Road Trips
Madrid and Barcelona
Jul 13th
Madrid won my heart last week during my trip to Spain. Before departing for Spain, everyone I spoke with who had been to Madrid and Barcelona both told me I would absolutely love Barcelona, without so much as a word about Madrid. While I enjoyed my time in Barcelona, it is Madrid I would choose to visit on a return to Spain.
Barcelona’s beach and location on the water was beautiful. I spent my first night at the Hotel Arts, which was, in a word, lovely. I would have been more than content to stay there the whole trip, but I was lucky to get one night as they were fully booked the rest of my stay.
I then moved to the trendy 1898 Hotel in the old town and could not have left a minute sooner (look for my review in an upcoming eFlyer). My last two nights were spent at the EuroStar BCN Design Hotel, which was in a prime location for me, in the new part of the city and away from the touristy Ramblas, one block from one of the infamous Gaudi houses. The lobby was minimal, the rooms were large and contemporary and I had a balcony. The hotel was reasonable and I highly recommend it to any business traveler, single person or couple needing a reasonable, stylish hotel.
I spent my last three nights in Madrid, falling in love with the city. Perhaps my affection for Madrid stems from the fact that I am more of a city person than a beach person, but Madrid offered greenery, a stunning old town and more interaction with the Spanish people.
I spent three nights at the InterContinental Hotel and I was in close proximity – via foot, subway or taxi ride – to anywhere I wanted to be. I had a delicious traditional dinner in the old town at Botin restaurant and a phenomenal contemporary tapas lunch at Le Carera. The nightlife in Madrid mesmerized me with restaurants not even opening until 9 p.m.! I enjoyed the pace of the city and did not find it to be overwhelming. The architecture is elegant and beautiful. Madrid, I look forward to discovering more!
-Alex Young, vice president and associate publisher
A Summer Drive
Jul 10th
While the East Coast has been sweltering under triple-digit temperatures and sticky humidity this week, the Pacific Northwest has experienced its own heat wave. Most of Oregon and Washington have seen highs around the century mark, though without the high humidity in the East. Even the normally cool coast reached 93 on Thursday, beating the old record high by nearly 20 degrees. Facing a four-hour drive from my home in Southern Oregon to Portland on Friday, I decided I should leave early in the morning to avoid driving during the hottest part of the day.
What with attending to some last-minute work projects, watering all the plants thoroughly and dealing with a few unexpected interruptions and chores, I found myself finally rolling out of the driveway at noon. So much for my missing-the-heat plan; it was already nearly 90. Nevertheless, I decided to begin my trip with the windows down and the A.C. off. I cranked up the volumn on the Classic Vinyl station on Sirius radio and headed north on I-5. Zipping along at 70-plus miles per hour, I found the wind blowing through the windows kept me comfortable enough, and I was able to enjoy not only the sights but the smells of a beautiful if toasty summer day.
Some of my favorites:
 – The peppery-dry aroma of sun-baked pines as I climbed from the valley floor towards the first pass
– The sweet, fresh smell of new-mown hay
– The sharp, woodsy scent of bark and sap as I passed enormous piles of logs being soaked down by huge sprinklers in a sawmill lot
– The mossy, damp-earth smell of markedly cooler air as the road passed over several rivers along the way
 All these complemented iconic sights of a midsummer day:
– Broad-winged hawks coasting the thermals over the fields
– Heaps of round hay bales (“toilet-paper hay,” so dubbed by my daughters years ago because they do resemble large, tawny-colored rolls of t.p.) scattered across gently sloping hills
– Rippling fields of grain ripening to gold contrasted against dark-green stands of trees
– Piles of thunderheads heaping up against the Cascades in towering billows of white, purple and gray
I have to admit that by two o’clock — when I reached Eugene, traffic slowed to 60 mph and the temperature neared 100 – I closed up the windows and let the air conditioning bathe me in cool comfort. My favorite part of the drive, though, was certainly those first two hours, when all the sights and smells of summer surrounded me and jogged memories of past summer days. I hope you’ll have the chance to enjoy some summer driving this season, with the windows down, the tunes cranked up and the sun high in the sky.
–Â Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editorÂ
Holiday Weekend
Jul 2nd
Is it possible the Fourth of July is here already? The summer certainly is flying by!
