Thursday - Caught up!!!

We're spending the next few days with John's brother Frank & his wife Rita. Peyrissac, where they live and which is on very few maps is very, very beautiful with lots of trees, steep hills and quiet you don't find in many places these days.
1) Rita was out early this morning showing me her garden. That's a VERY healthy aster blooming in the background.
2) The kittens seem to think their older dog, Oxane, belongs to them.
3) One of the stalls at the market we went to in Argentat this morning. (Yikes! I hope pointy boobs aren't on the way back again.)
4) Enormous loaves baked in a wood fired oven. Of course we bought one. (How is your oven coming, Leigh?)
5) Lunch ala Rita - fresh veggies, local beef (which made Pat very happy), fresh fruit. And Bob surprised us with coffee flavored macaroons for dessert which he found at the market. They were to die for!!!
6) Another in my clothesline series - this time it's our clothes thank heavens. It had about come to the point where we wanted/needed to drive along with all the windows rolled down...
7) Another in the clothesline series. Stone walls in the sun are perfect for the final drying of jeans. This wall is outside the cottage where John, Pat & I are staying.
8) It is English walnut season in the area. And this is one of the big containers filled with walnuts ready to go to the processing plant where they shuck, dry and shell them.
9) The cottage where John, Judy & Bob are staying. Note the roofs in this area of France are mostly stone.

The Salt Flats of Utah? Could it be that J & J are running the Corvette through time trials there after the Alaska trip? Wow!!

Wednesday - Moving south...

We're on the road again, this time to Peyrissac in the Limoges region of France.
1) Road stop for coffee & .... Bob ordered a double espresso (somehow I don't think Bob's French is as good as he thought it was).
2) Things to play with in the car - a Renault Espace which they don't sell in the US. It has trays behind the front seats for the passengers. Of course the water bottle did not fit in the hole in the tray - assume they think passengers should drink only wine.
3) This is a French car. Therefore, how on earth is one supposed to collapse the tray? The instruction manual gave instructions for hanging on to the handle above the door but not for putting the tray back. Bob is a mechanical engineer and spent a good deal of time trying to look under the tray to figure it out. Cousin John runs a body shop and fooled around with it for several minutes. Actually the whole endeavor took at least 30 minutes to figure out and as many laughs. The answer - just push down hard on the front of the tray - Duh! Bob figured it out although I'm not really sure if it was out of frustration or engineering skill.
4) Are we in Kansas, Dorothy? Nope, it's still France. Just the part that doesn't appear in guide books. Note the wind generators in the distance (about the only thing worthy of note). Pat & I got several pages of our books read during the day.
5 & 6) Stopping in Niord for lunch, Bob spotted a sign for a restaurant with a waterfall. Trust me, the land around Niord looks exactly like photo 4 except for this one little road that takes you down into a hidden valley with a stream/canal and a wonderful place to eat. We whiled away a couple of hours over lunch.
7 & 8) Back on the road - note the roofs have changed from slate to red tile.
9) The main part of the view from the way back. Let's just say we were VERY happy when we found Frank & Rita's house in Peyrissac!

Out walking Roscoe, did Bridge spot a red Corvette driving off one of the ferries into Seattle?

