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.

Sunday began with a bit of a false start. I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I quietly slipped from my bed and tiptoed in the dark to use the facilities. When I came out of the bathroom, Shawn was sitting up in bed with the lights on and his computer on his lap. He had left it open all night long with an on screen clock program running (with 7 inch tall numbers) and the alarm set for 9:30 am. I asked him what he was doing up so early, and he told me it was 9:00 am. I said “wow, these must be realy good Blackout curtains because I can’t see any daylight coming in”. I then opened one of the curtains to pich darkness outside. A little unexplained gittch on the computer somehow reset the time 3 hours ahead, it was actualy 6:00am. I beleave the next words out of shawn’s mouth were ” oh bleep bleep, what the bleep bleep am I doing up this bleepen early” or something to that effect. He reset his computer, shut the lights off and we both went back to sleep till about 9:00am. When we did get up for real, and had both showered, we went down to the breakfast room and had breakfast. It was the first place since London that offered a free morning meal. I enjoyed sliced cheese, ham, a crosonte, some kind of egg thingy, 2 pieces of toast and orange juice.

When we did get up for real, and had both showered, we went down to the breakfast room and had breakfast. It was the first place since London that offered a free morning meal. I enjoyed sliced cheese, ham, a crosonte, some kind of egg thingy, 2 pieces of toast with jam and orange juice. Nice !!!

It was then off to load the car and head out on the longest driving day of the tour, aprox six and a half hours. Shawn drove for about the first 4 hours and I drove the rest of the way.

Our room for the night was at a University, dorm room #2094 at a realy big facility

Their meeting got under way at abuot 8:20 with 24 in attendance. We met Andy from England, His friend Lioen who is from Spain, and one of the locals Ann.

It took about an hour and twenty minutes to drive from Seville to Puerto de Santa Maria, and arrived just after 1:00pm. After checking into the Hotel Los Cantaros we discovered it had FREE internet conection, Soooo …. We spent the next couple of hours in the room checking our e-mail and I sent an e-mail home to Cheryl, Jannna & Andrew.