France, 2023
My newsletter focuses on travel, racing, and money in whatever order makes sense. This piece covers international travel and racing.
The way you would do it…or not?
Today we’re talking about a trip to France. As you read along you can see if we do France the way you have done France…or the way you might like to do France. You may read and conclude; these folks are numbskulls. We would never travel like that. Others may say to themselves, “Yes, exactly the way we do it!”.
We planned to trackchase at four different racing facilities all in France. This won’t be my first trip to France to see racing. In the past, I have trackchased there in 2005, 2012, and 2020. As a matter of fact, when this adventure is finished, I will have seen racing at 171 tracks in 42 European countries.
Europe has how many countries?
Siri tells me there are 50 sovereign countries in Europe. I’ve probably seen two or three tracks with each European trackchasing exploit. That adds up to somewhere between 60-90 separate trips across the pond. That’s a good deal of airplane seat time, isn’t it? Of course, that doesn’t count the non-trackchasing trips to Europe of which there have been plenty.
Our first time!
Carol’s and my very first trip to Europe in 1973 was to France. We were definitely “newbies”. Other than going to Canada we had probably never ever been to a foreign country before that first trip to the old country.
At the time I was a salesperson in Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa headquartered in Peoria, Illinois. My “office” was stored in the trunk of my company car in a series of manila file folders. I would travel to see my retail customers with two or three overnights each week. Yep. I’ve been doing this traveling thing for a long time. During that first year of business travel, I commonly stayed at Holiday Inn hotels. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I always stayed at a Holiday Inn. Why?
When is free really free?
In 1973, Holiday had a special promotion. If someone stayed at their hotels 75 times in one year, they would get a free week’s hotel stay as well as free airfare for two people anywhere in the world. This is how we got to Europe our very first time! Editor’s note: There are few things in life that are free but this reward did seem sort of free since I had to be on the road anyway.
Back in that time, (1973) I’m going to guess a night’s stay at a Holiday Inn might have cost around $30/night. This meant that for 75 nights of hotel stays I might have spent $2,250 in total. O.K., I didn’t spend that money. The company did! We truly WERE getting a free vacation to Europe. Of course, that’s if you don’t “count” having to stay 75 nights in a Holiday Inn!
Respect the local time zone.
The biggest lesson we learned from that very first trip was to respect the local time zone change. At the time we were living in the Midwest, so the time zone difference would’ve been around seven hours.
On the first day, we landed in Paris at about 9 a.m. We were able to stay awake until about 3 p.m. Paris time. At that point, we couldn’t last any longer. We went back to the hotel and took a six-hour nap. We emerged at 9 p.m. just when most Parisians were sitting down to dinner. We went out for some dinner, came back to the hotel, and tried to go to bed. After a six-hour afternoon nap that wasn’t happening.
Spending French francs.
I do remember that during this trip the currency exchange rate was nine French francs for one U.S. dollar. This trip pre-dated the euro! For about $25 U.S. we could have dinner for two and a bottle of wine in a cozy Parisian restaurant. Nice.
Unfortunately, we could never get on the local time zone with this sleeping routine. Each afternoon we would sleep, then go to dinner later in the evening and be pacing the floor from 2 a.m. until 8 a.m. Trust me, we have learned a lot after that first misadventure.
Now we were returning to France. We would bypass Paris because we’ve been to the city so many times. We expected to trackchase at four different tracks in France. The locations of those tracks would dictate the major cities that would draw our attention and hotel budget. That wasn’t much of a limitation. There are thousands of places in Europe that can occupy three days of your time and usually much longer.
We hail from San Clemente, California and that’s “on the water”.
Not only did the hotels need to be coming from or going to one of the racetracks they had to be located “on the water”. Back home in California, we live “on the water” and enjoy that feature a great deal. By the way, this photo was taken last night. I still think that nowhere in the wold, day after day, beats San Clemente for sunsets.
In this review, I’ll give you the highlights of our vacation logistics, the touring opportunities, the racing, and hopefully just a little bit more.
It’s good to plan but it’s not good to plan too much.
To begin I created a skeletal travel plan. This itinerary noted where we would depart from (airport or city), how long it would take to get to the racetrack or hotel, and then how long it would take to travel to our next stop for the 12 days of our trip. This was what I have come to call the “classic” international trackchasing trip. The “classic” tries to maximize the racing opportunities and the opportunities to visit and enjoy foreign cultures. As you probably know I could probably travel forever. Carol on the other hand is more of a homebody. To her, 12 days is stretching it. Happy wife, happy life, right?
We always want to optimize for net personal fullfillment.
If you haven’t read Bill Perkins’ book “Die with Zero” I highly recommend it. Perkins covers a lot of important topics on finance and the enjoyment of life. He recommends “optimizing” for personal enjoyment (net personal fullfillment) and not for money. If you don’t want to buy the book, at least take a listen on YouTube to what he has to share. I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s the YouTube link to Die with Zero.
