Viva Catalonia: Barcelona

After the troubled ending to the Switzerland part of the trip, Sarah and I flew Swiss Air to Barcelona.

It started with her luggage not showing up on the belt after the flight.  She asked me to stand in a long line at the lost luggage counter while she checked the other belts in the baggage retrieval area.  It was a happy moment when she showed up rolling her small bag.

We shared our taxi into town with a young Australian woman who was in Spain for a wedding.  Talkative, that girl was.

We arrived at our hotel, the Tryp Apolo, just a few blocks south of the Gothic Quarter. 

Wanting to use the rest of the day properly, we headed up to the Placa Reial for something to eat.  We ran into Roland and Penny who recommended a restaurant that we ended up visiting.  The food was very good except the fried anchovies.  These are a Mediterranean favorite, but not for us.  They are whole, tiny fish battered and fried.  They taste ok but are full of bones.  I had a the feeling of a bone stuck in my throat all that night.  When the server saw that we only ate a few, he took them off the bill. 

We just hung out that night, resting for the upcoming adventure.

The next morning we had to be down in the lobby to pick up a bus to take us to the scooter rental shop. We waited and waited, then Warren decided that they weren't coming so we took the subway.

The shop had our paperwork prepared in advance, thank you Maria, so the wait wasn't long. 

We had the option of taking insurance or not on the scooters.  I originally said no but changed my mind and paid 240 Euro for the coverage that I never used.  It gave me peace of mind that was probably worth the cost.

We rode it back to the hotel, then set out on the subway to see the world famous La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's cathedral.  It is impressive, but an architectural mess.  Gaudi's vision and his work so unique and charming, but the subsequent work is so different that I do not understand.  Still worth seeing even if we didn't go inside.

From there Sarah decided that we would walk to Gaudi's Parc Guell.  Little did we realize that the mile and a half walk was from the flat area of town to what appeared to be the top of a mountain.  It was uphill the entire way, getting steeper as we got closer.  But it was worth it as the work of Gaudi and the views from the top were wonderful.

We chose a taxi to get us back to town, having the driver drop us off at Placa Reial again for a late lunch at another restaurant.  We picked this one because it had a line while we were dining at the other.  The reason was that the prices were lower.  The food was ok and the beer appreciated.

We got back to the hotel in time to cool off and prepare our gift bags for the kick off dinner with everyone.  Our bag included candy from Sweet Pete's, a Jacksonville candy maker's store.  We also threw in chocolate from Lindt that we purchased in the Lindt factory chocolate shop in Kilchberg, just a few kilometers from Loogarten.  The bag also included a small rocket sticker and one from Jacksonville.

It was great to see everyone again.  This year included two new riders, Suellen and Penny.  I knew Suellen from the 2014 Scooter Cannonball Run.  I had found her to be one of the coolest people I have ever known, always smiling and responding to any situation with a clever, sweet solution.  It was nice to see her again.  She and Sarah hit it off immediately.

Tuesday found us heading to Gerona.  That will be the next post.

Placa Reial

Waiting for the bus that never came

  Mileage on the scooter at the rental shop, in kilometers.

Kymco Grand Dink.  Who names these things?

La Sagrada Familia.  The good side.

Steep climb to Parc Guell

In the park

Beautiful rough stone work

Sarah in the park

Looking down to the cathedral

The raised terrace at Parc Guell.  Famous mosaics by Gaudi. 

Yamaha Xmax vs Vespa GTS 300

Since it came out last year I have been tempted by the Yamaha Xmax.

It’s engine is only 300 CC, but typical of Yamaha, it’s performance is much better than its modest engine specifications would lead you to believe.

The reason to get a new scooter is that my three Vespa GT’s are old with questionable reliability.

Vanessa expired recently and the other two could fail anytime.

But Vespa scooters are so cool that I started to consider a new 300 GTS.

7 Bridges Scooter Club had the longest Sunday ride in a while today.

We had a new rider on a new, vintage red Vespa GTS 300 Touring. What a beautiful machine.

Dave, the new rider rode back to Jacksonville from Jasper with me.  I led.  The route included 20 miles of I-10, where I ran between 72 and 78 mph on Rocket, a 2006 Vespa GT with 88,000 miles.

I stopped as we got into Jacksonville to thank Dave for coming, inviting him to ride with us again.

While talking, he said that he had to run wide open to keep up.  I mostly had throttle to spare on my old scooter.

