We’ve boarded and done some exploring of the boat that will be our home for
the next 12 days. It is a very big boat. Jet lag is also slowing both of us
down this afternoon. Maybe it’s time for a nap?

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Good morning from Barcelona! We’re in the country of rapid-fire speakers
where my 1979 Spanish has no chance. The night went fast (for me) but Nina
has come down with a cold. The day is just now dawning at 8 am in the
morning. We’ll do a little sightseeing and the off to the boat.

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We’ve actually been here for about 7 hours. The flight from Milan was
another uneventful flight — on time and no hassles. All the luggage
arrived. We took a taxi into town to our hotel and got a couple hours of
sleep. Our friends and traveling companions Gary and Pam arrived about 7
pm. We had a soda with them at a sidewalk cafe. They headed for bed and
Nina and I went to dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. Now it’s time for
bed and hopefully a full night’s sleep. Then it’s off to the cruise ship!

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We’ve arrived in Milan. The flight from JFK was on time followed by a very
long walk to the gate for the Barcelona flight. I like uneventful flights
and the one to Milan qualified. We’re this far and quite tired. Another
hour and we’ll be on our way to Barcelona.

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Last night we took mom and dad and met my brother Perry and his wife Chris
at the Pickleville Playhouse, located just south of Garden City, Utah on
the shores of Bear Lake. We had dinner followed by their melodrama
presentation. We had a great evening. Thanks, Perry for a really good time!

The dinner ranks among the best I’ve had at this sort of an event — the
so-called “chuckwagon dinner”. We all had the ribeye steak which was well
prepared and was a good cut of steak. The beans were very tastey! We
laughed and laughed throughout the play.

One of the joke lines in the play had to do with the hero being unable to
find a job, even at Convergys. Now Convergys hires anyone! It’s a call
center operation with locations in Pocatello, Preston, Rexberg, Logan,
Ogden, many other places, along with a very large operation across the
street from the hotel I stay at in Manila. At intermission my brother and I
talked about this story line. A young lady behind us said she could think
it was funny except she worked at Convergys. It was the only job she could
find … and she’d been working there for seven years!

The drive home was much faster than the drive over. It’s been a long time
since I’ve been over there. It has really grown up and we need to go over
and do a little vacationing over there. It’s possible that the next Nathan
LeRoy Smith Family Reunion may be up there. I think that’s a good idea.
There is plenty to do in the area. Another place we need to explore!

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We have arrived in the last campground of this trip. It seemed like a very
long day! We arrived at about 8:45 pm MDT. We left Iowa City at about 5:30
am MDT and stopped in Winter Quarters for about an hour. We ate lunch and
dinner while driving. We’re tired! The day tomorrow should be another long
day. We have to go by the Salt Lake airport to pick up my car. We’ll tow
the car back to Pocatello. I think we’ll be home about 6 pm tomorrow night.
It’ll be good to get home.

We’re in the KOA campground in Laramie (exit 310 — so there’s 310 miles
left in Wyoming, another hundred to Salt Lake, and then a couple of hours
north to Pocatello). This is a nice campground. Very clean and inexpensive.
There is high-speed internet but I don’t have enough time to make the price
worthwhile. Meanwhile, Sprint has no service here, so the SprintPCS
wireless card doesn’t work either. However, the Blackberry seems to always
work! That makes it possible to post something to the blog tonight.

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We’ve travered about a hundred miles of length of Nebraska. The mile
markers say we’ve got another 335 miles to go. We’re still in the
corn-growing part of the state, but here all the farms have big (and
probably expensive) sprinkler systems. We stopped in the small town of
Aurora for gas and McDonalds. Gasoline is quite expensive and the
interesting part is that 89 octane gas is 10 cents a gallon cheaper than 87
octane gas! The higher octane gas has ethanol in it. We just had a crop
duster fly alongside the road!

We spend most of the state going slowly but surely uphill. We start in
Omaha at about 1200 feet. By the end of the state in Kimball we are at 4800
feet. By then the corn has turned into cattle and green has turned into
sagebrush.

The day is still relatively cool and there is a lot of traffic on the
freeway. Many, many trucks making theiir way east and west. There are also
a goodly number of campers, RVs and 5th wheel trailers. We’re in good
company, I guess.

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We have stopped for the night in Iowa City. All the campgrounds we called
further west around Des Moines were full. That’s kind of an amazing thought
— what brings everyone to Des Moines, Iowa???

This is my second time camping in the Iowa City area. The last time was in
1978 (that long ago?) when Nina was pregnant with Jared and had the
emergency stay in the hospital here. We had stopped in Nauvoo on our way
out west for a family reunion. A placenta previa problem ended the trip
here and after getting the VW bus fixed, we headed back home to Ohio. Now
we’re headed home the other direction and oiur trip will not end here!

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