One of the main takeaways I got from this book is that most people never spend the money they worked so hard to earn. Perkins recommends creating “memory dividends” by taking some of your funds and doing a little more than you might normally do because you are afraid you will someday run out of money. We tried to practice these principles on this trip to one degree or another. Make sense?
We would fly non-stop to Paris’ Orly Airport from Los Angeles. When I make these long international trips, I always prefer a non-stop flight. Right now, I am on track to travel a bit more than 290,000 miles over 27 trackchasing trips in 2023. I think that’s going to be a record. As a matter of fact, I am in the midst of eight straight weeks where I will be out of the country.
Week 1 – Australia
Week 2 – Australia/Japan
Week 3 – Australia/Canada
Week 4 – Canada
Week 5 – France
Week 6 – France/Spain
Week 7 – France/Canada
Week 8 – Canada
Some might say I am already following the “Die with Zero” principles just fine! In many ways I am. Nevertheless, I never think we are doing enough!
Our first ride with French Bee Airlines.
We would fly over to France using French Bee Airlines. Going into this trip I had never heard of French Bee Airlines. They are based at the Paris Orly Airport. French Bee only flies to about 10 destinations. They fly with just six airplanes. Not a problem. We only needed one plane.
Our first booking with Gotogate.
I first checked Google Flights for flight times and prices. This led me to an online travel agency called Gotogate. I had never heard of Gotogate. I am not a conspiracy theory type of person. I never spend much time worrying about what MIGHT go wrong or who MIGHT rip me off. I feel strongly there are not enough criminals in the world to commit all of the crimes some folks think will be committed.
We paid $1,036 per person round-trip. This included reserved seats in coach and one checked bag. We normally pay $800-1,000 from Los Angeles for our trips to Europe.
Bidding for net personal fullfillment!
French Bee offers two classes of service, economy, and economy plus. Shortly before our trip was to begin, I received an email from them saying we could “bid” for an upgrade to economy plus seating. Wow! This was an opportunity to begin practicing what I had learned from reading Die with Zero. The website indicated if I bid $700 in total on the one-way flight from LAX to Paris Carol and I would have a “good” chance of getting the upgrade. I made the bid.
Then I got to thinking. This was only a 10-hour flight. Did we really want to spend $700 for ten hours of flying not in a lay-flat airline seat but in economy plus? Was that going to increase our net personal fulfillment, i.e., life enjoyment per Die with Zero? The initial plan was to surprise Carol with the upgrade. Instead, I decided to ask her what we should do. When she heard “$700” and “economy plus” she vetoed the idea on the spot. Veto might not be a strong enough description. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Are you crazy”?
Read the last sentence.
I might add that I have plenty of friends and family members who will pay nearly any price for first-class air travel. I’m not there yet on that one. I have flown in both first and business class hundreds of times…but I wasn’t paying. Recently, I flew to Japan in an airline’s top class with lay-flat seats. The retail price for that one-way ticket was $5,300. I got a deal…and I would hope you would expect that from me. I paid $500 for that seat. This was one of the worst rides I’ve had on an airplane in recent memory. The seat was just way too small and uncomfortable for me. I was just about ready to ask the flight attendant if there was “an exit row seat in coach with an open middle” available. Net personal fulfillment for one person is not net personal fulfillment for the next guy. Just don’t die with too much money in the bank that you never got to use.
We would look for other opportunities to practice Die with Zero. Flying in coach on French Bee was just fine. They have modern Airbus 350 airplanes with plenty of legroom, even for me at 6’3”, and in-seat audio/video screens. Their airline meal was just that an airline meal served with free water but they charged for all other drinks. Welcome to economy!
We had a great plan. I was hoping that all aspects of the trip would go according to plan.
Thursday, September 21
Before we start off on one of our long-distance odysseys, we always have a “going away” meal at In N Out Burgers. Our experience at In N Out did not go according to plan. Was this an omen? This is what I shared about the situation at In N Out with my nearly 3,000 Facebook friends.
Ernest rocks.
Why me? Tonight, Carol and I stopped at In-N-Out burgers. I ordered my normal double cheeseburger. I took the first bite. No cheese (above left). Just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating I took another bite. No cheese. Why me? So, I took the burger back to the counter. That’s where I met “Ernest”. Ernest was kind of a roving ambassador.
He told me he would correct the cheeseburger problem and asked, “While you’re waiting would you like a milkshake?”. I told him I wouldn’t mind that at all. Then I went back to my table with my milkshake and our French fries. Soon here comes Ernest with my cheeseburger. Ernest looks at our fries. They were half eaten but he said, “While you were waiting your fries must’ve gotten cold. Would you mind if I brought you back two more orders on the house?” I told him I wouldn’t mind that at all. Ernest was outstanding. I thanked him profusely. Then I sought out the restaurant manager and told him all about Ernest and what a great job he was doing. What did I get out of all this? I got the pleasure of being able to thank someone for doing a good job. I got the benefit of telling someone else what a good job Ernest did. It doesn’t take long to thank somebody. It doesn’t take much longer to find someone else who is important to the first person and tell them that the first person did a great job. Was I going to blame Ernest for my eating one and a half double cheeseburgers and one and a half orders of fries and a vanilla milkshake? Not tonight.
