©Meandering Passage - Earl Moore Photography
The coastal city of San Sebastian, Spain, and it’s harbor along the Bay of Biscay

A couple of close friends along with my wife and I recently returned from a long planned car tour of northern Spain.  It was a wonderful trip with good weather overall.  I don’t know what I was expecting but Northern Spain landscape is much more diverse then my expectations.

©Meandering Passage - Earl Moore Photography
Trip route from GPS tracking data provided by Bad Elf GPS tracker.

I carried with me a “Bad Elf” GPS tracker everywhere I went and so was able to applied locational metadata to all our photos (2200+) after importing them to Lightroom. It was a great device which I turned on in the mornings and then forgot about until the end of the day.

Besides applying the locational data I’ve not even managed an initial screening processing on the photos as life requirements have consumed much of my time this week. I’m looking to reinsert myself into the work force after a prolonged retirement/semi-retirement and had to complete some tasks for that process this week.

©Meandering Passage - Earl Moore Photography
A scene from near Zestoa, Spain.

Our trip supplied not only beautiful scenic vistas, but also a chance to explore some of the abundant history and art of Spain dating back hundreds or thousands of years.  Pretty impressive for this lad from the United States, a country with less then 300 years of history.

©Meandering Passage - Earl Moore Photography
Santuario de Loiola, Loiola, Spain

Once I get fully into processing the Spain trip photos I’ll be posting more of them.  However, I felt the need to at least acknowledge the trip in this quick post.

17 Comments

  1. Ah, one of the downsides of digital…having to process your own photos rather than just dropping your film at the lab. I’m looking forward to seeing more of your photos as you get to them.

    And don’t give up on the retirement thing so quickly. I still think Bonnie is way more marketable than you are! ;)

    • Normally I rather enjoy the processing part but it can eat up a lot of time.

      I think Bonnie and I will just see who lands something acceptable first…just for a few years to bridge us over these “Too young, yet too old.” years. :-)

  2. Sounds like you had a nice trip Earl. I’m looking forward to more photos. It is a time consuming thing dealing with holiday photos. In film days I found I usually shot far less than with digital and there was no post-processing beyond a roll or two of black and white. During my own recent trip to the US I found I didn’t have to take so many photos because both my kids have cameras now and they are both quite competent so I found that a lot of the time I could just walk around and enjoy the scenery. Quite a wonderful feeling I must say.

    • It was a nice trip, Cedric, and there will definitely be more photos here of it. Yea, there was more thought perhaps before shooting a shot with film because you knew it was going to cost you even to see if it was any good. Digital is just press the button and hang on. :-)

      For this trip I found myself in the position of taking almost all of the photos, the trip photographer, so everyone was counting on me getting shots of everything…not so much time to just walk around and enjoy the scenery.

  3. This looks promising, Earl! A wonderful landscape (I know the parts east and west from it, but never been to Madrid itself) and of course an amazing cultural heritage!

    Re. the 300 years of history I had to smile – these are in great parts the colonial + independent history only… If I ever have the chance to visit the Grand Canyon, the Anasazi ruins would be very high on my list.

    • We spent a couple of nights in Madrid and I have to say I enjoyed the city and it’s excellent Metro system. We picked northern Spain because it’s not as much a tourist destination and everyone we spoke to which had spent some time getting to know Spain said it was a great area to visit and see.

      LOL Of course there is much more history here. However, we view ourselves as a fairly young nation. Those people and civilizations who were here before us were often conquered and in many cases destroyed rather then embraced and absorbed into our culture so it’s hard to see them as part of our national history. Perhaps that’s a direct shortcoming of my vision?

      • Not so much your vision – I don’t think you made a conscious decision on that topic – but of course this is the accepted position of the majority. It does not have to remain like that, when I just think of the nationalism that was common sense in all European states before the First World War. Positions can change, even on such seemingly eternal truisms.

        • Vision was a bad word choice. The only excuse for choosing it was perhaps my brain is not fully recovered yet. :-) Yes, positions can change…actually if we learn anything from our experiences they usually do change.

          Thanks for the exchange, Markus. Alway a pleasure!

  4. Beautiful images! I just finished reading the Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux who writes about his travels through the coast of Spain. It’s nice to see what it actually looks like.

    • Steve, thanks! I can’t speak to the southern coast of Spain but the northern ones we saw are rugged and truly beautiful. There will be more photos coming…I’m sure! :-)

  5. Well welcome back Earl. Northern Spain is an area I don’t see too much about in photographs or stories, so I look forward to what you encountered. The photos above are a nice temptation. I have heard some of the coastal areas look quite tropical in nature and Spain has some really nice coastlines.

    On the back to work thing – yikes – I don’t like reading about that kind of stuff because you retired folks are supposed to be giving me hope there is an end to this madness! :-)

    • Yeah, Mark, most people see to go more to southern Spain. That’s the very reason we initially chose norther Spain and once we did we found some people who had been there and strongly supported our choice. I don’t think we made a mistake!

      Nope, just more mad-ness, Mark, just more mad-ness — and the world is really flat! Bonnie and I have found ourselves in the “Too young and too old” period of our lives, without steady employment, and we’ve decided we need a bridge job(s) for a few years before we do the full time retirement gig. It’ll work out! :-)

  6. Welcome back! Looking forward to seeing more images and hearing about the adventures along the way. Spain would also be a place I’d like to visit. If this is anything like your trip to Italy, we all will enjoy.

    There are times I think about going back into he work force. Not so much for boredom but the extra cash was nice to have. Of course a job brings on restrictions I don’t want to have. Good luck with whatever you do.

    The antiquity of Europe, and for me the east coast, show me just how young a nation the US is in relation to the rest of the world.

    • Thanks, Monte. As we visited Spain we were of course comparing it to Italy…I may expand on that in a future post.

      Yeah, not so anxious to go back into the work force but we need a “bridge” job to make retirement a little more comfortable and secure. You do what you’ve got to do in life, don’t you. :-)

  7. Like everyone else, I’m looking forward to more pictures. I doubt I’ll ever get there, but Spain looks like a very worthwhile place to visit.

    Every once in a while I think about trying to return to work, but I’m not sure I could do it. It’s sort of what I imagine getting out of prison must be like – once you’ve been “freed” you never want to go back! But your point about money is certainly a valid one. We’d all like to have a little more of that bridge you’re talking about…….

  8. Welcome back, Earl. I look forward to seeing some photos and, as we all know, processing after vacation can be lengthy. :) As for going back to work … ughhhhhhhh, but I understand.