Micah, a friend of Rhea and Joe, came to see me the last weekend I was in Catalunya. She brought her five month old Australian shepherd, Maisie. Micah has a Phd. in Public Health and has done research in Kenya, India and Bangladesh. She is moving to Anchorage in August to take a teaching job at a university there. She has had an amazing life so far and there's no question that many more adventures lie ahead.
Micah will spend two months touring Spain on her bicycle. She has a light weight trailer for the bike that Maisie rides in. I picked them up at the AVE train station outside Tarragona in Philip's Land Rover. It's only a three hour trip from Madrid to Tarragona on the bullet train.
We went home to El Masroig and toured the town. Francesc Masdeu came over for dinner and entertained us for a few hours. Micah speaks some Spanish so Francesc enjoyed visiting with her. The next morning went by the vineyards and then on to La Figuera to check on my wine. After that, it was on to Scala Dei for a leisurely lunch. We stopped in Falset on the way home and saw the sights.
Micah was kind enough to help me work on the irrigation systems in the vineyards on Monday. Things were in pretty good shape and it only took us three hours to fix all the leaks. Unfortunately, there was a lot of mud around some of the leaks and Maisie had the time of her life digging in the mud and running around the vineyards. I've never seen a dirtier dog. I'm not sure how long it took Micah to clean her up.
When we got back from the vineyard, Micah and Maisie went for a run out to the Ermita and Puig Roig. We went to Mercadona and bought some local sausage for dinner. Micah planned to catch the early train to Barcelona the next morning and started packing her (very small) panniers. We got to the train station in Falset and Micah assembled her bike and trailer. We got her aboard the train with no trouble. She planned to spend two days in Barcelona and then take the train to Pamplona for the Camino de Santiago.
¡Buen viaje, Micah y Maisie!
