Last days in Spain, new plans…again!

We slept like the dead on our first night back in Spain after a long and fraught travel day. We managed to get over to Carrefour and restock before making our way to the petrol station to refill our propane tanks.

As you might recall, I worried about running out of propane in Morocco because so many of the campgrounds did not have sufficient electricity to run our refrigerator, so it was constantly flipping from electric to gas. Plus, we boondocked a few nights too. In the end, we learned a couple of things. First, the gauges on the propane tanks are mostly useless. Second, our fridge apparently sips gas.

We carry a total of 22 kilos of propane. In a very rough (and rounding down) calculation, that means we carry about 36 liters of LPG when full, full being 80%. (I can hear a couple of you reaching for your calculators. I’m looking at you, Jim Belisle and Bill Murray!) When we went to refill, the total amount into the tanks was seven liters. That’s right, seven measly liters in six weeks. Live and learn.

With that chore done we hit the road, heading back to the campground near Cadiz where we stayed before heading to Morocco. If there’s one thing I really dislike, it’s traveling backward to places where I’ve already been. This time, though, it was necessary. My Mom had sent a package from the States to this campground and though it was on its way for over three weeks, it did not arrive at the campground until the day we arrived in Morocco, so we had to go back and liberate it. Since we were going to be there anyway, we asked our French insurance company to send Bijou’s new paperwork there, but of course it never arrived after two weeks. Y’all, the postal service over here sucks! And don’t get me started on Amazon! Getting mail and packages is our number one issue over here. We are so spoiled in the States.

While in a full-service campground we took the opportunity to get all of our laundry done and de-sand Bijou. We are still sweeping up piles of sand a week later, so it’s going to take some time to get it all out. And to no one’s surprise, I had a new set of rugs ready to replace the old ones that were full of sand! We were being proactive about getting our chores done, because we wanted to try and meet up with Jason and Julie Buckley from Our Tour. They were moseying around southern Spain training and getting geared up for the half marathon run in Malaga at the end of March and we were going to go meet up with them somewhere. A message from Jason said if we can stay put in the campground, they were planning a stop there, too. YAY! I know I’ve said this before a thousand times, but as much as I love boondocking, it takes about a nano-second for my FHU pavement princess-self to take over. Yes, by all means, let’s stay in the full-service campground and meet up!

And so we did. After a “getting to know you” Happy Hour, we made plans to take the ferry into Cadiz and have a look around. The ferry turned into a bus, but once we arrived in Cadiz, the guys went to see a Camera Obscura (and didn’t, but had a great view from the top of the building anyway!) while Julie and I found ourselves in the fabulous Central Market, full mostly of very fresh fish. She introduced me to a popular fried thingy made of chickpea flour, some other stuff and teeny tiny shrimp. I could see their little beady eyes looking at me as I ate it. Julie suggested we turn them over and eat them upside down. Voila, no beady eyes. They were delicious and later, Steven had a plate full of them for lunch!

It was a treat for us to meet up with Jason and Julie, or as they are known on their blog, Jay and Ju. Even as we were traveling in Scoopy we were reading their blog posts and their books. Current virus situation notwithstanding, if ever you consider motorhoming in Europe, their books are a must-read! If not, well, you’ll still enjoy following along with their part-time travels, which they have been doing since 2012, so they know some stuff. When we were researching which make and model of motorhome we might want to consider buying, we came across a video walk-thru Jay had posted of their new-to-them Hymer B544, Zagan. This was their second such model, so they knew it worked for them. After watching the video, we knew it would work for us, too. There were a few folks that tried to talk us out of it (mostly salesmen) but we stuck to our guns and now we have Bijou! So take a look at their blog, especially this post about our meet up in which they make us sound like the most interesting RVers ever 🙂 Seriously, what a super nice shout out, thank you, guys!

When we first arrived in the campground our plan was to get our chores done, play a little with new friends, then make our way to Barcelona and catch our ferry to Italy. Well, as you all know, that didn’t happen. Our ferry to Italy and subsequent ferry on to Croatia were both cancelled. Morocco closed it’s borders just days after we left stranding hordes of motorhomers. Had we managed to arrive in Croatia we would have immediately been quarantined in a government facility for two weeks, at our own expense. That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I planned our Croatian travels. With the ferry companies making decisions for us, we decided to forget the southern coast of Spain and just head north toward the border.

It took us three days to reach France. Luckily, there was plenty of free overnight camping still available and each night these places filled with motorhomes trying to get north into France to try and get on a ferry to the U.K. It was like the Great White Wildebeest Migration. Many ferries have been cancelled, so understandably folks are in a bit of a panic. No sooner had we reached France than Spain had gone into lockdown. Later, France announced the closing of all “non-essential businesses”. That’s pretty much everything except fuel stations, grocery stores, medical facilities and pharmacies and banks.

On each of our travel days we started off with a plan, but at the end of the day, things had changed so much we had to rethink everything. We had hoped to stay in France just a couple of weeks then head for Germany and perhaps beyond. Not gonna happen. Although one thing in our favor right now is that unlike Italy and Spain, movement in France is not restricted (as of this writing). That means at least we can travel and find somewhere to hunker down. I resisted mightily the idea that our travels needed to come to a stop for a while, but I have resigned myself to that reality.

As we traveled through Spain, I “celebrated” in the most non-celebratory way, my 63rd birthday. Numbers usually don’t mean much to me, but this year, all I can think of is how I am lumped into a “higher-risk” group should I be unlucky enough to become infected with the coronavirus. Happy freakin’ birthday to me, right?

So as of this morning, here’s the plan: in a few hours we will continue our trek through France, and with one final overnight at an aire suggested by our friends the Motoroamers, then the following day arrive at our ultimate destination, Sens. Sens is in the area where we stayed for a month when we first arrived in France. We are familiar with the area, we like the aire, we can receive mail and packages and should the need arise for us to travel back to the U.S., we can store Bijou and catch a plane out of Paris, which is about an hour north of Sens. That’s as far as we’ve gotten. If we arrive in Sens to find the aire closed, then we’re back to square one, again.

NEXT UP: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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