Camp Champions Blog

Remember when you were in elementary school and the measure of a good book was the number of pictures per word?  Well, this one goes out to your inner second-grader!

Barcelona rocks.  OK, I sound like a teen when I say that, but it is true.  Two days ago, my blog was entitled "Falling for Barcelona".   We have fallen.

OK, I assume some of you have been reading this blog in the way that the average NASCAR fan watches a race - you might like the race, but you are kinda hoping for a crash.

We love Barcelona. It is simply a fantastic city. So much so that we are getting to bed closer to midnight than 11PM. I cannot think of anything that we did today that I would want to take out, but it was a LONG one.

It feels a little patronizing to talk about a country/principality like a small pet.  I am sure that the fine citizens of this fine land would take exception to my American reaction.

But, damn, Andorra is cute.  Yes it is.  Yes it is.  Such a good principality.  Yes you are!  Who is autonomous and beautiful?  You are!  Yes you are!!

After a week of relative calmness, it was time for us to return to “Baskin Mode” (Wiley’s name for our travel pace).  Baskin Mode is an effort to cram a bit more into a day than a real human would do.  These days are fun, but can be draining.

We left the Aix Hotel early and headed west.  Our plan was to see the oldest and best-preserved castles in Europe, and to then arrive in our evening destination.  We have a huge distance between Florence and Barcelona, so we decided to break it into 2 days.  The first night was at the Aix, but tonight was more special.  I will explain in a second.

OK, we found it.

Yesterday was a full day.  After a few relaxing days in Tuscany, we decided to cover a little ground.

Yesterday’s agenda was to visit Pisa and then head to the medieval city of Siena.  This plan was conceived in the mind of a Texan.  I can read a map and convert kilometers to miles.  I also know what an ambitious person can get done on the roads of Texas.

Today, we were lazy.  We wrote, we caught up on emails and we did a lot of nothing.

I made a few calls.  We went on another hike.

One of my favorite stories about Susie is here love affair with Florence.  It shows her playful side and her sense of adventure, two of the attributes I adore about her.

When she was in high school, she studied German and was an exchange student to Germany.