Time To Get Out Of Here !

I know that after my last ramble, I left you with an anticipation that I would be publishing another one just a couple of weeks later, which would have been shortly after our last family visitor’s had departed. But to be completely honest, albeit I enjoy writing, I thought to myself, who really wants to read about someone else’s grandchildren visiting their grandparents for a fortnight, that sort of stuff doesn’t really mean very much to anybody else, or does it 🤷‍♂️ However, all I will say is that we did have a great time and it was really good to see them all again, although we do speak with them, via video chat, on an almost weekly basis, but it isn’t the same as actually seeing them in the flesh so to speak, the last time we did so being a year ago now. With the twins now having literally just turned 9 years old, and the youngest a couple of weeks short of becoming 6 years old, my goodness, how much they had grown up over those last twelve months.

It would be fair to say that we have recently had quite a busy time, what with our recent trip to Austria, and then, within twenty-four hours of our return from that trip, having our family visitors staying with us for nearly a fortnight, so the week after they had departed we felt that time was right to take a bit of a break ourselves, but not before doing some necessary domestics, which involved washing all the bedding and towels used by our guests, then catching up with our own laundry and doing a thorough clean, at least then, when we returned from our own rest break, all the domestics will have been done 👍

You may recall that for a couple of months now, if not more, Shazza and I had been considering taking a road trip to Northern Spain and, what with the continuing high and very oppressive temperatures that we have been experiencing in our part of the world, for months, with no rainfall worthy of any note since March, so we decided that now was the perfect ‘Time To Get Out Of Here’ to hopefully get to some cooler temperatures. Northern Spain, particularly the Region of ‘Galicia’, is commonly referred to as ‘Green Spain’ and that is for a very good reason, it tends to rain a lot in the Autumn and Winter months as well as it being quite Foggy with Ice and Snow and battered by the Atlantic storms, so we were hoping to get some hiking done on the trip, especially in the areas in and around the ‘Picos de Europas’ mountain regions, before they started to get covered with the white stuff which can start to accumulate in October, many parts of Northern Spain are very popular with Skiers in the Autumn and Winter months ⛷️🎿 However, on many of the roads at that altitude, it is mandatory to have winter tyres fitted between October and April and it is quite possible that some of the roads can get closed at short notice. So if we wanted to get a road trip in we needed to do it sooner rather than later. However, like most other parts of Spain this year, Galicia and Asturias regions have also suffered with unusually high temperatures and the subsequent drought conditions, so we were hoping to catch the latter end of the good weather by going now, at the start of September, when the daily temperatures would hopefully remain between 24-26 degrees(c), although the night temperatures could fall quite significantly, a drop of between 10-15 degrees (c), but for us that just meant not having to suffer with the intense humidity, either in the mornings or at night, like we have been doing, but the cooler temperatures often brought morning fog and low cloud so that too could potentially have an impact on where we could venture once up there, and what we could or could not do, but we wouldn’t actually know that until we were there.

Our plan, apart from heading North to Galicia, was to have absolutely no plan, with no predetermined route, no advance pre-booked accommodations and no particular time constraints, apart of course from us having to be back in four weeks time, as that was when Shazza’s mum would be flying out to stay with us for a fortnight. So, we had the potential, if we so desired, to spend anything up to four weeks on our road trip. Now such a trip would normally have involved me making some detailed planning logistics, with of course, pre-defined routes, pre-planned and advance booked night stop accommodations and with some sort of schedule on how many days we would spend at each hand-picked location, however, that was not going to happen this time, for I had promised Shazza that I would just try to ‘go with the flow’ on this occasion 😱 Although it has to be said that my constant companion, no not Shazza, my other constant companion, my OCD buddy, on hearing my agreement to this revelation, was already on the verge of having severe cardiac palputations so we shall have to see how that works out 😲🫨

From all of our frequent travels over the last nine years, we knew that the Northern coastline of Spain, namely Santander and Bilbao, were actually only a little over a ten hour drive away, easily reached, if we wanted to, within a day’s travel, but on this occasion we didn’t want to rush straight up there, there were still places up and along the route North that we had not yet visited, so we would just zig zag our way up and when we came across a village, town or even a city that we had not explored before we would then stop and have a look around, and dependent on when we got there, and how much time we spent exploring, we may then perhaps choose to then move on a little further and get a few more miles under our belt, unless of course we felt that we had done enough driving for one day, then we would look for a convenient place to park our heads for the night, wether that be B&B type accommodations or hotels, we were not looking for luxury accommodations, just comfortable one’s, a bed and en-suite bathroom would be our only preferences, we could stop en-route somewhere for breakfasts and lunches. We had a number of Accommodation type ‘Apps’ on our iPhones along with our trusty ‘Google Maps’ and even an old fashioned form of navigation, yes a well worn Portugal/Spain road atlas that we had kept from our Motorhome travelling days, although by now, as it was five year’s old, how useful it would be we would soon discover 🤭 Shazza had said that ideally she didn’t want to be driving for more than 4-5 hours each day, which seemed reasonable, she also said that she didn’t want to be travelling every single day, so hang on a minute, basically she did, when all is said and done, have some sort of a plan 🤔

Anyway, that is why I have not, until now, published another ramble, but, with our upcoming road trip, you can be assured that there will be several to follow in quick succession with, I dare say, the usual deluge of photographs just to give you a flavour of our road trip.

On the subject of photography, unfortunately, I had a slight accident with my trusty Canon ‘pocket camera’ when our family visitors were staying with us, whilst trying to take ‘action photo’s’ of the granddaughters playing in the sea, an unanticipated wave crept up on me and hit me with such force that I fell over, although natural instinct made me hold my arm out of the water, but still some sea water did get into the camera and, although I managed to recover the images from the SD Card, the camera, although it is still functioning, it is not working properly, so I have now had to resort to bringing my older, much larger and heavier Canon camera, out of retirement, for this particular road trip at least. I guess that when I eventually replace the smaller pocket camera I should also perhaps consider investing in a waterproof one 🤔

Now I do have to make a confession at this point, for although we had agreed, in principle at least, to not making any plans, other than perhaps to not doing any more than 4-5 hours driving on any one day, we had both agreed that we wanted to get out of our own Andalucía Region as quickly as possible as we had already explored a lot in this area, although perhaps not all of it just yet. Anyway, I knew that it would take us the best part of 3-4 hours, on Motorways, to clear this region, so armed with our already pre-agreed information, that being about limiting our driving hour’s, I may have just taken a sneaky peek at our proposed route out of Andalusia, and yes okay, I may also have taken a second sneaky peek at a potential hotel, in a town that we had not visited before, just for our first night’s stop you understand, but of course I chose not to share that bit of information with Shazza, well not just yet at least, what the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve about 😉 I am certain that Shazza will ask me the question about where we should make our first stop, once we actually hit the road on our Spanish road trip…………

By the time I actually get around to publishing this ramble, and you are reading it, we will already be on the road, somewhere in Spain 🤷‍♂️

To be continued…………………….

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena 😉