Hard to beat sipping ☕️ coffee with a view out the 🚐 sliding door from pitch in Asiegu as the rising sun lit the snow-capped mountains of Picos de Europa.

🇪🇸#spain #asturias 🇪🇺#europe 🚀#travel 🚐 #camperVan #nomad #roadTrip #vanLife

[2/2] Smalls from the Ruta del Cares (PR-PNPE 3) trail in Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa. Helicella itala | the heath snail is a native land snail (📷1); during hot, dry periods it climbs up vegetation & seals itself inside its shell to avoid overheating & dehydration. Dianthus hyssopifolius | the fringed pink is native to ES, PT & FR (📷2); it’s well adapted to rocky alpine environments. Pinguicula grandiflora | the large-flowered butterwort is another native (📷3); the flower is atypically large for a butterwort. Not all the smalls we noticed were living: being limestone country, some of the rocks contained the bodies of marine animals fossilised millions of years ago (📷4). Tectonic uplift transformed an ancient shallow sea into mountains!

🇪🇸#spain #asturias 🇪🇺#europe 🚀#travel 🚐 #camperVan #nomad #roadTrip #vanLife 🥾#hiking #nature #nationalPark 🌸#bloomScrolling

[1/2] Smalls from the Ruta del Cares (PR-PNPE 3) trail in Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa. Glandora prostrata | the creeping gromwell is native to ES, PT & FR (📷1); this was everywhere trail side, with a velvety sheen that seemed to confuse autofocus! Erodium cicutarium | the redstem stork’s bill is native to the Mediterranean Basin (📷2); after flowering it produces long, beak-shaped seed pods. Helleborus foetidus | the stinking hellebore is a mountain native belonging to the buttercup family (📷3); the species name is Latin for “foul-smelling”, the result of bruised/ crushed leaves. Globularia nudicaulis | the leafless-stemmed globularia (📷4); this native is so-named because the stem is naked, with leaves in a low rosette at ground level.

🇪🇸#spain #asturias 🇪🇺#europe 🚀#travel 🚐 #camperVan #nomad #roadTrip #vanLife 🥾#hiking #nature #nationalPark 🌸#bloomScrolling

🎭 Cast: Alexandre Lafaurie, Barbara Schulz, Pierre Arditi, Lolita Chammah, Anny Duperey, Irène Jacob, Constance Labbé, Emmanuelle Bouaziz, Louise‑Do de Lencquesaing…

#LeVoyageEnPyjama #sousTitres #cinemaFrançais #ComedyDrama #RoadTrip #EnsembleCast #LifeChoices #Nostalgia

The Plains of San Agustin | A vast, flat, high-altitude desert basin, approx. 55 miles long and up to 15 miles wide. Home to the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescopes and surrounded by mountains, this area was a lake during the Pleistocene era.

#travel #roadtrip #geology #openroad #NewMexico

[3/3] Ruta del Cares. The trail was no less dramatic walking it in the opposite direction (📷1). On our outbound leg the mountain goats were generally high above us, sometimes heard but not seen. On our return leg a number had descended onto the trail (📷2). At one point we encountered a “toll goat”, hoping to extract a fair exchange for passage through one of the tunnels (we didn’t feed it). A view ahead to a stretch of “up” before the final descent to the trailhead (📷3). Did we mention we saw goats? This she-goat was actively licking at a very particular patch of rock, which we took to be a quest for salt (📷4); apparently sodium is scarce in their normal alpine plant-based diet. 17km/ 5h out-&-back. Note there’s a non-zero probability of rockfall, but this trail is up there with the best we’ve done.

🇪🇸#spain #asturias 🇪🇺#europe 🚀#travel 🚐 #camperVan #nomad #roadTrip #vanLife 🥾#hiking #nature #nationalPark