You two are amazing at how well you are handling all the challenges that are being thrown at you! You continue to find solutions that make things work. Hope you don't have to exercise this prowess too often on the rest of your trip, though.

Here's hoping for a long succession of less-adventuresome days in your immediate future! You've had a pretty remarkable string of bad luck (as if you need *ME* to tell you that... ;) ) that would taint the experience in the eyes of less resilient souls.

Persevering through mother challenging day! You tow are getting experienced! And thanks for introducing me to the Flintstone stop. I’ve never heard that term.

Wow- that won't do at all! I've never seen anything like that.

A small bottle (like an ounce, perhaps less) of blue LocTite is a good thing to add to your standard carry kit. It'll keep those rack bolts securely in place. Well alright, the bottle won't but the contents will, if applied to the threads of the bolts.

Wow- a bike shop that actually carries 20 inch Schwalbe Marathons (Marathon PLUS, I notice!) in touring size, in stock- a rarity!

Interesting lights, too.

I like knives. In my youth I was a fan of the Swiss Army line, and had a succession of them. It was possible to hone them to near-razor keenness fairly easily, but that meant they lost their edge just as easily. I hope Barry's new treasure has better steel in the blade.

It does have a higher level aesthetic than his usual mini Leatherman, and the blade is very sharp. Good find.

Nice it even has an imprint as a souvenir! Appears to be decent quality too with a nice wood finish and polished metal. Something really useful as well as being a remembrance.

We look for D roads when in France, especially those with lower numbers. The D900 ish ones seem a bit too busy for us. Do not know anything about the Spanish road numbering system.

Great idea Keith. I find the audio directions hard to follow sometimes, but at least they're an alert to check the map.

"3 . Set a longer timeout interval on the phone screen"

Consider combining RWGPS with your Garmin, if you don't already. After laying out the routes in RWGPS export them to your GPS device.

Set RWGPS to announce the cues verbally, and to keep the phone screen on all the time while navigating, but turn the phone screen off manually. Turn it on if you need confirmation or clarification, but rely primarily on the voice cues.

Watch your route roll past on your GPS (Garmin or Wahoo).

For me personally, in the (seemingly inevitable) event that there's a difference of opinion between RWGPS and the GPS device, RWGPS nearly always wins the dispute. There's just enough difference between the RWGPS map data and what's in my GPS that the GPS often tells me to depart from my route to a point 100 feet away- often a cliffside or river bank- and eventually back to the route. These "phantom" deviations are a minor irritation but are better than burning my phone battery down on a daily basis.

I can relate to that, all too well...

Good thought Keith. The bags are in time out now in the closet at our Carcassonne apartment to consider the consequences of their misbehavior.