That was all I needed to hear to make my decision.

For long rides, the Yamaha is at least ten mph faster and has much more underseat storage.

It gives up a lot in style, but I am keeping at least one Vespa for many rides. I will still have a stylish scooter.

The Xmax is bigger, less expensive, more fuel efficient but not too pretty.  But it should be great for cross country jaunts.

I hope the seat is comfortable.

We lost Marianne

As I mentioned in the Switzerland post, Marianne Keller-Kolliker was an important part of the Florida Leutholds for the past 39 years.

My parents found Marianne and her husband Heini in 1979.  They became fast friends, traveling back and forth from Florida to Switzerland many times to visit.

I visited with her in 1981 with my friend Mike, 1987 with Sarah, 2007 with Sam and Sarah, 2016 with Kylie and with Sarah this year.

This visit was perfect, right up until the last night.

We spent the first three nights with Marianne in the wonderful lakefront house, Loogarten.  Then Sarah and I drove to Thun to spend two nights with Ruedi and Regula (Marianne's niece).  There we spent one day seeing Thun and Bern, the next on their boat in Lake Thun.

On Saturday, we drove back to Oberrieden talking about what a perfect visit we had, seeing Marianne, Cristof (Marianne's nephew) and his wife Justin.  That day we spent much time with their son Valentin, visiting Chaserrugg, a mountaintop nearby.  The time with Ruedi, Regula and three of their four grown children was very special.

When we arrived at Loogarten, ringing the doorbell got no response.  Sarah and I looked around the yard and the adjacent garden.  No Marianne.  Sarah noticed the doors were open on the second floor balcony.  I told her that we should find a ladder and she said one was on the side of the house.  We got it and I climbed up and let myself in.  After looking around I found her unresponsive on her bed.  We called the Swiss equivalent of 911 and the emergency crew arrived within minutes. 

They took her to University Hospital in Zurich.  I followed thirty minutes later but was told in the emergency room that I couldn't see her, offer advice or be told anything.  That was reserved for close family. 

Sarah later heard from a neighbor from Marianne's house in Muttenz that she had a cerebral hemorrhage and her chances of survival were very low.  She passed on Tuesday morning.

Needless to say, it was a shock to us and everyone.  We considered staying, delaying the ride in Spain, but because we couldn't contribute much, chose to move on. 

Marianne was the perfect host.  She opened her house to everyone in the family over the years.  We all visited around 2016, Scott, Lisa and the girls, David, Dee, Liz and the boys.  We heard stories from Marianne of those visits.  She so enjoyed seeing everyone.

While there she would prepare breakfast and dinner every day.  We usually traveled in our rental car during the day and would pick up lunch on the road.

She was Switzerland to me, and Switzerland is such a special place.  She was such a close part of the family that it hurts even more.

That was so evident when Sarah and I awakened Sunday morning and she wasn't there.  The warmth of Loogarten had vanished.  It was just a house that morning. 

My life will never be the same.

At the last dinner we had with Marianne.  

She prepared everything, as usual, and invited Cristof and Justine to eat with us.

Marianne and Heini.  Probably on the first visit my parents had with them in 1979

Probably 1979, Marianne, Dad and Mom on a mountain hike

Marianne and Sam at the cemetery 

Sam, Sarah and Marianne

At a regular visit to the Lindt factory, just five kilometers from Loogarten.

Marianne and Sam at the cemetery in back of the church in Oberrieden.

With Sam on a mountain top.

Marianne prepared lunch and invited many of the relatives

to visit while we were there with Sam in 2007.

We all ate in the back yard at Loogarten.

With me at the overlook during the visit with Sam.

With Sam in 2007.

With her brother Armen at his vinyard.

Talking in the kitchen at Loogarten.

At the Rheinfall with Cristof and Justine.

With Regula at their mountain house.

Marianne would come everywhere with us.  She was a trooper.

Kylie and Marianne at Rigi.

At the overlook in Oberrieden.

We would go to this place on every visit.

In the sunroom at Loogarten, where we would have drinks and snacks before dinner.

Sarah and Marianne in the kitchen at Loogarten.

She picked out a route to take us over the Klausenstrasse.

We had lunch at a mountain hotel.

Sarah and Marianne on the porch.

With Valentin on the porch at Loogarten.

The last photo I have of Marianne.

The sun was down and the light low.

I saw a photo and took the blurry shot.

Little did I know it would be the end

Switzerland

I have traveled to Switzerland five times since 1981.

