We left Pilar and her hilltop village at ten o’clock and made the scary journey down the hill and back to the main road. This time I took some pictures.
Today we took Route 260 – the reason we are here in Spain. Ciara (our daughter) gave Denis a Best Motorcycle Routes book for Christmas. This route took up 4 pages and planed the seed for this six week trip.
By the time we arrived at Jaca (about three inches east of Pampalona on our map) I had taken 190 photos and it was five o clock. We have learned a few tips about traveling on long days:
(Butterfly, the size of a small bird, resting on the main street in our village)
1. Don’t eat a big lunch, just makes you sleepy.
2. Take more short breaks of five or ten minutes duration, it’s enough to revive you without adding too much to the journey.
3. Have plenty of bottled water, you may not find a shop or a cafe when you are in need.
4. Remember why you decided to do this in the first place, no matter how sore you are you do really want to be here!
5. Take pictures, but also don’t take pictures, taking the pictures is for later, not taking the pictures is time for now, smell the poppies!
6. Have a siesta, when in Spain, do like the locals (we had no picture of our siesta we were asleep….)
We took all our own advice and had a very full-on day. The roads are the kind that Denis loves, winding around the hills and mountains and through the mountains. I think my favourite roads are the puttering along slowly ones without cows or tractors.
(Cow munching at side of very winding hairpin road)
From Spain, good night, Mairead.
maireadhennessy.com 
Would you not have put your hand out alongside the butterfly, so we could get a real sense of scale in the picture 😉
Oh Sheldon, you are so like Denis it’s scary! Yes, he took a picture with a euro coin beside the butterfly but I didn’t think it showed the butterfly at its best. But for you I’m willing to put my artistic sensibilities aside 🙂
The Butterfly Picture with Sense of Scale:—>
> you are so like Denis it’s scary
I’m pretty sure that if it was Sheldon, he would have used a 20cent coin in case the butterfly made off with the Euro.
I did say “put your *hand* out alongside the butterfly”. If you’re worried about the butterfly getting you… think outside of the box… I didn’t say your hand had to be attached to your body 😉
BTW, I’m a little disappointed about the size of the creature now I see it to scale. As Crocodile’ Dundee would say, “that’s not a butterfly… this is a butterfly” http://img2.moonbuggy.org/imgstore/giant-butterfly.jpg