Tag Archives: Travel

Topless it is!

We’re going topless! Why? Because it’s more fun!

Raeski found this seat removal kit for Minis online and ordered it. Wow, what a difference it makes. After installing it the choice was simple. There’s an amazing amount of room in that little car once the back seats are gone.

Tomorrow we take off for a three week adventure. The first day will be a long one as we will be driving over 500 miles. I’m looking forward to it because we are escaping the heat. Today it reached 109F or for those living in most of the world, 43C.

Our first side trip tomorrow will be a side trip to Goosenecks State Park to catch an outstanding view of the San Juan River a few miles upstream before it flows into the Colorado River. It’s 10 miles of dirt road that’s going to really mess up a clean car. I’m curious to see if we get much dirt in the car while driving with the top down. My guess is we might end up having to put the top up. In the past when on dirt roads the back of the car got quite dusty.

After the Goosenecks we head to the Moki Dugway which has a couple of great viewpoints overlooking the Valley of the Gods. From what I have seen and read the valley is like a miniature Monument Valley. After that we head to Blanding to check into our hotel.

But we’re not done yet. Tomorrow night we are going to Natural Bridges National Monument. Why at night? Because they have some of the darkest skies in the lower 48 and Wooly wants to try to photograph the Milky Way.

Where’s Customs???

Hey everyone, we’re here! After a long flight and routing that took us first to Frankfurt and then to Barcelona we finally arrived with very little sleep and things to do. The nice thing about this route is we got to fly over the Alps and the clouds weren’t covering them. We will definitely be back to explore those mountains and valleys sometime in the future.

Even though we were only changing planes in Frankfurt the Germans stamped our passport. Oddly enough, when we got to Barcelona we claimed our bags and went out the “nothing to declare” customs line.  Guess what, no customs at all! Not even a stamp on the passport! Nada! Nobody even looked at us!

The Renaissance Hotel is right in the middle of things and very nice. Even though we wanted to sleep we went out and had tapas across the street from Gaudi’s Casa Batllo. Next was a show at the Palau de la Musica Catalana. Now we are exhausted, sleep deprived and ready to hit the sack.

Maybe mañana I’ll find out what the deal was with customs. Too tired now to care about it.