Another Day Behind...

Again I find myself one day behind in my updates. Yesterday we didn’t ride, but instead borrowed the car and a crude map and made our way into the city of Nantes to find a sporting goods store that would carry bicycle clothing. (We’d like to find some French cycling jerseys to bring back as souvenirs). There is nothing in Châteubriant that we can find, yet we see groups of cyclist going by wearing an attractive jersey that lists a few local businesses and says “Châteubriant” clearly on the back of the jersey. It must be the colors of a local team or club, but unlike many American shops that sell jerseys with their own team or store logos the shops here have nothing to offer. They have to come from somewhere…

The large store in Nantes did indeed have jerseys, but nothing out of the ordinary. The typical professional team’s jerseys, and some nice (but plain and unmarked) jerseys, but nothing that would be remotely connected with this region of France.

Admitting defeat we walked around another part of the mall in Atlantis, and had a coffee while watching a carousel spin children around in the middle of the mall. It was quite clever in that it had several moving parts within its structure; a rocket ship that blasted off and then floated back down, a mini-Ferris wheel that consisted of small airplanes and an upper deck as well. Included is a photograph for your amusement.

The other photo is from the cemetery we visited near St. James a couple of days ago. There were many markers from Virginia, Pennsylvania, California and Oklahoma… but it took me walking six long rows of headstones before I found one from Idaho. Being that’s where we’ve both lived since 1980, it just seemed fitting to try and find someone’s final resting place and say “thank you”.

Today is grey and windy; we're unsure of our plans as they haven't unfolded as of yet...

Return to Châteubriant...

Yesterday was a travel day, returning to Châteubriant from Ousterham. Along the way we stopped and visited another American cemetery nears St. James, which holds over 4000 soldiers (Omaha Beach held around 9300). We also saw from a distance the monastery of Mt. St. Michel.



Today is a questionable day weatherwise, and there are no plans as of yet. I’m behind in my updating on the blog though… again just the inability to log on and upload items.


The lighthouse was across the inlet from the hotel we stayed at; the monastery is of course St. Michel. The spire measures about 492 feet above the church.

June Seventh...

Today was a test.  It was only a test.  Had this been a real day I might have just jumped in front of a bus and called it "good".

We decided to try and ride from our hotel to Omaha Beach and see the American cemetery and memorial there. It was 75% cloudy and it seemed that we were riding into the wind for a good portion of the ride.

Then came the flat tire.  A pinch flat, to be exact.  This put a big hole in the tube and tore a tiny hole in the tire casing. I replaced the old tube with a new one and wrapped a dollar bill around the inside of the tire casing where the hole was -- this trick really helps keep the tube from forcing its way back through the hole in the tire and then blowing up.

We continued on and reached Omaha Beach only to find that we were welcome at the cemetery but our bike wasn't.  Valerie went inside to look around while I was trying to sit on a long marble block that, for all practical purposes, looked like a good place to sit and wait for Valerie to come back out. But "there are rules... you understand" said the guard there, and I had to go stand out in the parking lot with the bike.  Yes, in case you were wondering, there IS a bike parking area... way out at the far end of the car lot where no one would ever notice someone stealing it!  So we took turns watching the bike while the other quickly went in and took a look.

Leaving Omaha Beach we retraced our route eastward finding that the wind had changed direction during the afternoon, so we could enjoy fighting a heading on our return trip too.  And then the tire went flat again.

After trying to pump it up again the stem came out when I removed the pump head, forever lost in the grass.  Great... one good tube with no way of keeping the air in and one tube with a hole that would take the largest patch on the kit plus a lot of luck.  We patched the tube and underinflated  the tire hoping that the reduced pressure wouldn't cause the patch to leak.  And here we are, back at the hotel safe and sound with 65 and a half miles of cycling under our belts.

The hotel offers free Wi-Fi in their lobby, which hasn't worked since we got here. I finally had to buy an hour's worth of Wi-Fi that could be accessed from the room, and the rest is history!

June 6.1944

We are in Normandy, and have visited a memorial for the British troops who flew here in glides, surprising the Nazis and preparing the way for the Allied invasion forces. One of their key objectives was to capture what was then renamed Pegasus Bridge.

The bridge has been moved since being replaced with a stronger bridge, but it is still within eyesight of its original site.  On that site is a restaurant that is said to be the first liberated building in France (and according to our hosts their prices will liberate guests from their money quite rapidly).

Valerie and I wandered around town a little bit, found a place to eat and are now back at the hotel.  Tomorrow we will liberate our tandem from the basement and take a good ride.

Saturday In the Park...

I’ve almost forgotten (again) to post something here today. We pedalled out to a monastery just past a village called La Meilleraye de Bretagne and took a quick look around while waiting for our British friends to meet us there for a picnic lunch.