One of my trusted travel partners.
We reserved our rental car with AutoEurope.com. I love this company and have used them many times. AutoEurope represents all the major rental car brands. I get to select the class of car I want, the type of transmission I would like to have, insurance options, AC or not, and unlimited mileage or not. Then AutoEurope shows the pricing with the options I selected from six major rental car brands.
I went with Hertz to rent a “Peugeot 2008 or similar” with a manual transmission, unlimited miles, and AC. I have rented from Hertz before with AutoEurope and was hoping they would upgrade me to a better car with an automatic transmission. The cost for my 10-day rental all in was a most reasonable $525. Right now, in the U.S., it would cost me nearly twice that price to rent a car.
Friday, September 22
When in France rent a French car.
When we arrived at Orly, we did not get an upgrade! What did we get? Hertz gave me a Renault Captur…with a manual transmission. This car was classified as a compact SUV. I asked if they had something with an automatic transmission. They did for an extra $32/day U.S. This was Die with Zero decision time.
It would be more comfortable driving a car with an automatic transmission. Did I want to pay an extra $325 for that privilege? Ultimately, I did not. I can drive a stick shift just fine.
It pays to be lucky when you are unlucky.
As a matter of fact, my first brand-new car a 1970 Ford Mustang (yes, that’s it above after a lady majorly rear-ended me and I woke up in a hospital!) had a manual three-speed on the floor. This Renault Captur came with a SIX-SPEED. We had backed off improving our “net personal fulfillment” twice now with the airline seating and rental car upgrades. It can be difficult to spend more money than you are used to. Everyone wants to get a good value. When WERE we going to pay a bit more to increase our personal enjoyment? Don’t give up on me. We would spend these savings and more on some really nice hotel rooms.
France is 10 hours ahead of the time zone in San Clemente, California. The first night in Europe is always the toughest. Luckily, on this trip, we landed at 4 o’clock in the afternoon as opposed to the very difficult landing time of say 8 a.m. in Europe. Nevertheless, we still didn’t get down to our hotel until 9 p.m. We were now going to get nearly ten hours of sleep. I’m thinking we will be back and ready to rock ‘n’ roll tomorrow morning.
Saturday, September 23
Don’t give up on me!
I am happy to report we, O.K. I, didn’t flake out on optimizing our net personal fulfillment (enjoyment!) in favor of optimizing our net worth with our hotel stays. We would stay in six different hotels on this trip. For all but our last night, we upgraded to junior hotel suites or full suites at our hotels. This increased our normal hotel expense by 50-100% but was well worth it. This will be our new norm going into the future.
This morning we woke up in the Hotel Jehan de Beauce in Chartres, France. Carol doesn’t like to change hotels each night during one of these trips. Heck, I don’t either. For this trip, the length of our hotel stays would be 1-1-3-3-1-1. We had to work around the locations of the tracks we would be visiting. Essentially, one of these international trackchasing trips has us leaving California on Thursday. We land in Europe on a Friday. Then we go trackchasing on Saturday and Sunday. Monday through Friday is left for touring. Then we trackchase again on Saturday and Sunday and fly home on Monday. That’s the schedule for a “classic” international trackchasing trip.
This morning’s hotel was like several we would use on this trip. They were in the old town areas of these small French towns. Since we have done and seen so much it pretty much doesn’t matter what town we visit. We will find the unique spots and places to eat. With a good attitude, we’re going to have an entertaining time no matter where we are.
Die with Zero but at least you get to enjoy a junior suite.
These locations make for a very authentic, dare I say romantic location. At the same time, Google Maps has a hard time getting us the last 500 yards toward these hotels. Sometimes it’s hard to find romance! Oftentimes parking at these inns is limited or non-existent. This creates a challenge but that all adds to the overall enjoyment of the trip. In the evening when Carol was getting ready for bed, I often went outside to complete my minimum of four miles, of daily walking.
The weather has been and would be for the entire trip gorgeous. High temps bumped up against 80 each day. The lows in the evenings were still in the 70s which made for perfect outdoor dining and evening strolls. This was such a relief compared to the weather I endured in Japan just a couple of weeks ago.
Today is a huge day for our trackchasing. It’s important because Carol is planning to see racing at her 700th lifetime track. That’s impressive. Sometimes people give me the vibe that Carol doesn’t come along on these trips that often. I think seeing racing at 700 tracks in 52 countries blows away that narrative.
Bugatti Circuit – Le Mans, France – European Truck Racing – Lifetime track #2,920.
