I should be telling you about Seville.  The lovely people and the youthful energy.  The International Fair that we stumbled upon that amused us for an evening.

The massiveness of the Cathedral of Seville.

The Kenyan shirt that will become a camp stable.

Watching University freshman get hazed (that is our guess, their faces had words written on them and they  sing while wearing their underwear outside their clothes).

The sunset against the vast and beautiful Plaza de Espana.

The intensity of the Flamenco dancers.

Yet this is not the subject of this blog.  Today, we lost a family member, at least temporarily.

Kenny is no longer with us.  Yes, our red 7-seat companion is now with a company that will ship it back to Sweden so that it will be shipped back to us.  He will arrive after we will have left for Asia, so this is goodbye for around 5 months.

We almost lost two of us in Granada, so you would think we would have practice dealing with separation, but the group is still a bit sad.

[Note: I marvel at how naming something makes such a profound difference in the way you experience it.  A computer company found that people are much less critical of a computer if its survey says “How am I doing?” rather than “please rate this computer”.  Similarly, a name creates the illusion of a personality.  Once we think “Kenny” rather than “red mode of transport”, we treat it (I mean him) differently.]

He has been our companion over bodies of water, through streets so narrow that we cringed, over and through the Alps, Pyrenees, Dolomites and others.  We have eaten many meals of sausage and cheese and bread within him.  We listened to 20 hours of lectures as well as music and humor.

When Virginia talks about him, she uses the same lilting voice that emerges whenever she discusses dogs, hamsters and kittens.  She agreed to take the sole back seat next for the entire trip.  To her right, we folded down the other seat to make room for the luggage (6 backpacks and 6 daypacks).  She looked a little like an astronaut packed into a tight spot, but she loved it.

The big kids sat  in the middle seat, alternating positions to assure equity.  Each seat evolved to have different privileges (putting feet partly on our middle armrest - not my favorite) and responsibilities (cutting sausage).

We bonded with this car and it was a part of the Baskin Clan as we drove.  We bid him a sad, if not temporary, farewell.

Well, Kenny is gone and we are now in Madrid.  Before I leave, I will share two parting pictures.

Steve Sir

PS  I received an extraordinary email from our videographer today. Here is the link he shared.  I think it is self-explanatory.  http://vimeo.com/29632987