Yikes!

     

     The last thing you want when you’re traveling to a foreign country is to land at a darkened airport with no cell coverage, no language skills, and no way out because the country’s entire electrical grid has failed. And that's if you even get to land. Happily, that didn’t happen but yikes, many panic scenarios ran through my imagination yesterday when I heard about Spain’s massive power outage. Being only one of a mob of helpless travelers, it’s not like I’d be anybody’s priority for rescue. But hey, I lucked out that I’m traveling next week and not this one. I like to think that by the time I arrive, whoever manages Spain’s electrical grid will exercise extra vigilance after this week’s debacle.

                                                                               

 Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

     

     Yes, my next destination is Spain and again, there’ll be lots of cycling involved. After a few days of jet-lag recovery time in Barcelona, I’ll join a Backroads tour that takes us north toward the French border where we’ll ride through some areas of The Pyrenees. From there, we’ll make our way southeast to Girona and the town of La Bisbal d'Empordà, about which Wikipedia says “The modern settlement can be dated back to no later than the consecration of the church of Santa Maria de la Bisbal in 901.”  That’s the modern settlement, mind you. Before that, there was a Roman settlement like there was just about everywhere in Europe at one time or another.

     After the Backroads tour, I’ll spend a few cycle-free days before tackling another set of bike routes, all fanning out from the Girona area. I’m told that the Girona and Costa Brava areas are stellar regions for cycling so I’m eager for what I hope will be an enlightening experience (ha, see what I did there?).  I hope you'll check back and follow my adventures. 

     As always, I’m also very excited to enjoy plenty of delicious food and wine.  As I was surfing through accounts of yesterday’s outage, I was gratified to see a clip of several people, barely visible in a dark restaurant, intently forking up plentiful servings from a variety of platters. They looked like they had no worries in the world!