We will both be seeing racing at the famous Le Mans track, the site of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Le Mans, France. The 24 Hours race happens in June. That race is contested over a track configuration that is 13.6 kilometers long. The venue is formally called the France Circuit de la Sarthe. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the five most popular and well-known auto races in the world. The race lasts for…wait for it…24 hours. Carol and I tried to see that event two years ago coming out of Covid. I was told that because of Covid the full “24 Hours of Le Mans” experience would not happen. If I ever do see this big race, I want to get the FULL effect from the effort it takes to get there, right?
I doubt Mr. Bugatti drove a race car wearing a suit.
On this day Carol and I would see the European Truck Racing Championship racing series on the Bugatti Circuit. The Bugatti Circuit is a 4.185 km (2.600 mi) permanent race track located within Circuit des 24 Heures, constructed in 1965 and named after Ettore Bugatti. The circuit uses a part of the larger circuit and a separate, purpose-built section. The sections of track on the Bugatti Circuit that are on the Circuit des 24 Heures include the Ford Chicane at the end of the lap, the pit complex, and the straight where the Dunlop Tyres bridge is located. An advantage to seeing racing on the Bugatti Circuit is that someday, should we choose, we can come back to Le Mans and see the 24-hour racing and count the larger circuit as a separate track. That’s what the rules of trackchasing allow.
The track at Le Mans has a huge infrastructure like you would find at Daytona or Indianapolis. I wasn’t expecting a huge crowd for the “big trucks” of the European Truck Racing series. We saw this group race at the Misano World Circuit in Italy last year. The crowd there might have been 2,000-3,000 people. That would not be the case at Le Mans. The crowd was huge! I’m going to guess there were 30,000-40,000 people attending and maybe more. When you’re expecting 2,000 fans today’s crowd was a shocker.
Time for “Randy hyper mode”.
To make things work for Carol and me I had to go into “Randy hyper mode”. Sometimes this is not a pretty sight to the outside observer. “Randy hyper mode” is needed to get maximum enjoyment for Carol and me when outside influences are working against that objective.
First, there was a problem finding parking. I can ALWAYS find parking. We drove around for thirty minutes with no luck. The small town didn’t have any parking. Many of the track parking lots were reserved for people who had paid in advance. We did find a parking lot for folks like us but it was full. I stopped to talk with one of the young parking officials. At first, he told us to move on down the road. His lot was full. I had already been down that road. There was no more parking in the direction he was recommending.
Never pass up an opportunity to tug on people’s heartstrings.
It was now time to do my best impersonation of Tiny Tim the beggar boy in the play The Christmas Carol. I must have given a good performance. It wasn’t long before the guy let Carol and me into the “sold out” parking lot after I assured him “I could find a spot”. I could only finish our encounter with a sincerely stated, “God bless us, every one” which was exactly what Tiny Tim said in The Christmas Carol. We DID find a spot in the huge lot.
Now we were more than a mile from the grandstand of the Le Mans track. Not a problem. I flagged down a shuttle bus. They picked us up. If that hadn’t worked we might still be walking from the parking lot. Of course, we didn’t have a ticket. It was a challenge to find out how the ticket situation worked. Not to worry. I was born for this circumstance. Remember the French don’t speak a lot of English in France! Why would they?
I saw a long line of people entering the track with their tickets. We made a few inquiries using my iPhone’s Google Translate app. We started to make some progress. Of course, I was the only guy yelling things in English. My strategy is to simply speak louder when people don’t understand me. Does that ever work for you? It doesn’t work for me either but I still do it. We were in the wrong line but people were starting to notice us! In the midst of “Randy hyper-mode” a local guy understood we were looking for tickets. He could help us.
You don’t ask; you don’t get.
He had extras! Did this guy know that I’m the guy with the “ticket sign” back home? Ticket buying is my specialty.
‘A few extras’ is music to my heart.
He had a few extra tickets that had been printed out on standard paper. The regular ticket price was 43 euros per person. He was willing to sell us two of his extras for just 20 euros each. That was a great saving after we had paid nothing to park or ride the shuttle bus. Normally, I would shy away from these types of “printed” tickets. Anyone can print their ticket ten times and sell them to unsuspecting customers. Those ten tickets are only good for the first person who scans the ticket. Anyone trying to use these kinds of printed tickets after the code has been scanned once will be rejected. However, this guy looked genuine. Doesn’t every scam artist? He would be entering the venue at the same time as us. I didn’t have much to lose. Carol handed over 40 euros and we were in with a 46-euro savings. “Randy’s hyper-mode” was working well at this point!
The bad part about road racing for the spectator is that the fan can’t see the cars, today that would be trucks, racing all the way around the track. Today’s course was nearly three miles in length. We had seats on the front straight. From the time the trucks came into view until they left our view was about 20 seconds. To me, that is ridiculous. Can you imagine going to a basketball game and only being able to see the play on “your” half of the court? Then the players continue the game and run out of your view for more time than they were in your view and do that for the entire game. Nope. Not a fan of road racing.
