Well, we were packed and on the road just before 11:00 am today. It was a day of learning some new things, such as ………………

- You should always fuel up your vehicle BEFORE you enter onto a toll highway that doesn’t have any gas stations on it for a hell of a long time, and the fuel gauge on your van is at the bottom of the RED !!!

- Being Nice, acting like a dumb tourist and trying to speak spanish with an english accent to the police officer that was outside the toll booth station, who didn’t seem to speak much english, goes a long way when you need some help. Shawn managed to convince him into letting us cross over the 12 lanes of trafic and through the pylons dividing the highway to exit out the opposite direction on the other side of the toll staion …..without having to pay the 20.00 euro toll.

(We then managed to find a gas station and fuel up before we ran out of desiel.)

- Restaruants in Spain ( at least the ones we came across ) don’t ever seem to be open when we are looking for one. We had potato chips (Ruffles) from the gas station for breakfast.

- The TOM TOM G.P.S. navigating unit Shawn bought is a great thing when it is programed with the correct info. However, if a wrong button is pressed and don’t realize it, you get to travel in a lot of circle’s and listen to what sounds like a drunken woman stutter a lot of the same comands over and over.

Shawn handled the driving from ALICANTE to VELENCIA today. The two hour trip took about three hours when you facter in the gas thing at the beginning and trying to find the place we were staying for the night, which was located in the original oldest part of Velencia. It is a pictureque area of beautiful ornate stone and marble buildings along winding and twisting streets that make absolutly no sence. It was kind of like that old addige “Trying to find a needle in a hay stack”. The Hotel was actually not located on a street, but rather down at the end of an alley that was not accesable by motorveihcle. We thought that was every convenent.

After a few cell phone calls and a walk-about while I wiated with the van, Shawn found the Hostal Antigua Morellana. We abandoned the van in a back alley half a block awayand rolled the luggage up the alley to the hostal and checked in. We took our bags up to the room and found a fair size room with a big windows and nice view, But only one small bed. While Shawn went to find somewhere to pak the van, I went down to the front desk and explained to the lady that Shawn and I are friends , But not that good a friends. She gave us a smaller room with two beds and no view.

We had lunch when Shawn arrived back to the hoel with McDonalds food in hand. He had brought me a “McRoal Burger Meal”.which was something different from thier North American menu, but I after eating it I didn’t feel like a king.

- Velencia, Spain is a lot bigger city than we expected.