I’m looking out the window of the enormous, empty ferry at the coastline of Morocco, mountains rising quite impressively out of the Straight of Gibraltar. The huge mountain to our left was one of the pillars of Hercules (the Rock of Gibraltar being the other pillar) that formed the ancient demarcation of the Greek and Roman world. We departed from Algeciras, Spain just half an hour ago and should be in Morocco within the next 15 minutes - it’s only 9 miles across but the shipping corridor extends the trip a bit. We worked our way down from Arcos yesterday to the coastal city of Cadiz, touted as the oldest city in Europe and the harbor from which our buddy Christopher Colombus put everything known in his rearview mirror. After the rural countryside the vast business ... read more

We spent an evening and day wandering around the maze-like streets of Arcos, the streets so narrow between the white buildings in this town perched upon a cliff top that we wondered how cars (and full sized garbage trucks for crying out loud) manage to maneuver safely through them. They were built for horses, not diesels. Many of the cars here have completely mangled side-view mirrors, cracked, scratched, hanging by a thread. There is simply no room for error and if you’re a tourist and end up driving through the old town you’d better just hope to whatever higher power you believe in that that full insurance coverage is going to be enough of a safety net. The streets, especially when the cars aren’t coming down them, are so charming they’re almost surreal. You feel like ... read more

An internet connection in Burgau was non-existent and even back in Spain now we're having a hard time keeping one going long enough to post anything of significant length...so there is a little catching up to do... Our arrival in Burgau, Portugal came after a long day that started with having to sort out a credit card that our credit card company had lovingly put a hold on, concerned as they were that charges were suddenly appearing from the wrong side of the world. The two calls that I had made to them prior to our departure apparently wasn’t enough reassurance. Todd managed this portion of the day as I was a complete vegetable following a night of less than 3 hrs of sleep. We managed with the help of the GPS to somehow escape the ... read more

After three flights, 15 hours of travel and an exhausting, two-mile sprint with the rest of the people on our 1-hour late Madrid flight to make our last connections we finally found ourselves in Sevilla. Changed money, found the bus to take us into town and promptly got off at the wrong stop. Amateurs. Not to worry since everywhere is walking distance if you have the time and Todd did a great job negiating the narrow, confusing streets as my old-school GPS. We looked exasperated enough a couple of times that two separate elderly gentlemen stopped to attempt to help us. The first gentleman must have traced every road on the map with his knarled old finger about three times before figuring out where we were on the map...and there are about 3000 roads on the ... read more

How far does one have to travel to qualify for posting a travel blog? A happy dilemma that we have living here in the Four Corners is being surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery on earth. I thought I'd post a few pictures out to the world to show off the neighborhood. Subscribers that are subjected to my Facebook posts, you might as well get back to work because this will be wildly redundant for you. Thanks to agreeing (for some reason) to do a rim-to-rim day-hike at the Grand Canyon in a few weeks we've spent the past month's weekends high in the mountains 'training'. This typically means day hikes at decent elevations 9,000-13,000' with 20-40lbs. It's been a lovely excuse to ignore the mess in the house, the garden that needs to ... read more