Nevertheless, the “ambiance” of being at a place like Le Mans was worth it, at least once. We walked around, bought a couple of event t-shirts, had some food, and enjoyed ourselves. When we went to get lunch, we had to pay for our food in one location and then take our receipt over to another building to get our food. They only had two Le Mans gift shops. One was out of our shirt sizes. We lucked out by having the second and final outlet have exactly ONE shirt in each of our sizes.
At least when people ask if I’ve been to Le Mans I have a good answer.
Will I ever go back to see the big 24 Hours of Le Mans race that happens each June? I never like to say never but I don’t think it’s likely. I wasn’t really all that impressed with the entire facility. Going back to “see” the big race when you really can’t “see” the big race doesn’t sound like much fun. That would be especially true when the 24 Hours course is 13 km long and today’s Bugatti Circuit was just over 4 km long. Plus, and this is a big plus, the crowds today were difficult to manage. I don’t even want to imagine what the crowds would be like for the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Then ticket prices for the big race would be several “X” what they were today. No, I don’t think I’ll be back to Le Mans.
After the race, off we went to our evening hotel. Along the way, I noticed a couple of important items while we were in the car. First, SiriusXM satellite radio works in Europe. As I recall the satellites used to be able to know where in the world you were listening from. If you weren’t near the U.S. there would be no reception. That has changed. Tonight, and for the rest of the trip, Carol and I were entertained by our satellite radio subscription.
Get ready for toll roads when you come to France.
It was also becoming more and more noticeable that France has a lot of toll roads! Of course, we had a choice to make on that topic. We could take toll roads or not. Toll roads were the fastest option. They were also somewhat expensive. Over the course of the trip, we would end up spending about 165 euros on tolls. At most toll stops I grabbed a ticket. Then when we were at the end of the toll section the system read our ticket. I paid each toll with the tap feature of my Apple Watch. Sometimes it was a long stretch to make that happen.
Not your father’s Best Western hotel.
Tonight, we were staying in Bourges, France at the Best Western Plus Hotel D’Angleterre. At first, saying that we stayed at a “Best Western” on a trip to France sounds decidedly downscale. That wasn’t the case. Tonight’s hotel and well as another Best Western hotel we used later in the trip was as “old European” as you can get. I’m not sure what the financial arrangement is with Best Western but for some reason these hotels in buildings that were more than 100 years old wanted to be part of the Best Western group.
I was whimpering like a baby.
For the second night in a row, Google Maps made it a challenge to find the Hotel D’Angleterre which was in the medina section of Bourges. Think of that as old town. I was pretty sure we were not going to make it the last 100 yards. Our directions took us down a steep, narrow one-lane stone-surfaced alley. At the end of the alley, it looked as if the road turned into a dead-end. However, one more 90-degree right turn which would be our “out” of this dilemma. The even narrower lane went straight uphill. If our car was six feet wide this alley might have been eight feet wide with centuries-old buildings on both sides. This was one of the more harrowing drives of the trip. I thought we had no chance of getting out with no damage to our rental car.
Just as we got to the top of the hill what did we see? The Best Western Plus Hotel D’Angleterre! I was both amazed and surprised. We had arrived so late we were allowed to park at the front door.
I like to take photos of people! This guy was our buddy.
The elderly desk clerk was more than welcoming. Once he learned we were Americans he thanked us profusely for WWII. World War II was nearly 80 years ago. The clerk thanked us for the fact that he was still allowed to speak French! We spoke for a while and he recommended we take a 25-minute walking tour of the old town section of Bourges. After we checked in, we did just that. This was a fun walk done over cobblestone streets in comfortable weather. Various others of all ages were doing the same thing on this evening.
Staying in nice hotels worked out very well.
For the second night in a row, we had reserved a junior suite hotel room. These rooms were a bit larger than a standard room. They offered a desk, sofa, and small table and chairs. Even though it was just the two of us more space and an upgrade of amenities is always a good thing. Thinking about the Die with Zero finance and life strategies, some increased spending in certain areas seems more worthwhile than other choices. Upgrading our seats to economy plus for $700 didn’t seem “worth it” to us. Paying an extra $325 for an automatic transmission also didn’t seem like a good value, although it might have been. However, spending an extra hundred bucks or so, and sometimes more, each night for a hotel upgrade DID seem like a good idea. That’s what we did during the entire trip.
Sunday, September 24
Gas is how much?
This morning we had our first gasoline fill-up of the trip. Gas prices in Europe and particularly in France are expensive. During the trip, I received a text message from a friend of mine in Indiana. Gas prices where he lived were $3.26 a gallon. This morning in France we paid $8.10 a gallon. Oh my.
Today is a trackchasing day. Racing is a bit different outside of the United States than most other places. In the U.S. almost all local short-track racing happens at night. On the other hand, almost no auto racing of any kind happens at night outside of English-speaking countries, including the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand. Why is this differentiation broken out by the local language? Maybe it’s just a coincidence and maybe it’s not. Additionally, foreign countries only race on the weekends. In the United States, during the summer months, you will be able to find a race just about every day of the week for three months.
