Stepping out of the Groove: Segovia and vicinity

We are enjoying our last evening in Segovia sitting in our campsite sipping a little vino tinto con hielo. At least the adults are doing that….the kids are playing soccer. It has been a nice, relaxing stay. We had high hopes of making it to Portugal or hitting the El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, but none of us were all that crazy about the idea of spending many more hours in the car. We counted up the number of transitions that we have made on this trip a week ago. We figured out we have had over 80 different places to sleep on this trip. I think we are all a little tired of the itinerant lifestyle; dreams of home have been taunting all of us.

It was Rock’s 9^th birthday on Sunday, June 30. We took a day trip to the walled city of Avila. What a cool walled city! We walked around, found a much-desired banana popsicle and patronized a toy store – and bought the aforementioned soccer ball for the birthday boy. Rock also received an official Swiss Army Knife purchased in Switzerland.

Yesterday, we had a great day touring NW of Segovia. We found the medieval walled city and castle of Pedraza. We would have spent more time there, but of course it was closed on Monday. We found our way to Sepulveda, another cool old city, and then went for a hike in the Parque Natural De Las Hoces Del Rio Duraton.

Today was a lazy day of ping pong, catching up on email, and organizing another box to send back to the States. We fly to Cartegena on Thursday for a month in South America. We are looking forward to a new continent, while still being able to practice our Spanish a bit more.

We fly out of Madrid on the morning of the 4^th of July. We will be missing all of the fun 4^th activities that we traditionally participate in back home in Ouray. We will be missing the OMR breakfast and riding on the truck in the Parade.

This may be our last post until Colombia. Happy 4^th of July! Joanie