August 18, Paray le Monial, France

Today was incredible! It rained last night for the first time since I cane to Europe. The tent did just fine. It was cool all day long, and pleasant; I rode 90 km.

Say, I met some really neat folks at the last campground. I’ve said before that what makes or breaks a campground is the attitude of the hosts. Well meet Julie and Gregorire, on either  side in the picture below. The two run the entire operation and made my 2 day stay feel like a vacation. We shared meals, drinks and conversation.

Some new friends

The fellow near the middle is a very nice man. I don’t know how to spell his name, but when you say it, it sounds like “Amen” (Accent on the “A”) and that’s what I am going with. Originally from Dublin, he now lives in France and bicycles all over the place. Why? because it makes him happy. He is a regular at this particular campground. I am going to miss these folks; interacting with them was a really good experience.

I mentioned that I have a healthy distrust of the bicycle route that I am following, owing to some bad experiences in Spain. Well, let me show you a picture of the route that I was supposed to follow today:

An interesting cycle path

Ignore the road–the cycle path is on top, or it was supposed to be. This is the remains of an overhead structure that probably was fine when the Romans built it, but it hasn’t been there for a hundred years. Sheesh!

Today, after climbing to the top of a hill, I failed to get my foot disengaged from the pedal and fell over. As I was falling, I remember saying to myself, “Try to roll with it a bit!” So, I rolled. My left hip and knee are pretty bruised, but mostly just my ego.

About 2/3 of today’s ride (90 km) was along canals. These really are quite impressive. Someone had to did these, and a long time ago. Here is a picture of one of the locks:

A lock

Tomorrow, I have no campground unless I want to ride 120 km. I may just do that, if I get an early start. Until then,

Scott