12 hours of trackchasing in each 12-day trip.
For our trip, Saturdays, and Sundays of our 12-day adventure, will each have a trackchasing stop somewhere in France. As it turns out, we will be seeing racing at two permanent well-known road course racing facilities. We will also stop at two dirt tracks where they have what they call “autocross” racing for their “sprint cars”. These are not sprint cars like you know them if you’ve ever been to Knoxville, Eldora, or Ascot but they are still entertaining.
Circuit D’Issoire – Issoire, France – Dirt autocross – Lifetime track #2,921.
Admission to these autocross races is inexpensive. They only charge €10 per person to watch. One of the nice things about going to an autocross race is not only can you watch the race from just about anywhere around the track but you can stroll through the paddock area. In the paddock, you will get to see the racing machines up close and personal.
B+? That’s the driver’s blood type!
When you do view one of the race cars up close, you’re going to notice something that you would virtually never see in the United States. Each driver has a “grade” next to his name on the side of the race car. You might see “A+” or “B+”. These designations do not indicate how the driver did on his last algebra test. Then what are they? These descriptors are the driver’s blood type! I’ll bet a lot of folks never guessed that. Racing can be dangerous but only in rare circumstances.
We will never starve on these trips.
It’s always fun to go to the concession stand at these local races. To be clear I don’t think they call their racetrack eateries concession stands but you know what I mean. Two of the more unusual items that we ordered today were the track’s hotdog and their crêpe.
Want to make your own hot dog bun?
At these places, they take a solid bread roll and impale it over a foot-long 1-inch diameter metal spike. This hollows out the center of the bread roll. Inside the center of the roll, the server inserts your condiments, and then they shove the hotdog inside the roll. It’s a most unusual operation. I think you get a lot more bread this way, which is not something I’m exactly looking for when I order a hotdog.
In Southern California, we eat a lot of Mexican food. That includes tortillas. French Crêpes are like tortillas, except they are sweet and not made from corn. The crêpes are stuffed with more sweet filling, in today’s case Nutella chocolate filling. The crêpes were only two euros each. They did not skimp on the Nutella!
We always want to see everything there is to see.
The weather was perfect. We walked around the paddock area during the lunch break to get a good view of what the competition looked like.
The racing over the entire circuit could be seen in its entirety from any viewing point. Of course, this was a race on dirt and done on a road course configuration. I’m going to guess the length of the track was about 3/4 of a mile. The cars began the race from a standing start just like they did at the Peoria Speedway when I was a boy. The races were short, only about five laps each. There were good fields of cars with maybe a dozen competitors or more starting in each race.
Today I saw racing at my 2,921st different racetrack in 86 countries. That’s sort of an unbelievable number when you think about it.
Never two “mirrored” tracks in the history of trackchasing.
Of course, I’ve seen those 2,921 tracks one track at a time… except one night at the Speedway at Willow Springs, in Rosamond, California. On that night, the promoter got the idea to start two oval track races, that were not connected, at the very same time. I don’t think anyone in the trackchasing hobby has ever seen that.
After being at the racetrack this afternoon for about three hours, it was time to head to our next destination. Where was our “next destination”? Spain! European countries are small. Quite frequently they are about the size of an American state.
Yep. I’ve done Europe a few times.
Siri tells me there are 44 countries in Europe. Wikipedia tells me there are 49. I’ve seen racing in 42 European countries. In a way driving around Europe is very similar to driving around the states of America.
The family Christmas card from back in the day.
Where have I not seen a race in what is described as a European country?
If they ever race here I won’t be hard to find.
Vatican City
San Marino
Liechtenstein (although we have seen the king in person there)
Cypress (they do have a track there but don’t have racing that counts by trackchasing rules)
Armenia
Albania
Today’s racetrack was going to be a six-hour drive from this evening’s hotel in Spain. We would spend more time driving today than any day on the trip.
We were staying just south of Barcelona in El Vendrell, Spain. We picked this location because it was next to the Mediterranean Sea. As a matter of fact, the hotel overlooked the Balearic Sea which feeds into the Mediterranean.
700 tracks? That’s a lot of hot dogs and hotels and mind-tingling adventures.
Our trackchasing for the weekend was finished. We had seen a couple of new tracks in France. Carol had seen her 700th lifetime track at the famous international racing circuit in Le Mans. Our trip was off to a good start.
Now we would rest and relax from Sunday night until next Saturday morning when we would be trackchasing again. The plan was to spend three nights at a beautiful hotel overlooking the sea in Spain, and then another three nights in Marseille, France, doing the same thing. Life in the retirement lane can be stressful, huh?
Well? Have you ever done this?
During the six-hour drive down to Spain, we spent some of the time watching the UCLA-Utah football game. If you’re reading closely, you might have some issues with the idea that we were “DRIVING” and at the same time we were “WATCHING” UCLA play Utah. Relax, I am a professional.