While at the lunch my allergies (hay fever?) really got out of control and my eyes were watering and itching so much that I couldn’t even keep them open most of the time. As soon as we left the park we were picnicking at things settled down a bit and we rode back toward Châteaubriant and hung around there for a little while before returning home.

Tomorrow we hope to travel up to the coast to wander around during the festivities that mark the Allied Invasion and beginning of the Liberation… otherwise known as “D-Day”. I have no idea whether or not I’ll find a place with a Wi-Fi connection so the updates may come to a grinding halt for the next few days.

Today’s ride only amounted to 31 miles, but the weather was sunny and warm and well worth the price of admission. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t take any pictures I can upload today; but I’m hoping to have a few to post in the next couple of days that will make the wait worthwhile.

We learned about everything shutting down tight on Sundays and got a little shopping in earlier this morning to make sure we wouldn't starve before Monday arrives!

Friday Part 2...

Today’s ride totalled 50.04 miles… that was 4/100ths of a mile further than I wanted to go! We learned a few things today on our ride:

The notion that everything closes down from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM is false. We rolled into a village precisely at 2:00 PM only to find that the bakery was closed from 1:00 PM to 3:15 PM. So much for perfectly timing our meal stop!

The sun does shine in France. Today’s weather was great, and the sun was out for most of it… just a few occasional clouds in an otherwise clear sky.

McDonald’s does have Wi-Fi in France. ("Friday Part 1..." was sent from there.) Their drive-thru is called “McDrive”, and their French fries taste pretty much like they do (for better or worse) in the U.S.

Friday Part 1...

Just a quick message as we're still out riding and it's getting late. The view is Rougé and the tray of treats is what we ate after we got there.

A Little Sore in and at France...

Today finds me not living up to expectations… certain people I’m bicycling with expect me to pedal more miles than I seem to be capable of at the moment. Yesterday we did 35.5 miles and today it was only 38.5 (I had hoped for 40 as a minimum but came up short on both distance and enthusiasm (physically speaking, that is). Seems like I’m developing a little saddle sore problem… and I’m not happy about it. Valerie on the other hand seems to be suffering no ill effects from cycling and seems to be in great shape and could probably ride circles around me at this point… what a show-off!

France is an interesting, yet frustrating country. I think that I’ve mentioned that damned near everything is closed on Sunday. What I didn’t mention was that most all shops in most of the villages seem to close up between noon and 2:00 PM. It seems that everybody likes have a long lunch… but if you want to do something during your lunch hour… forget it!

Our ride today was in a counter clockwise loop that stopped in Châteubriant about two-thirds of the way to completion We had hoped to find a little bakery or butcher in St. Julien de Vouvantes, but everything was closed up tight so all I got was a photo of their cathedral… nothing to eat.

In Chateuâbriant, however, we both made up for lost time by wolfing down several pastries and tarts from a local shop that we had visited a few days earlier. While sitting outside the shop looking down a narrow street in the business district I noticed a sign sticking out from a building with the silhouette of a cat on the top of it (left side of the street in the photo). Of course it wasn’t a silhouette at all; it was a real cat that had jumped down from the roof a few feet above the sign. The cat seemed to enjoy watching all of the people passing by.

Today was sunny and warm, but the breeze was very apparent at times, and riding into it wasn’t the most fun thing to do. But when we turned and rode with it at our backs – life was sweet!

P.S. -- If you read the post "The Eagle Has Landed" and wondered why it seemed a little out of place, go down two posts and read the newly added introduction to it!

Wednesday in Châteubriant...

It's 3:45 I'm in the afternoon and I'm back in the  coffee bar we found yesterday. We've ridden out to a village called Rouge and back into town where I finally found a place that has Wi-Fi access!  

Hopefully two pictures will accompany this post; one is in Rouge by a monument that most villages seem to have that commemorate the people they lost in WW1.  Then somewhere else on the monument they had to add in their losses for WW2.  The second photo is of me in the bar learning to drink coffee with chocolate... not quite a mocha, but good enough to keep me happy!

The Eagle Has Landed...

+++ BOGUS POSTING!!! +++ This was typed on the plane the last half hour or so before we touched down... I never found a wi-fi zone and thought that I had successfully deleted this post off of my cell phone. Obviously, when I found a wi-fi hotspot in Châteubriant this message came out of hiding on my cell and uploaded itself. Sorry 'bout that!
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If this post is being read, it means that I found a wi-find hot spot at the Paris airport (CDG). We are on the ground, although feeling worn out from a relatively sleepless 8 hour flight from Chicago to Paris.

We're wishing someone would win the lottery quick so we could afford to upgrade our seats for the return flight; 1st class and business class flyers appear to have little cubicles they "live" in with a chair that folds back into a bed! How we envy them after banging our knees into the backs of the seats in front of us all night long!