Tuesday - To the Savage Coast

1) Where to go on our remaining day in Brittany? We eventually decide (mainly it was decided by the last folks to bed) to head west to the Savage Coast. First stop - Vannes, also a medieval city with obviously the same first floor tax structure. Notice how the top floors touch but there's plenty of room to walk between buildings on street level.
2) Loved the roof line. Shakespeare could have built the Globe here as well.
3) Bridge over the moat - the flowers were lovely. Judy is thinking of having her husband build a bridge as well.
4) Crepes are a regional specialty and we couldn't resist eating here (nor, I suspect, could a lot of other tourists). It was named no doubtedly because it's in a cellar. (In case you can't see it, the sign is a mole.)
5) Vannes' answer to the Paris bike rental. LOVE those colors!
6) This photo is for KK & GG - one of the standing stones near Carnac. Turns out Carnac is "home to the world's greatest concentration of megalithic sites". And to think we just went there on a whim!
7) The coastline just past Carnac is known as the Savage Coast because of the high, crashing waves. The day we visited it was calm. The most savage photo I could come up with was to have Bob pose behind a motorcycle. Who knows? It may inspire Bob for his next trip...
8) I hope you can enlarge this photo to see the megalithic stones. There are literally hundreds of them in straight lines called alignments. This field of stones dates back to at least 5,000 BC (who knows what the decorators had in mind back then) and has 1,099 stones (we didn't count).
9) How many pounds of great French cheese and bottles of great French wine does it take to add a bit of girth to one's behind? (We're not telling.) How many well padded American butts does it take to break a French toilet seat? Six. How many Americans does it take to decide on a new toilet seat at "Mr. Bricolage"? Five. (Judy chose to look at curtains instead - go figure.) How many Americans does it take to install a French toilet seat? One with five Americans standing by hopping up and down on one foot.

Word is that more special Corvette tires had to be flown to Juneau, Alaska.

On to Monday - A Peek at the Coast

1) First stop - Pontorson. Judy is already planning to have her husband John make some of these planters for her.
2) Notice the fence - instead of slates, they're made to look like colorful pencils outside the Notre Dame Nursery School.
3) Mont St-Michel. This Gothic abbey was built during the 13th to 16th centuries. It was built on a rock in the middle of the sea without power tools so I guess they were entitled to take a few centuries to complete it. This is a World Heritage Site and cousin Bob has been waiting until the 4th grade to see it (that's closer to a century than not but don't tell him I said so). It was a bit foggy when we started out but we got lucky.
4) We thought we'd left Tillie the VW at home. Looks like she's on tour as well.
5) Some of the stairs going up - no elevators for those guys (or us). Thank heavens the current residents did decide to modernize a bit and put toilettes part way up.
6) The abbey cloister - I don't want to even think about how many buckets of dirt they had to cart up that mountain to put this in!
7) They climbed (zillions of steps), they saw, the climbed down (zillions of steps), they sat... and sat...
8) Lunch in Cancale known as the French oyster capital. Some of us had oysters, some didn't. Turns out Pat, Judy & cousin John are a bit more squeamish in their eating than Bob, John & I.
9) Dinan - one of the best preserved medieval cities in Brittany. Taxes were based on the square footage of the ground floor so they built small below and broadened as they went up.

Word has it that Chicken, Alaska had to fly in special tires for this crazy couple driving a red Corvette on the Alcan Highway. They wouldn't have tried that, would they?!

Sunday - once again...

John finally figured out a connection for our computer so I'll try once again for Sunday. (With English keyboard periods........... YES!)
1) Streets closed in Paris - you got that. Pat, still not fully awake but in the car (that's her in the photo). Cyndy off to the airport on her way home.
2) Our first toll booth experience - cousin John learns how to start the car & use a clutch...
3) Chartres Cathedral built in the 1200's with over 2,000 carved stone figures, some of which you see on the right & some of the best stained glass in France. (It does need a bit of cleaning however.) John & Judy are in the photo but are not carved - yet...
4) And then we're invaded by some sort of Scout Jamboree. They're everywhere. We decide to continue on our way -
5) But not before Pat & I stopped at one more church (it was Sunday after all). This one was totally different - painted on the inside, my favorite so far although I must admit I'm about churched out for this trip.
6) Judy in front of the cottage our friends Zelda & Brian from London so generously let us use near Pleudihen. I don't know what they said to those hollyhocks behind Judy but they're by far the tallest I've ever seen.
7) Our group enjoying a leisurely supper of sausage, cheese & wine in the cottage kitchen. Very relaxing to NOT be driving or squeezed between the luggage and to be in the country.
8) French cat - I think he spoke English.
9) Another in my clothesline series... those are concrete posts. Hanging clothes is not a one shot deal here.

Back in the states, Roscoe awoke Bridge early Sunday morning with his barking. Could it have been J & J in the red Corvette?