Wildflower Festival 2011 - Palm Desert, CA
We went to the free Wildflower Festival that included arts and crafts, live music entertainment, wine tastings, photography workshops and guided walks and hikes. The festival was held at The Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument and Visitors Center on Highway 74 in Palm Desert, CA. We had a great time at this event. Watch the above video.
California Camping @ Coachland RV Park - Truckee
RVers love staying at Coachland due to its close proximity to so many fun things to do, in addition to the quality of the park itself. The park is situated just north of Truckee. Lake Tahoe is not too far away, and a float down the Truckee River is a short drive away to Tahoe City. You can bring your own boat, kayak or inner-tubes, or rent a raft from one of Tahoe City's concessionaires.
Truckee is a Northern California destination that is rich in history with a quaint down town that hosts charming shops and superb restaurants, all set in authentic historic buildings. The town is listed on the National Register of Historic places, and proudly retains its historic roots. Truckee was named for a Paiute Indian chief, Trukizo, who helped guide thousands of emigrants in their westward journey. He would greet the unaware travelers by yelling, Trokay! Which is Paiute for, Everything is okay! But, the travelers assumed he was yelling his name, so he became Chief Truckee.
Truckee is well known for its logging, ice manufacturing, the Emigrant Trail, as well as for the tragic expedition of the Donner Party. You will visit the Pioneer Monument, when at the Donner Memorial. The height of the shaft of the monument indicates the depth of the snow when the Donner party was passing through, which was twenty-two feet.
You can fish, swim, golf, boat, or just relax and enjoy the blue clean skies and amazing smell of pine trees. If the downtown scene is more your cup of tea, Truckee's quaint down town offers superb restaurants and shops, set in authentic historical buildings.
What do you remember about the 1960 Winter Olympics? The games were preceded by a controversy when the Organising Committee refused to build a bobsleigh run due to there being only nine nations intending to take part. It was the only Winter Olympics that the bobsleigh has not been included in the Olympic program. Men's biathlon and women's speed skating made their Olympic debuts. All of this took place at Squaw Valley, another short drive from Coachland.
If CamperRick had a Top Twenty Campgrounds/RV Parks list, Coachland would be on that list. They are open all year long so you get to experience all four seasons. Be sure you tell them that CamperRick sent you.
Spain | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Spain
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This video uses Google TTS en-US-Standard-D voice.
SUMMARY
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Spain (Spanish: España [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country mostly located on the Iberian Peninsula in Europe. Its territory also includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country (Morocco). Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are also part of Spanish territory. The country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean.
With an area of 505,990 km2 (195,360 sq mi), Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, and the fourth largest country in the European continent. By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Málaga and Bilbao.
Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek, Celtic and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania, based on the earlier Phoenician name Sp(a)n or Spania. At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations migrated from Central Europe, invaded the Iberian peninsula and established relatively independent realms in its western provinces, including the Suebi, Alans and Vandals. Eventually, the Visigoths would forcibly integrate all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces, into the Kingdom of Toledo, which more or less unified politically, ecclesiastically and legally all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was then documented as Hispania.
In the early eighth century the Visigothic Kingdom fell to the Moors, who arrived to rule most of the peninsula in the year 726, leaving only a handful of small Christian realms in the north, lasting up to seven centuries in the Kingdom of Granada. This led to many wars during a long reconquering period across the Iberian Peninsula, which led to the creation of Kingdom of Leon, Kingdom of Castille, Kingdom of Aragon and Kingdom of Navarre as the main Christian kingdoms to face the invasion. Following the Moorish conquest, Europeans began a gradual process of retaking the region known as the Reconquista, which by the late 15th century culminated in the emergence of Spain as a unified country under the Catholic Monarchs.
In the early modern period, Spain became the world's first global empire and the most powerful country in the world, leaving a large cultural and linguistic legacy that includes +570 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. During the Golden Age there were also many advancements in the arts, with world-famous painters such as Diego Velázquez.
The most famous Spanish literary work, Don Quixote, was also published during the Golden Age. Spain hosts the world's third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Spain is a secular parliamentary democracy and a parliamentary monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state. It is a major developed country and a high income country, with the world's fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Eurozone, the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), the Union for the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Or ...