I love YouTube TV for its flexibility.
Here is how that worked. We have a subscription to YouTube TV. I own a laptop. I have a VPN. When you combine those three things and you have a wife who is willing to hold your laptop on her lap you can watch a UCLA football game or anything else for that matter. Even though we were traveling in France and Spain it was just as if we were in our own personal space back home. I wanted to call “your own personal space back home” your “man cave”, but that sounded a little sexist. How did I do with the replacement?
Cheaper! Cheaper! Pumpkin eater!
I did some online research and found that Spain had gasoline prices that were just a little bit cheaper than France. This morning we paid $8.10 a gallon for fuel in France. This evening it was time to fill up again. We were able to get the super cheap prices that are offered in Spain. Super cheap? How does $7.61 sound? That’s what we paid.
Our Renault Captur SUV was giving us about 37 miles per gallon. That didn’t seem that great to me since we are using a manual transmission. It is what it was.
Absolutely no offense to anyone. This is just a descriptor.
I like to surprise Carol. She is not a material girl. Can you imagine what it would be like giving a mink coat, (too early for that reference?) to a peasant woman in the Himalayas of Peru? That’s what it is like trying to give Carol luxurious items.
When I met her, she was a hotel maid…a beautiful hotel maid. This metaphor is directionally true. She still has a hotel maid’s mentality. No offense toward hotel maids…or Carol. She would accept this characterization. Despite this, I never give up. I am always looking to impress her. Tonight’s attempt was with one of the best and maybe the best-ever hotel rooms we have ever stayed in. Notably, we have stayed in our share of impressive hotel rooms.
The pictures are nice but they don’t really do this place justice.
Tonight, we were staying at the Le Meridian Hotel in El Vendrell, Spain. I have some special “relationships” with the Marriott hotel chain, owner of the Le Meridian.
When we walked into the hotel, the entrance was over the top. It just reeked with class. Here we were, two pretty tired-out dirt autocross trackchasers after a long day of driving through the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France. And now we run into this place?
Not only was the lobby and everything about the place first class but our room would be over the top as well. Guys, if you want to pile on the “points” I’m going to recommend champagne and chocolate, and don’t skimp on either. The staff at the Le Meridian upgraded us to their very best suite in the hotel. Talk about luxury.
Real pretty. Real nice.
I would guess the size of our suite was nearly 1500 ft.². The bedroom was huge with the best lighting. Our living room was spacious. Then when we opened our French door-type windows we were drowned out by the sound of the waves from the sea. To top it all off there was nearly a full moon. The moonscape reflected off the sea. Picasso could not have painted a better night scene. I think even Carol was impressed! Now it was time to get some rest and enjoy Spain tomorrow!
So how do you like me now? Credit to Toby Keith.
O.K. Mr. Bill Perkins author of “Die with Zero”. How do you like me now?
Monday, September 25
It’s always a challenge for us to get acclimated to the local time zone. They say it takes a day for each hour of time zone change you’re facing to “be on” the local time zone. This formula meant we would just about be on European time when our trip was finished. Then it will take a good long time to get OFF the European time zone after we return to California. Yes. That’s the life of an international jet-setter, right?
I screwed up.
I had set my alarm to get up at 8 a.m. local time to finish my 4 miles of daily walking. I needed to do that before 9 a.m. because that’s midnight in California where my “walking day” begins and ends every day of the year. However, I screwed that up!
Last night I changed my iPhone date and time to California time to see where I stood against the four miles I needed to walk. Then I FORGOT to change the phone’s time back to our time zone here in Spain. That meant when I finally woke up it was too late to get my walking in by 9 a.m. in El Vendrell, Spain which was also midnight in San Clemente, California. You can see where I screwed up. I hate it when that happens! Therefore, I only got 2.2 miles of walking in during my “California day”. I was disappointed, but not as disappointed as I would have been if this had occurred during the 12-month period (2022/2023) where I did walk 4 miles every day. If I had made that error during any of those 12 months it would have been catastrophic! Relatively speaking of course.
Eatin’ on the high end of the hog.
Carol and I were up early enough to take part in our first buffet breakfast at the Le Meridian Hotel. Wow! Nice. Not really over the top but very nice. This lavish affair was included in the price of our room. By the end of the trip, regardless of how sumptuous each hotel’s breakfast buffet really was I was ready for an egg McMuffin from McDonald’s.
Everything was going according to plan.
This was day #5 of our European tour. Every day up to now had a deadline. On day #1 we needed to get to the airport to begin the trip. Day #2 had us landing in Europe, picking up our rental car, and getting to our hotel. Days #3 and #4 required that we get to the racetracks on time. Today was day #5. We didn’t have anywhere that we needed to be! That being the case, after breakfast, I went into the living room of our huge suite and went to sleep. I didn’t wake up for another six hours! How does someone sleep through the night, a full eight hours, then get up to have breakfast and sleep for another six hours? I don’t know the answer to that question. Carol relaxed, on the other “side” of our hotel room.