Sarah and I went back three weeks ago to visit Marianne and the other relatives who have become family to the Florida Leutholds.

This visit was spectacular.

We flew into Zurich, rented a car and drove to Oberrieden to the lakefront house called Loogarten. 

This house was the home to three women, all Leutholds, when I visited there with my friend Mike in 1981.  The three were all in their 80's and 90's then.  They were Elizabeth, Lydia and Johanna.  Lydia was the mother of Heini, who my mother found in the late 1970's.  Heini and his wife Marianne became fast friends.  They would trade visits every year for the next twenty or so with Heini and Marianne coming to visit Florida every other year and my parents going to Switzerland on the off years.

Through them, we met other relatives and are staying in touch, visiting with Ruedi and Regula in Thun this time and having Cristof and Justine visit while we were in Oberrieden.  Sarah and I traveled with their son Valentin on one of the days too.

Switzerland is the most beautiful country I have visited.  The natural scenery is unmatched with the lakes, farms, meadows and alps sometimes all in the same view.  The small towns are lovely and Zurich, Bern, Thun and Basel all being filled with people working, shopping and visiting.

I could easily live there.

From the cog train heading to the top of Chaserrugg.

Sarah and Valentin at Chaserrugg

More views from Chaserrugg. 

Sarah and me with Bern behind.

Distant cousins Ruedi and Regula on the tour of Bern.

Scenic stop between Thun and Bern.

View from the top at Chaserrugg.  Walensee is the lake below.

Dining with Cristof, Marianne, Justine and Sarah on the balcony

of Loogarten, overlooking Lake Zurich 

Lake Thun

Paddle wheeler on Lake Thun from Ruedi's boat.

Vanessa is Dead

Vanessa has been snake bit from the beginning.  The first time I saw her, she was owned by my friends Leslie and Maria.  Leslie was riding with the club when we turned into a gas station near Citra, Florida.  She and Geezer got tangled and both went down.  Vanessa was damaged but was repaired shortly after.

Then, when the girls moved to Italy, I kept her in my garage, riding frequently to keep her healthy.  But one day I needed to move scooters and put Sarah on her for a ride to my office.  They didn't make it.  I wrote about it here.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-disturbance-in-scooter-force_18.html

After that accident, I got her mostly repaired, not really worrying about cosmetics.
http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2015/08/vanessa.html

She looked OK and ran well until a coolant line kept coming adrift, causing overheating issues.
Then she blew out a back tire at the same time of another overheating. Then she overheated again and I almost dumped her in the river.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2015/10/she-is-trying-to-kill-me.html

But I eventually got her fixed with a new water pump and hose.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2015/12/vanessa-yet-again.html

It turned out that she was good enough to run in the 2016 Scooter Cannonball Run.  Together, we finished third.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2016/07/scr-day-11-final-day.html

Even better, we had the fastest raw time of all of the competitors.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2016/07/2016-scr-raw-times.html

So I left her in Seattle for two years, ready to run west to east in the 2018 Scooter Cannonball Run.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2018/05/now-i-remember.html

Getting to the start was spectacular with a run wit my friend Mark from Seattle to Morro Bay, mostly along the Pacific coast.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2018/05/newport-to-san-francisco.html

But in the Cannonball itself, we had a misfortunate accident on a dirt road in Nevada.  She was damaged again, but not nearly as badly as my leg.

http://billleuthold.blogspot.com/2018/06/my-cannonball-2018.html

After the accident, she rode in a trailer for several days.  On her second day, she fell over early in the day and rode most of the difficult day three on her right side, causing more damage.  But I got her working again and was taking her on a fun ride with Ken.

The ride started poorly when I began heading south on 301, just south of Baldwin.  While passing a car she lost some power, so I slowed and noticed the oil light flashing.  I slowed further and turned into a side street to see what was the problem.  She stopped running so I checked under the seat and the engine looked good.  I then noticed a glaze on the seat and left side panel.  It was oil.  Then I looked down further and, much to my horror, I saw the open filler hole.  No dipstick or cap and oil was everywhere.

I called for Uber to pick me up and headed to get my truck to retrieve and, hopefully, revive the stricken scooter.  I came back with oil, a new dipstick and a funnel for pouring accuracy.  She took three quarters of a quart to reach full.  I cranked her up but the engine knocked badly.  I knew then that she was dead.

