Picking up the dropped ball

Well, guess I kinda let this go for a bit, didn't I?! As you can tell, we are still alive; we got back home safe and sound on the 31st, after our very brief time in Madrid. We also spent two nights in Toledo - that is still one of my favorite places and we did some good shopping there. But it seems as though LOTS of other people have discovered our favorite places - what's up with October being the "off" season?! So many crowds! In Madrid, we tried to go to a museum (not the Prado; it's across the street and has a funny-sounding hyphenated name), but it was closed on Mondays. We wandered around and did last-minute souvenir shopping, then had a very nice meal at our hotel, except that we didn't get some of what we ordered - our waiter's English was not as good as the food. We stayed at a hotel near the airport that said they had parking, but Bill wouldn't fit through the gate, so we had a few anxious moments trying to find parking near the hotel so we could meet up with the Amsterdam owner for him to take it back. (I hope he and his wife appreciated the holiday; I'm sure the 1 euro per kilometre from Madrid to Amsterdam we paid covered expenses quite nicely.) Amongst all his other many accomplishments, Don actually managed to parallel park an RV - wow! And now we've been home for a bit and I've had time to think about things. I can say that I wouldn't want to do this again; it was so much effort before and during the trip and was quite expensive. I'm not sure that we really enjoyed ourselves enough of the time for it to be worth it. I'm glad we did it so that we won't wonder what it would have been like, but definitely I will travel differently next time. Still, what a grand opportunity, and how lucky we are to have been able to do this. Thanks to everyone for your interest and support. Nils has promised to post a slide show of lots more pictures. Please, Sweden family, stay in touch! Meeting you all was so wonderful.