Rental cars over the years

The freedom of the open road. Cool wind in your hair, warm sunshine on your face… ahhh…. ptui ptui! More likely than not you might get lots of sand, dirt and bugs in your face. And if you’re not careful, in the eye too!

That said, driving is fun. We are sure the many folks who do road trips will agree with us. And that’s why we thought it fun to share a little slide show of the many rentals we picked up over the years.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Wow. From luxury models to basic sedans, we’ve had the privilege of ‘test driving’ these vehicles over several days or weeks. Most recently we rented while on a week’s drive around the western side of Sicily. Oh such freedom to get around without constraint… oh well the only being finding parking.

Don’t you love road trips?

Cotswolds is enchanting indeed

The final installment of our blast from the past on the UK, we present to you the story of our little drive into the enchanting district of Cotswolds. Read all about it here. Our little soujorn here was simply a drive through on the way from Liverpool to London. You see, Mel had regular business trips to Southport from Amsterdam, and on one occasion had to return via London for a separate meeting.

Since the two business trips were a week apart, it did not make sense to fly twice. So why not fly into Southport one week, drive down to London for the next?

Sold!

But what was one to do over the weekend? Hence Suan came along to enjoy the hotel facilities while Mel was in the office. And over the weekend we drove south through this beautiful stretch of England and stayed there for 2 nights. This time though, we did our research and booked a B&B in advance… you might recall our earlier posts here and here.

A pity it was only 2 days that we had. For the Cotwolds deserved much more of our time. But as they say, this is just a starter and you’d be back for the main course. Except we did not till this day… sigh.

Have you been to the Cotswolds? Don’t you just love the feeling of being there?

Road trip to nowhere

In our part of the world, there used to be cruise ships that take their passengers out into the “high seas” and then seemingly follow a circuitous route back to port. Did you know what these passengers were aboard for?

Heheh.

Well, in this part of the world there is a penchant for wager. And with few licensed gambling venues (back in the day), gaming on ships out in international waters was one way. But you know we are not delving into this subject although it can an intriguing area to debate. Rather, it is about the fact that one could simply be on a road trip without a destination.

We wrote sometime back about how some folks are meticulous planners, yet others are more spontaneous (here). It can be ‘hilarious’ when folks of very opposing end of the spectrum come together for a journey…. trust us. Been there, done that. But we managed to emerge stronger which explains why this blog exists with all the constant sharing of photos from travels past.

But we can also be in a journey to nowhere in life too! Would that be what jumped into your mind when you first read the title of the post? SO let’s pause here.

And re-direct the question back to you who is reading this. Have you been on a journey to nowhere before?

Driving across Spain

Did you know that the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian were both born in present day Spain? It was considered one of the most important provinces of the Roman empire. How about the fact that most of Spain was under Moorish rule until the late 1100s before the reconquista gradually regained most of the peninsula?

Well, we were on a tour that would take us due south from Madrid.

Through the cities that inherited moorish legacies coupled with a Spanish resurgence. Especially during the 16th century as Spain established colonies in the Americas and exploited resources far beyond the dream of other sovereign states in Europe. You just need to be there. And for those who were, are or about to, we are sure you will enjoy the journey as much as we do. Read all about ours here.

We’ve read about many others who have explored these beautiful cities. And we do regret that it was a group tour that did not leave us a lot of time to dig deeper. Unfortunately all we had were snippets of the country, though an excellent introduction for which we will use as foundation when we find a way back.

Where in Spain have you journeyed to and touched?

Moving House

Heheh… thought we moved huh?

Well no. For this post is not about us moving away from our humble abode (our ‘castle’), but about a couple that has literally done that. Physically that is. Moving THE house, around the states of the US and Canada. Read here for the story. Now granted their little ‘house’ is really like a customized RV, it still brings a different view to the term “moving house’.

Homes.

This word reminds us of the dream that many a red dotter have. To have a portfolio of real estate, or at least a non-government built apartment. They call them ‘upgraders’, graduating from living in government built flats to pricier privately built ones. Not that the ones built by our government are poorly constructed (on the contrary if you have been reading our MRT series), just that it seems to be a status conferring thing…

Anyway.

Living a life of modern nomadism seem to have evolved. Now you can bring along more than just a large backpack with you. Just make sure you have a place to sit your home and voila! We are so tempted… not sure if we’d ever clock that many miles. Sure sounds like a retirement adventure to us. Yeah! Perhaps we will work towards doing that when we have to stop working (or when the work stops for us).

They say a “wo(man)’s home is his/her castle”. Have you been moving castles? Or do you build them in the air?

Can roads heal themselves?

For those who own an automobile, we are sure you’d be most familiar with the cost of paying road taxes that supposedly is used to maintain a fair condition of the very medium that one drives on. But what if these roads suffer a lot of wear and tear like they should and are not well maintained? Of course you might find a pothole or two.

And invariably you might get stuck on a traffic jam when road works take place when the relevant authorities decide to make road surface repairs.

Which is what made this article interesting to us anyway. If you clicked on the link, the title might appear to be incredulous. Imagine using cooking oil to help repair roads! But if one dive deeper into the article, the science appears to make a lot of sense. We hope this nugget piqued your interest to read it for yourself.

But today our post is not just about roads or how it is repaired. It is about the fact that we enjoy road tripping a lot, and that we very often encounter poorly maintained roads in our drives around some parts of the world. And it is only experiencing that did we come to appreciate how well maintained our own road network is on our little red dot. You sometimes need to go see if the grass is really greener on the other side.

So the answer is no. Roads will not heal themselves. But it’s just another ingenious way that has been discovered to potentially make work easier to do so. Good ideas make light work. Don’t you agree?