I saw this article about some real contentious things going on in Spain regarding short-term rentals. Something like 66,000 rental listings have to be taken down under government orders and reservations are being cancelled. This is being done in response to locals protesting and trying to take their city back. Good on them.

Hopefully, this will put a stop to short-term rentals replacing traditional housing and hotels. I have stayed in these a few times, but when they started wanting you to clean, do laundry, mow grass and such that is when I said screw that, especially since there are cleaning fees. I don’t know if that is just a greedy American thing or not; we never had to do ridiculous cleaning (other than our dishes and such) in Europe. I don’t have to do all of that cleaning in a hotel and it is cheaper to stay in a hotel so that is what I do. My last short-term rental experience was not good and, I found out later, cost me more than a decent hotel that had free breakfast. I deleted that app. I also have a trailer to stay in when I am on road trips.

I have also lived in areas where housing was in short supply, and when you COULD find a place it was way overpriced but still what the top of the market would bear. Other places I have lived passed pre-emptive regulations to prevent short-term rentals from destroying the town – same as in Spain and other parts of Europe. More towns and cities need to do that.

But, there are other issues you encounter living in a popular tourist area. Traffic jams & crowds, prices to extort the tourists that also extort the locals, wear and tear on streets…the list goes on. You can even feel trapped in your own town by not being able to go anywhere – happened to me in Colorado every weekend and even worse the entire summer travel season.

This is why when we travel we have to be conscious of what we are doing and how it affects everyone and everything around us. This really pertains to anywhere you travel. I DO realize that since I travel I am part of the problem so I really try to be mindful since I have lived in tourist areas and understand the uproar. Even though we have every right to travel freely, we should try to keep our impact to a minimum where we visit and consider different places to visit that are less busy.

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I stumbled across an interesting website that has an interesting travel idea. I had seen it before and saved it for the future but it kinda got forgotten in the jumble we call life.

This website gets you attending a wedding in India for a fee, and the fees seem reasonable. What a great idea! It is such a great opportunity to immerse yourself in some incredible culture and I bet it is interesting, a whole lot of fun and a chance to learn a lot.

It looked like you have to get some traditional clothes to wear for some weddings; another posting I saw said a suit was fine. Some are a day, some are two, and I think I saw one that was three days! Oh man…what an awesome three days that would be! Most I saw said lodging/transportation is not included, but perhaps some do.

I would really like to do something like that someday, so yeah…it sure ended up on my bucket list when I first heard of it a few years back. I poked around to see if there were any other similar websites for weddings in other countries but I didn’t see any.

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Meghan has been using my trailer but is now done with it so I will be getting it back home pretty soon. I have quite a lot to do in it before I can go camping, but I WILL get that done so I CAN go camping soon.

I had put a lot of stuff in there to put away but she wanted to use it so I never got the chance to get any of that stuff organized or put away. I also have a few more things to put in it so I imagine I will have a few other things I need to take out.

I got a new collapsible water hose and filter cartridge so that will go in and the tangled, kinked-up cluster that RV water hoses turn into will become a water hose for the house. The new hose is 35’ long and takes up very little space and is longer than the two shorter ones I have.

After my friend Dave died in December it was tough for me to even go inside my trailer. We were just getting started to get out more often when that happened, but I am so fortunate we got to go when we did. With his pending retirement we had talked briefly about some plans to travel together that will never come to pass, but now I have gotten back to where I can’t wait to get it back out on the road again. I am sure that will help my healing process, just like my healing trip in 2018 after my dad died. Even my quick road trip to South Dakota a few weeks back helped to recharge me.

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It feels great to blog again. It really wasn’t long after I stopped last year that I felt “lost” not blogging. I think the final straw was not blogging while in Europe in February. When we got back I knew that I had to resume this blog.

I guess it is the creative outlet I was craving. I used to write songs but haven’t done that in a while. Too many things going on and it takes a certain frame of mind to put a song together.

I have not given up on that and I still get ideas for music. I definitely make notes when I do get these ideas. I even have a few lyric ideas started that I have written down. Someday I will get a studio area set up again and get some new music put together.

That is about it for now. See ya next time.

Shawn