With my extended nap, there was no lunch. Carol and I spent the evening walking along the strand in El Vendrell, Spain. What a lovely walk under beautiful weather conditions. The evening weather here in Spain is identical to what you would find in Hawaii.
Paella in Spain and much more.
We finally settled on a nice outdoor restaurant. Dinner was great. Service was slow. Prices were reasonable. The food was very good. I dined on the specialty of Spain, which is paella, a cooked rice dish, served in a cast-iron skillet. The dessert was outstanding. Our server took some time to explain how sometimes VAT taxes are included in the price of food and sometimes not. We tipped him. Then later in the trip, our server told us there was no need for tipping.
Tuesday, September 26
I eat whatever I want to eat whenever I want to eat and still have a perfect A1C score.
Our day begin, just like it did yesterday, with a lavish breakfast in a luxury hotel. I discovered the churros and donuts that could be dipped into a rich chocolate sauce with the consistency of maple syrup. No matter how lavish the surroundings and the food, the second day never seems so lavish! I guess that’s life in the luxury lane.
The weather here, just south of Barcelona in late September is perfect. It’s kind of a cross between Southern California and Hawaii. There’s no humidity. The temperature doesn’t get all that hot during the day, maybe about 80. At night it doesn’t cool off that fast. It’s very comfortable just strolling along the beach during the evening hours.
This was a good choice.
When we stay in these places that we’ve never heard of until we arrive (like El Vendrell, Spain!), I’m always going to be using Google to find out what the “things to do” are. The top recommendation? The “House of Illusions” magic show!
This makes me sad.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the Warren and Annabelle magic show in Maui. W&A was probably one of our top five entertainment venues of all time from all over the world. For well over 25 years, we had 2-3 weeks of timeshare vacation on the island of Maui. We never missed a trip and that’s well over 50 visits to Hawaii.
Warren and Annabel’s is located on the island of Maui. It might be more accurate to say they WERE located on the island of Maui. Sadly, their building burned to the ground during the recent fires in Lahaina on Maui. Warren & Annabelle’s was an upscale nightclub that served good food with fantastic close-up magic in a small theatre with a capacity of just 75. Warren Gibson was the owner and lead magician. I’m going to predict they will not rebuild since Warren was nearing retirement age. If they do rebuild, we will be some of their first customers.
I bought our tickets to the House of Illusions show located in nearby Salou, Spain. If the House of Illusions was nearly as good as Warren & Annabelle’s we would be in for a treat. We made our way over to Salou early to check out the town and understand our surroundings.
A beautiful afternoon in Spain.
The downtown section of Salou was much more developed and popular than where our hotel was located. Salou was kind of a mini-Newport Beach.
For us, tonight’s show included dinner and entertainment. The show including dinner lasted three hours. The food was decent. I’m not usually a big fan of having dinner included in my entertainment.
The show was being presented in Spain. Of course, the official language of Spain is Spanish. However, somewhat surprising to us, tonight’s audience was almost exclusively from the United Kingdom, including Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. That being the case the show was done in English with all kinds of U.K. references. I’m guessing most of their crowd most of the time at this show is from the U.K. However, none of the ads we saw that convinced us to attend made any reference to the United Kingdom.
Fun.
There were lots of your traditional magic tricks which are impossible to figure out for us. I always love sitting next to the guy who invariably says, “I know how they do that” when he normally doesn’t have a clue. There was lots of comedy, laughter, and audience participation. The prices were most reasonable. I highly recommend the House of Illusions.
We have now driven about 800 miles in the first five days of our vacation. On some days we drive for five hours. Then we go a couple of days with no driving at all. The manual transmission has been a bit of a hassle. We’ve driven in a good deal of light traffic and driven around seemingly thousands of roundabouts. Carol says the roundabouts make her dizzy. I prefer a roundabout to a stop sign. I would have preferred an automatic transmission, but since I am comfortable driving a stick, and they didn’t upgrade me, I figured I could blow $325 on some other part of the trip. I can understand if someone isn’t comfortable shifting, they wouldn’t have the option I did.
We used our three nights in Spain for pure rest and relaxation. Our accommodations were over the top. The food was good. We just kicked back and isn’t a vacation for kicking back? In the second and final part of my trip review here in France and Spain, we’ll cover more fun and interesting European experiences. As we got more used to the nine-hour time zone change we would get more active.
My financial tip of the day.
Oh! One more thing. You may have noticed I have been swept away by the “Die with Zero” strategy. That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me very often. This is what I am learning. We have always traveled with a mindset that we were unlikely to ever dip into the principle of our savings…no matter how much we traveled. News flash! It doesn’t cost all that much more to take your basic trip and bump it up to a luxury trip. It really doesn’t. Maybe if we do that a few things will happen. First, we’ll have an even better time. Secondly, maybe we will dip into our nest egg a bit more and not leave all of our money that we worked hard to get unused…at least by us anyway. That’s my financial tip of the day!