All along she has been a problem, but I stuck with her through the bad moments and we had some great ones together.  But now, with every body panel damaged and now the engine toast, she is not even useful as a parts scooter.

I think I will keep her and hang her on the wall.  Vanessa is now a work of art.

Books

It had been more than a year since I had read a book, cover to cover.

The last one was probably Lassoing the Sun by Mark Woods, a columnist in the Florida Times Union, the Jacksonville newspaper.  That was a fine book about a year spent trying to understand the past, present and future of the National Park system.  During that year, Mark's mother was diagnosed with and died from cancer, adding to the story while causing much pain.  I contacted Mark later and invited him to lunch with me to talk about writing a book as I was considering writing one about my 2014 Scooter Cannonball adventure.  He made a fine lunch companion as we talked for over an hour.  I should do it again.

After that, I had an appointment with my eye doctor and had new glasses made.  These never worked as the reading part of the progressive bifocals was ill placed causing the works to look a bit blurry, causing eye strain reading or working on the computer.  That, plus the fact that the TV is so much easier to use for entertainment.

I went to the eye doctor a month ago and had a new eye test and glasses made.  These are nearly perfect, so reading books, iPad and the computer is now a pleasure.

This past week Sarah rented an oceanfront condo for us to use while Kylie was in town from her home in New York City. 

Sunday morning I tried to watch the Hungarian Grand Prix, a Formula 1 race, on television.  I couldn't get it to come on so I abandoned the effort. 

I had seen some books in the residence and picked up one that looked readable.  It was Moscow Rules, a spy novel by Daniel Silva.  It was a good read that I got through on Monday morning.  It was set in Italy, France and Russia with well written characters and plot.

Getting in the mood to read on this week off, I looked for another book and settled on one recommended by the nice lady working in the office.  It was Invisible, by James Patterson and David Ellis.  This one I wanted to abandon several times while reading as the antagonist was a terrible person who was torturing and killing other characters while the protagonist was a strange woman who figured out the string of murders.  I simply don't enjoy reading about torture and murder.  But I carried on to the finish where the twist was stupid and contradicted almost everything written earlier in the book.  I hated it but it was an easy, fast read so I made it to the finish.

Because I was still in the mood to read more, Sarah recommended Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.  It is a story about poor boys from Washington State who came together to row to a gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.  I enjoyed seeing the hardships that the lead character, Joe Rantz had growing up in the Depression. He was abandoned twice by his family, once when his mother died when he was only four, sent off to Pennsylvania to live with others, then while in high school when his step mother couldn't take him along with his younger step brothers and sisters.   But he survived and became legendary.  It was a fine read.  I wish I had read it before going to Seattle in May.  I would have gone onto the University of Washington campus to see the Husky Clipper, the 60+ foot skull used to win the gold.

Three books in one week was something new for me.  I am thinking of putting a comfortable chair in our little used sunroom at home to use for reading more.

Changes the Emotions of Riding

It has been more than four months since I returned home after leaving the SCR early, due to my little spill.

NEW EDIT: 

I removed the parts on this post about the Scooter Cannonball Run.  It is no longer relevant. 

And since the original post, my friend Michael Beattie, Conchscooter to many of us, was in a scooter accident where he hit a car that pulled in front of him.  He is a very good rider.  The accident was 100% the driver's fault.  I doubt anyone of us would have avoided the hit. 

He is still in the hospital, recovering from a broken pelvis and femur.  He still can't walk a month after the accident.  It will continue to be a long recovery. 

I hope I can ride with him before the end of the year, but it is unlikely.

After my spill and Michael's accident, I was preparing for a two week scooter ride in Spain.  This one included carrying my wife, Sarah, on the back of our rental Kymco Grand Dink. 

In the past, similar rides in Italy and Greece, I never considered the potential danger in having her on board.  This year, it was a quiet concern of mine every day.

I am very pleased that we made it home unscathed.  Knowing that, gives me new confidence that I will get back to the carefree rides, but my general attitude has changed.

I am finished with Scooter Cannonball Runs, unless they ease up and go back to pavement and reasonable days. 

The future long rides will probably be me riding solo, with only someone like good friends Ken, Drew or my brother David.

While I have always enjoyed long, fast rides, I am finding that I now prefer a more leisurely ride.  I will ride a scooter across the country again, but maybe spend more time in interesting cities and parks.  Stop for lunch in local restaurants.  Maybe even smell a rose or two.

Bill

Stopping to see the sights with Mark in California.