A video I made last summer, starring several of my friends in Spain

4th of July in Viladrau from Greg Franklin on Vimeo.

9 members of my immediate family visited me here in Spain in early June 2009, it was like a reunion! It had been years since we had all been under one roof at the same time. We rented a house near Girona. We had such a wonderful time and everything came off without a hitch! Click here for photos. We visited many of the sites in Barcelona twice, also checked out some of the nicer beaches on the Costa Brava. We visited Figueres and France (well, just Carcassonne). I was glad for all of them to have a chance to come over and see me here, and the "european way" of living life. I think everyone involved had a great time!

We cycled 96km last weekend. A little saddle-sore, but otherwise painless. What a fantastic and beautiful ride! We took a 2 hour train to Ripoll saturday morning and cycled 7 hours to Thomas & Julieanne's rural hideaway paradise in Amer to stay the night, then another 2.5 hours to Girona on sunday.

The "Via Verde" is a trail that has taken the place of an old railway line. It's cool because every little town you go through has what used to be a train station, usually converted into a restaurant or cafe. It actually goes all the way to the Costa Brava, but we had to get back home, so we hopped on a train at Girona. We had done Girona to the coast a couple of years ago already.

Had a nice weekend away in Garrotxa. We stayed in a very remote rural bed & breakfast called Can Jou (pictured). 6 long km of twisty unpaved uphill road to get to the b&b, but what a spectacular view! Their focus is horseback riding -- I counted at least 24 horses in the stables down the hill below our balcony. We didn't have time for horses, we just relaxed and enjoyed the tweeting birds and otherwise noiseless environment on the hilltop.