For us, tours like this have a long lead time. Most of them are ones we've been mulling over for several years and have gone through a number of mental permutations before they finally gel and claim a slot on our calendar. Then, there's a flurry of planning activity: reserving flights, finalizing the specific itinerary, making reservations. Then perhaps three months of waiting, reminding ourselves from time to time of its imminence - it's only eight weeks from tomorrow! It's only about a month now! After all of this anticipation, somehow it is always a bit shocking to suddenly feel like we're on the eve of departure and it's time for final preparations.

Last night we took in a new film that I can recommend: The Trip to Spain. It's the latest in a series of road trip films starring a pair of hilarious British comedians touring through different regions of Europe, sampling its finest cuisine, writing restaurant reviews and constantly trying to upstage each other with their verbal jousting. They're great fun, but this year's was especially enjoyable because it's set in Spain and they visit several of the places on our itinerary. It definitely puts us in the mood to see all of this gorgeous scenery and imagine our own adventure just around the corner.

We're also especially ready because we're pretty sick of our summer weather this year. As we look around at the other pockets of misery in the world, we hardly have much to complain of in Oregon by comparison; but we're definitely sick of days that push 100 degrees and sickly grey-brown skies from the many fires in the region. We've seen more days like this here this summer than I can ever remember: