CHAPTER 32: GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA
Thursday, January 20, 2000

Selling the Range Rover turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than I would have liked. On Tuesday, January 11, I traveled to Norfolk, Virginia, to try to catch a Space-A flight back to Rota. I was incredibly lucky and caught a flight the very next day. The plane arrived in Rota late on Thursday. I picked up the Range Rover, found a hotel, and settled in for the night.

On Friday, I again made the trek to Gibraltar. Unfortunately, the two guys who had wanted to buy the car in December were now balking. They claimed that their money was “tied up” for a bit, and suggested returning on Monday. So I found a cheap, run-down hotel run by a gay British expatriate and spent the weekend sightseeing in Gibraltar and southern Spain.

Gibraltar was somewhat fun. It's a shabby place, but there are some good restaurants, mediocre shopping, and friendly people. I explored part of the famous tunnels, saw the Barbary apes, and looked across from the tip of the peninsula to Africa, which was just visible through the mist. The wind at this time of year is ferocious around the Rock, but it was quite an experience just to be in a place that had been such a contentious crossroads over the centuries.

On Sunday, I drove over to Marbella, Spain. This was quite a beautiful city. I wound up down at the waterfront, where the Big Bucks are. There were lots of expensive yachts, expensive cars, and expensive clothes. I found a quiet little café and people-watched for a while. All in all, a most enjoyable experience.

On Monday, I tried again to sell the car. This time the two guys tried to jaw the price down to basically the cost of a Big Mac with fries. It was most insulting. I told them to pack sand, hopped back into the car, and headed for Marbella again.

Things worked out much better the next day. I found a very pleasant British expatriate used-car dealer who offered an acceptable price for the Range Rover. He handled the licensing issues with the Spanish government, which was a big monkey off my back. I signed the car over to him at his house high on the hill above the city of Fuengirola. It was a spectacular place, with an unobstructed view of several miles of coastline. Afterwards, he dropped me off at the bus station. I rode a bus to Cadiz, then caught another straight to Rota. The gods were smiling upon me, for the next day I caught a flight directly to Norfolk, Virginia.

So ends our European adventure. We had an incredible four months. We had good times and bad times; our plans were disrupted and changed (for good and bad), and we wound up spending about half the time in Europe that we originally planned. While traveling for a year sounds romantic, the reality is that (for us, at least) the constant change and lack of stability eventually wears us out.

All in all, we are most grateful for the opportunity and the experiences. We wouldn't trade it for anything.

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