An adventure postponed...December 29, 2020

 We woke up to a grey and lightly snowing morning. After sticking around the house in Chirivel, Spain the past two weeks, we are ready for a new adventure. We have been asked by several friends what we do to fill our days...

When we are not travelling it is amazing how fast the day goes, we have settled into a nice routine:

  • Tea and reading

  • Light breakfast

  • Yoga (we notice we have less flexibility as we get older and for the first time in our lives are doing yoga on a daily basis)* 

  • Tea/Coffee while working on retirement planning, financial planning, communication or studying Spanish

  • Lunch

  • House odd jobs: cleaning, maintenance and repairs

  • Run or bicycle or 3-5 mile walk (switch off every other day in general)

  • Relax for an hour - play a game or read or catch up online

  • Cook/dinner/dishes

  • Read/Game/Online communication or blog update

  • Watch a movie (if it is not already too late)


We set out on our journey around 11:30 am with a plan to drive around 3.5 hours to a town called Benahavis which is in the hills yet only 30 minutes from the Mediterranean. The reason we are heading to this small town is that a good friend of Herman’s, from when he was studying engineering at the Technical University of Eindhoven, just happens to have an apartment in Spain and is on vacation with his 14 year old son. We have not seen this friend for over 28 years! The last time we saw each other was in January of 1993 - the year Herman and I were to be married. That winter long ago, 4 Dutch friends had come to Portland, Oregon for a vacation and to celebrate the start of 1993 with my family, so as you can imagine, we are looking forward to catching up.


….Just after 50 minutes of driving, SAM started sounding really loud. We pulled off the highway somewhere between Baza and Guadix to check under the hood. It was really cold and windy.


We opened the hood and lo and behold, the exhaust system was separated, a pipe had completely disconnected and we could see the problem. We made lunch and waited until the engine cooled. Then using materials we found on the side of the road: a wire, olive can and some duct tape, Herman tried to temporarily repair the break so we could get back on the road.


He ended up discarding the olive can and using an aluminum beer can because it was more malleable. It was quite cold outside and necessary to jack the front end of the camper up to get to the repair. Herman was happy we had the yoga mat for him to lie on while working. 


An hour and a half later we were heading back to the bad weather in Chirivel to try and arrange for a repair. We could have called roadside assistance (ANWB) but figured it would be faster to head back on our own as opposed to waiting for a car part to come in an unknown city possibly for a couple of days.


Once we made it back to Chirivel, we contacted the ANWB and they were very helpful. From The Netherlands, an appointment for the following morning was made with a garage for us which was only a half hour drive in the town of Cúllar. 



*After casting around on the internet and trying various videos for the first three weeks, we found Tim from Yoga Dose who we really like. Currently we are doing his 30 day challenge introduction to yoga. Yoga Dose

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