Spain Expedition
Our
First Trip to a Historic Country
201070408-0503
Last Update:
20170502Back to Bill Caid's Home Page.
A nice pass witnessed at the Plaza del Toros in Madrid.
Sony A7RM2: 1/500 sec, ISO 100, 70mm (crop) at f/8
All photos copyright, Bill Caid 2016. All rights reserved.
The Trip
Spain has been "on my list" for a very long time
and the opportunity arose, so we jumped at the chance to head
off for a few weeks with Kathleen and my buddy Steve. We
decided that the best way to attack the jet lag that comes
with 9 time zones was to stop along the way. Neither
Kathleen, Steve nor I had been to Miami so we planned to stop
there for a couple of days on our way to Madrid. The plan
for Spain was thus: travel to Madrid for about a week and
explore the center of the country via the Spanish rail
system. Then travel to Barcelona via rail and stay there
for a few days. From Barcelona, we would rent a car and
head down the coast toward Gibraltar and Seville and then back
to Madrid.
Tracking Our Location Via The SPOT
Some years ago, after a scary mechanical failure in the canyons and mesas of southern Utah, we decided that we need a better way to advertise our position and call for assistance if needed. Kathleen found out about the SPOT which is a GPS locator that transmits your coordinates via satellite so that others can see your location. The location is plotted on Google maps and a "bread crumb" feature is available for an additional fee. We have the enhanced service, so you can see our historical path back 50 updates or so. See our current location plotted on Google Maps in Real-Time via SPOT satellite geo-locator device. This page is "book-markable" and is updated approximately every 15 minutes, but may miss updates due to inability of our transmitter to reach the satellite. The communication is "open loop" so the device never knows if it's messages are actually going anywhere, it just keeps trying until the next update is available. If we are in a congested urban area with high buildings (like Manhattan) or in deep canyons, the position may not update. We try to send an "OK" message once a day just to let everyone know that we are, in fact, OK. Given that London as well as other remote areas has many obstacles (like mountains), it is not clear how well this capability will perform.Connecting and Contacting Us While on the Trip
Because of internet connectivity issues on a previous trip, we purchased a MiFi cell phone modem that allows us to connect nearly anywhere there is at least 3G service via cell phone (which is most of the cell phone service area available today). But, as we all know, cell phones are useful many places, but not everywhere has coverage, particularly in the remote areas of the country and outlying territories. Our phones and the modem are enabled daily so you may contact us, although it may take a few days for us to respond. But, we will respond. My email, spelled out, is "bcaid at yahoo dot com".Trip Details
The link
table below contains links to the photos and dialog for each
of the days of the expedition. This table will be
updated as the trip progresses.
Conclusions and
Advice to Travelers
Spain is a great
country; rich with culture and nice amenities. We had
good food, great wine and nice places to stay. To be
honest, it was much nicer than I expected and I had high
expectations. Yet again, we bit off more than we could
chew. We we to return again, and we likely will, we
would attempt to see less in more time and drill a bit deeper
into the culture. Spain should be on your list.
That said, beware that it is a popular destination and should
you want to see popular attractions, like the Alhambra, you
need to get tickets many months in advance or be disapointed
like we were.Back to Bill Caid's Home Page.
Copyright Bill Caid 2017