Every Ride Tells A Story

I always think about how to start a new blog. This one came easy. I was setting in my "chair" in the living room when out the window I saw Steve Lippincott marching up the sidewalk with something in his hand. I opened the door and he immediately presented me with a new T-shirt. He and his wife Lynn had just come back from a vacation in the hills of North Carolina. While walking through a flea market they saw the t-shirt hanging in a stall. It was the only one, but they did not care the size, they were going to have it. They just knew I needed to own it......

  So here is the story.  We are off to Europe.  It has been a long dry spell. The construction project has kept us away for two years and I have really missed it. The adventure starts in Barcelona where I will pick up a scooter and with 20 plus of my friends we will head off into the Pyrenees mountains for two weeks of fun and adventure. Vicki will tag along for a few days and then she is off on her on adventure to the coastal city of Cadaques, where Mr. Dali lived, and then will move on up to Sete, France where I will meet up with her. A few days to get over the saddle soars and then we will make our way to Italy where Vicki will go to cooking school at Pamela Johns farm in Tuscany outside of Montepullciano.
While she is off stirring pasta, I will be at Daniel and Manuala's Villa Cappeto harvesting olives.

Cadques

Sete

She will join up with me after the school and we will make our way to northern Italy hopefully to visit places we have never seen before.

It will be finished off in Paris where I will celebrate my 70th birthday.

I was going to just travel and forget to blog, but, under the threat of death, I was told that I would blog.
I am glad you enjoy the ramblings of a lostboater, so as directed, here goes the blog.

There will two parts, the scooter part and the rest. It will be done in pages across the top as usual.

Back in the chair......

We are closing on our departure. I am setting in "the chair" and I hear, "would you come in here". "Why?" "Would you just come in here, please"?  "I am watching a movie and it is almost over."

"Come in here!" OK, I know that voice and I get up and go into the kitchen.

The Chair

I am met with a early birthday presentation, complete with present, wine and candle and small cake.

She sings Happy Birthday and I blow out the candle. The early birthday is another t-shirt. This is another custom t-shirt that Vicki is wonderful at designing. She needed to give it to me before the scooter event in Spain as Spain is part of the t-shirt. Now I have to figure out how to stuff it into a already overfull suitcase!

This a road map to the airways. We used these in the last century. Today it is all on a tablet or stored in one of the hundreds  of mini-computers on a airplane. We used to get updates by the hundreds on a monthly basis. I started bringing them home to use for wrapping paper and honestly, I was surprised that we still have some after over 15 years sense the last ones came in.

The scooter rides

My Bag is Packed....

Never before have I had my bag ready three days in advance and now setting at the front door

I did not notice until I packed the wrapping paper from the tshirt that Vicki had actually used the one for St. Pete (PIE) and Tampa.  Attention to details.

NOW GO BACK TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE AND CLICK ON "Getting There" to continue.