What else is there to do on a 10-hour plane ride but reflect on the past couple of days and type into a computer?! We’re flying back to Asheville, NC, now somewhere over the Atlantic. Yesterday started early in Quillan after we’d dragged all our packed bags and the bike downstairs for loading. Wait, it was also Wednesday, which means Market Day in Quillan, ergo the Coffee Truck would be in town! We met there with Paulita and Earl for one last round of pastry and coffee and conversation. Nothing great lasts forever, that’s for sure… so we bid goodbyes and agreed this would not be a long parting. Hopefully. we’ll get together in Florida or North Carolina sometime this year. If not, a future trip back to Quillan is not out of the question!   After loading up the car in front of our rental house, and getting a last group photo, we hit the road. At Paulita’s suggestion, we lit out for Figueroa, Spain to visit the Dali Museum, before going to Barcelona for the night. The drive was pleasa...

Surprise bike ride today with Earl, what a fun way to finish off a 3 week visit. He was interested in retracing my ride from yesterday, starting in Puivert, then into the farm country. After fortifying ourselves with coffee and pastry from the local boucherie, we drove up to Puivert to begin. Paulita and Lynn stayed behind for fun of their own…as it turned out that was a great idea!   The weather today was at least 10F degrees colder than yesterday, with overcast sky and stiff wind. It looks like fall weather is blowing in to this area with a vengeance. We rode into Rivel after a stiff short climb, followed by a long, ripping descent, then headed out on the unmapped roads I found yesterday. It turned into a tough day on the road, we weren’t even able to find a cafe or Tabac open for snacks or drinks in the little villages we rode through. Bummed by the conditions, we decided to head for the Voie Verte, and take a more relaxed ride into Chalabre, thus avoiding the final tough climbs...

Today the weather cooperated for a fantastic morning ride. No rain, 53 degrees to start, finished with 63 degrees, low wind the whole way. I drove up to Puivert to ride a loop I’d planned out, seeing new roads and towns. As usual, the plan fell apart when I went exploring on off-the-map roads, which (thankfully) made the ride spectacular. There was a tiny road just out of Puivert with an arrow pointing to “Rivel”…so I took it just to see what was out there. It’s a sleepy little village, like so many others, but not crumbling or unloved. On the outside edge of the village, there was another ancient wash house, down on the river, so i got a couple of photos. You can just imagine local ladies many years ago, in the wash house, using the long stone tubs to scrub their laundry as the flow of river water was diverted into the tubs. No one’s doing that now, but I love running into these old pieces of history, at least 100+ years old . FWIW, the upside-down “Rivel” sign on the bike pic is not ...