Did you hear that there was an Air France plane that had to have an emergency landing in Iceland the day before we left? That was to be our plane. They couldn't get it fixed on time, so they had to call a jumbo jet from elsewhere at YVR (Vancouver Airport), and that's what caused the delay. The plane flew 2/3 full with whole sections empty in the centre. I was just upset they wouldn't let us use those seats to stretch out and be more comfortable. Something about the balance of the plane was in question. "Stay in your assigned seats," they repeated. Then they caught a "bright light" actually smoking in the lavatory! Really? This still happens in 2017? Unbelievable.
Once on Paris soil, it was easy to call the "shuttle" to pick us up and drive us to AutoEurope where we had a leased Peugeot 308 waiting for us.
Brand new with only 12 km logged in, the only drawback we can see is that it is black, and that will be awfully hot in this weather. We got a quick instruction session on how to find all the features - especially the A/C - and off we went.
Looking back on it, it was probably not the wisest decision to drive to our destination without stopping to sleep. We took turns, but Karl was the main driver. It is about 4.5 hours to drive to St. Clémentin, but once you factor all the stops for gas, toilet breaks, naps, food and leg stretches, we reached our little "home away from home" at 6:00 p.m. local time. It was a LONG day!
Our Marge (which is what we call all GPS we use), indicated 32 degrees at 15:05 p.m. with still 258 km. to go. Why do we call her Marge? Think of Homer Simpson's wife saying "recalculating" in a very nasal voice and you'll understand why!
Along the way we saw lots of wheat fields with farmers busy bringing in the crops while the weather holds. Lots of farms since this is cattle country, mostly for beef.
And of course many, many fields of beautiful sunflowers! I can hardly wait to stop and take decent pictures instead of with an iPhone, behind glass, going at 130 kph!
We also saw vineyards with what looked like an abundance of grapes. This sun should definitely make that fruit sweet and delicious!
We arrived in St. Clémentin much later than we anticipated, but our host, Roger, was waiting patiently for us. The house and the town were everything we had hoped for! How wonderful to be spending 2.5 months in this little paradise!
"I find ecstasy in living - the mere sense of living is joy enough."
~ Emily Dickinson
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