Valencia - Day 6

565 Kilometers - 351 Miles

Unable to find one last night, I took another turn through town hoping to see a laundry this morning.  Didn't.  Did manage to get lost and wind myself around my own axle for about an hour trying to find my way out of this very confusing town.  Boy, I am amazed at how much I've become a slave to that GPS technology.  It's just so simple.  But, as you know, it ain't working for me here in Spain...so I keep spending hours looking for hotels and other things.  To heck with the desired landmarks...I need clean underwear.  My mother used to say when you can smell yourself others have smelled you for three days.  I'm washing myself, but the clothes bag and my do-rags are getting rather intense.

Finally got on the road out of Cordoba about 9:30 am heading east.  I had a short run of about 75 miles of full-blown four-lane, super-highway on A-4 heading toward Madrid.  This is the Andalucia region of Spain, in fact, I passed by a sign indicating the  La Mancha area famous for The Man From thingy.  I felt I could relate.  Making these trips without a GPS is like tilting windmills.

The center of the road between the opposing directions were planted with Azaleas, many in bloom.  It was very neat.  Just miles and miles of "Augusta fairway" on the highway.  Can't beat that.  I suspect it ran for four hundred kilometers all the way to Madrid.  Gotta love a place that is willing to do that.

I took this picture because there was something more than the usual three-foot of emergency lane so I felt I could stop.  There were sections, however, of azaleas six to eight feet high and in full bloom.  But, Murphy's Law prevails...there was no area to pull over and take the picture.  I'm going to have to get me a strong little lanyard so I can put this camera around my neck and take pictures while on the move.  Who knows, perhaps I'll get a picture of the crash...you know the one I have because I'm fritzing around with a camera instead of managing this 900 lb beast that is Betsy.

After leaving the slab at Linares I did run into my red flowers again. That's like Noah saying it looked like a little rain.  I came around this turn on the highway and damn near ran off the road when I saw the little valley in front of me.

I don't know if these came out detailed enough when you click on the picture to enlarge.  I certainly hope so.  It's just a rage of color down there.  With my new favorite little red flowers carrying the day.

I wanted to ride down there and pulled off the highway at the exit heading down.  But then I noticed it was straight down...and gravel.  The only way I'd take Betsy down that much gravel is if some one were up top shooting at me.  And then because I'd consciously choose to want to die at the bottom instead of the top, for some reason.

A little further down the road I ran into a small bed of the red flowers.  I don't know names of flowers but I know I like them.

As I stated earlier in the blog, the terrain around here certainly reminds me of Texas in the spring.  There are fields covered with lavender lilacs looking so much like bluebonnets it makes me homesick.  It's really a beautiful ride.  It's too bad we haven't evolved to where we can "store" all we've seen into "memory" then recall and save it on the computer.  I'd have pictures you can't believe.  (But, then, I'd forget which drive I stored them on, so it would probably wouldn't matter anyway.  Remember me?  I'm the guy who can hide his own Easter eggs.)


Oh, and the Texas comparison sort of goes away when you see this sort of thing interspersed throughout the landscape.

Once again, I rode around a big city looking for a hotel or a laundry for about an hour to and hour and a half.  Finally found a hotel promising internet service but it wouldn't connect, hence the reason for the late postings.    Couldn't stand the laundry situation any longer so I paid the hotel to wash my things for me.  Total came to 39€ for four pairs of underwear (not saying briefs or boxer), four t-shirts, three UnderArmor pull-overs and three pairs of socks.   That's about $55 US and just fried my butt that I couldn't find something as simple as laundry machines.  Hell, in most family-oriented US hotels they furnish washers and dryers for the purpose.  But...not here.  That's someone's "rice bowl," I guess.  (After giving it some thought, it dawned on me you'd probably have to pay me that much to do your underwear after four days on the road.)