Coimbra is crazy hilly! After a night and a day exploring we headed to Porto Portugal. We loved it and would like to come back and spend more time there. We had an incredible lunch along the river.

After a few days in Porto we drove to Pontevedra and had an amazing lunch. Then we parked ourselves in Ourense for ~4 days (Galicia Spain). It was a good thing we did as Calico puked over my shoulder 10 minutes after getting out of the car. He had a little stomach bug for 24 hours that would eventually get both Lindsey and I.

Ourense was a great stop. They had free hot springs in the middle of town (which I used a few times). It was cool to soak in a bath used thousands of years ago by the Roman! While we were in Ourense we did a day trip to Santiago where I had one of many amazing Octopus lunches. We also did a day trip to a small beautiful town called Allariz where Calico made a new friend. Gustavo was a great host and a highlight of our trip (along with the amazing food and wine he picked for us).

As we were leaving Ourense to head to Lugo, (to look at the Roman walls still left around it) Lindsey started feeling bad. We made it to Lugo where she promptly threw up so we found a place to stay instead of our next destination. The next day she was a little better and we made it to Santiago. I haven’t been to Santiago since me and my brother were there ~12 years ago to run with the bulls. Unfortunately a few hours after we got to Santiago I got sick and threw up. It was a quick bug, but you do not have an appetite for a few days so that ruined our food plans for ~4 days (Santiago has incredible food). Regardless we had a good time wandering around and resting. After that we drove to the Pyrenees and stayed a few nights at a beautiful spot. Then we headed home…

We ate so much amazing food and drank some incredible wine. Calico is a fantastic lunch companion (esp if we pull out Netflix if he gets unruly). We had a lot of two hour lunches with multiple courses over a bottle of wine. Fun times!

Prices are fantastic in Spain, our nightly accommodations were around $40 USD to $75 USD. Everything from hotels to 3 bedroom apartments at that rate. The only place we paid more than $100 dollars a night was in the mountains in a converted farmhouse. There were many times we spent more on a huge lunch spread with a bottle of wine than our accommodation for the night. Otherwise we hit up grocery stores, bakeries, and cooked for ourselves. The rental car for two weeks was ~$650, but I upgraded so I could fit my bike in the back for an extra $150 I think (diesel Audi station wagon).

We generally drove around 1 to 4 hours a day. With only 2 or 3 days of 5 hours of more. We found that if we only drive 2 to 3 hours Calico is happy and everyone else is happy. There were always cool places to stop which made that very easy.

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This is bwb’s personal blog, so he can share his thoughts with the world, however scary or silly they might be. Plus family and friends can track what I am up to, and where I am in the world.

I am pretty simple. I love Mangos. I love the ocean (although mostly at sunset, as I’m a ginger). I love to travel, eat exotic food, do long bike rides, read, and use my imagination. At some point, I decided it was better to be a pirate captain than an admiral. I am a globalist and see the entire world as my responsibility and playground. And I am married to an amazing woman who makes life even more fun :)! And we are now the proud parents of Calico Jack :).


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