The good news, according to an article from USA Today, is that more people are expected to travel this weekend than last year, a positive prediction for the travel industry. About 34.9 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home this holiday, a 17 percent increase from last year. As usual, the majority, about 90 percent, will travel by car.
I know some GT‘ers are hitting the road this holiday weekend. Fran Gallagher is heading to the Outer Banks, while Mary Carpenter, our fabulous intern, will be vacationing in Ocean City, New Jersey. Alex Young is heading out on an airplane, taking a trip to Europe. I, however, will be staying local this weekend, celebrating the Fourth of July at home with friends and family.
How about you, our fellow global travelers? Where are you headed this weekend?
No matter if you are traveling far or staying near, have a Happy July 4th!
– Kim Krol, eFlyer editor, circulation and public relations executive
Off the Beaten Track
May 29th
Our recent road trip from Chicago to Portland, Ore., involved the usual preparations: map out the route, make motel reservations, rent the truck, pick up some essential goodies and stock the cooler. Daughter Jenny felt it was also important that our trip include a few minor side trips to visit some unique if not downright odd roadside attractions, if for no other reason than to break up the drive and provide conversational (and blog) fodder for the long, dull stretches of the interstate. So she did her research and came up with several candidates, from which we winnowed the choices down to just one or two a day. I wasn’t terribly interested in roaming too far off our westerly route and eating up too many of our daylight driving hours aimlessly meandering unmarked backroads.
While certainly there are numerous historical sites, museums and natural wonders all across the country, Jenny sought the advice of RoadsideAmerica.com (“Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions”) to satisfy her desire to check out the more obscure and unsung attractions (and I’m using that term loosely) along our route. Even taking into account that we were traveling midweek before the summer travel season got underway, these places were quite deserted, and we were generally the only visitors in sight. Most were, as my dad likes to say, surrounded by miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. But I would not say I regretted any of our little detours; it was actually nice to get away from the roar and rush of the interstate and sink into the landscape for a bit.
Our first stop came on the first day of our trip as we ventured out of Chicago, across Illinois and into Iowa. We were looking for “The tree in the middle of the road.” Following the directions from the website and some cautionary words about rutted roads, we trekked several miles down gravel county section roads until we came upon our goal. An immense, 100-plus-year-old cottonwood tree rooted at the intersection of two roads loomed up before us. Its deep green leaves rustled and shimmered in a soft breeze against a beautiful deep-blue sky. We just stood and looked up into the web of branches, breathing in the scent of growing things and listening to the songs of meadowlarks and the peaceful calm of an early spring evening. After a hectic day of packing and then maneuvering an unfamiliar, bulky vehicle through traffic, those moments of stillness were a blessed balm to our spirits. Now that was a roadside (or, literally, in-the-road) attraction I could really appreciate.
Our second day was a long, soggy slog through a very rainy Nebraska, and we limited our explorations to an authentic (and rather tired-looking) tourist trap (complete with a large metal contraption identified as such hanging from an exterior wall) in North Platte just off I-80. This was Ft. Cody, honoring “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who owned a ranch nearby, purchased from the earnings of his very popular Wild West Show. It is primarily a gift shop with a few historical displays and a corny stockade. You can view the stuffed remains of a two-headed calf and check out some authentic cowboy gear (saddle, chaps, guns and the like) and a few impressively heavy and warm buffalo coats. We enjoyed a few giggles over the more tacky aspects of the place — a nice, bright memory on a gloomy, wet day.
The following day found us hundreds of miles away and thousands of feet higher in elevation, standing on a blustery Wyoming plateau at about 6,000 feet gazing up at a 60-foot-tall, pink granite pyramid. The pyramid was built by the Union Pacific Railroad in the 1880s to memorialize the Ames brothers, who figured large in the history of the company — until their shady dealings led to their downfall. A rail line once passed nearby, but now the monument sits alone a few miles south of the interstate and the “town” of Buford (population 1), surrounded by sagebrush, prairie dogs, antelope and fantastical stone outcroppings. Sparse, fluffy white clouds in a chilly blue sky had replaced the previous day’s gloom, and far to the south we could see the bright, snow-covered peaks of the Rockies. Once again we breathed in the quiet and sense of vast space, reluctantly strolling back to the truck as the many miles we had yet to travel pulled us back to the highway.
If you should take a road trip this coming summer, give yourself the gift of a few unconventional stops along the way. You may find them to be the highlights of your journey!
– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader
