Vive la France!

We had a truly wonderful sixteen day trip to France, made possible in part by cashing in ten years of frequent flyer miles. We had a lot of Claude Monet (in Giverny, Rouen and three different museums in Paris), a lot of D-Day (Omaha and Utah Beaches, an American and a German cemetery and several museums), six glorious Loire Valley chateaux (Aizy-le-Rideau, Chambord, Chenonceaux, Amboise, Chaumont and Cheverny), Leonardo's tomb and last house (Amboise), some World Cup antics (I watched the Russia-Argentina penalty kicks courtesy of Johanna via Face-Timing her television), four full days in Paris and best of all for me, two of the most transcendentally beautiful holy places I will ever see, Mont Saint-Michel and the massive Chartres Cathedral.

We had interesting hotels and great meals. We drank rosè at every dinner. We went up and down endless spiral and irregular stairs and did a great deal of walking. Just about every Loire Valley chateau figured in a very long-running complicated feud between Catherine deMedici, a queen of France, and Diane de Poitiers, the king's mistress. I still can't figure it all out. We saw other Gothic masterpieces in Rouen, Bayeux and St-Chapelle in Paris. (Notre-Dame in Paris was ridiculously mobbed and we left.) The Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry but an embroidery.

Our rental car's navigation system made some weird decisions and spoke with a proper English accent, and Janet named her Clementine, in honor of Winston Churchill's wife. We also experienced ample amounts of today's travel headaches: long delays at airports both ways, uncomfortable flights (why do they even bother to serve such awful food?), glitches on everything technological, a card problem with our bank, crowded Metro cars in Paris (Parisians still do not use deodorant). The weather was much hotter than the forecasts had predicted, but we had no rain on any day, thank goodness for that. When we spoke with people from England, or Belgium or Canada, their subject was, well, you-know-who, which was annoying (I usually answered "I'm on vacation," but we couldn't avoid the subject altogether).

The French:
- are polite drivers, who obey speed limits
- have well-maintained roads
- have way too many narrow roads
- do not rush meals, which in the U.S. would be called "poor service"
- will not bring you a meal check until you ask for it; it's considered an insulting request to leave if you are given the check without asking
- tolerate many many rude tourists
- are much more polite than their reputation
- do not believe in shower curtains
- believe in hand-held showers
- actually understood my French! (well, mostly)

It was the fifth time in France for each of us. We've seen all but a small portion. What made this trip work was planning, and not trying to do too much, so that it was relaxing and we were never in a hurry. About 75% of the trip went as planned and the rest are now stories.

Mt. Springs, the sequel

A week ago tonight, we were eating a wonderful dinner put together by the Paula-Lur-Melodie-David-Andrew-Jeffrey team.  Do you remember what it was?  

If you don't, that's okay since all three days folded into one another to make for a delightful time together, with so much packed into such a short period of time.

What were your highlights?  Ticket to ride, Asia?  Walks around the lake?  Fishing?  Saving Russians?  Catching up with cousins?  Meeting Thomas?  Swimming to the dock?  Teasing each other? Seeing and fleeing from a bear in the woods?  Eating non-stop?  Surviving the rainstorms?  Happy birthdays?  I know one that was not a highlight - hitting traffic on the way home, probably for each of us.

Here are a few observations.  

-- The noise level on the porch the first night surpassed the other two evenings, leaving me to conclude we were all enthusiastic about seeing one another again. 

-- We did miss Matthew and Tina, and are looking forward to seeing all their family next summer.  We'd also love to see Claire and Daniel out here again, and we hear that Bill and Jen have a bus/rv so maybe that would make it easier for them to come out next year.  

-- Small ones, like Donald a couple of years ago, and Thomas this year, are hard work for the parents but just wonderful for the rest of us, to engage in the silliest of ways, to stare at for hours on end, to try to get the smallest reaction from, in the form of a smile, a tongue sticking out, a wave, or a "bbbbbbbbb" of a car-type sound.  (That may be Thomas' first word.)

-- Mary and I weighed ourselves on Monday morning and saw numbers we had not seen since February.  It will be a long haul back, and we're still not making much progress (King Cone is to blame.)  I suspect we may not be the only ones who indulged these three days.

-- Mountain Springs has all the right arrangements of cabins and proximity to lake and each other that gives us, yet again, the freedom to get up and go to bed and nap when we want, to visit each other and even to hide from each other, if we need to.  No names.

-- There's a bit of familiarity with the place and the area so we almost feel like its "ours."  We know the drill and even know where the glasses are kept in the cupboards.

In all the chit chat, we learned about new jobs and highlights from those jobs; we learned of wedding plans; we heard about trips to France, and to Gabon; we talked a little politics, but not sure we learned anything new there; we cracked jokes and told stories.

All that said, we also signed up for another year.  Mark your calendars.  Thursday, July 18-Sunday July 21.  We have reserved five cabins, in the event we are able to lure everyone there.  

In the other stuff happens besides Mt. Springs, Annie prolonged her trip east and came back to Pittsfield with us for the week.  She just left on her way to a couple of nights in NYC before she heads back to Oakland on Sunday.  She did a little work here, and joined my college roommate Steve and his wife, for an evening at Tanglewood and a barbecue and more extended conversations.  She even got us over to the lake a few times for swimming, reminding us how we don't take advantage of that scene enough.  Also, Timmy showed up on Monday night, having decided to move back to the area, at least for the warmer months.  He's looking for a place to call his home over the next few weeks.  

And, this week is a new birthday week.  With Mary and Donald on the 24th and Thomas on the 29th.  There will be another one soon, a real birth-day, as we're awaiting news from Tina and Matthew.  Happy days to all of you.

It's hard to believe it's almost the end of July.  I saw a little golden rod, this week, but still no leaves turning, thankfully.  We want to slow down the time and enjoy the sandals and shorts weather.

So wonderful to see all of you.  The time passes so quickly on these three days together, but when we're in the middle of it, I somehow can't appreciate that it will have to come to an end. 

I can't leave on that sad note, so I'll just point out he obvious how we treasure the time together.  Love from up here.  

And check out these two pictures; first the posed one, and then the one waiting for instructions to pose.      

Dateline Rhode Island beaches

First of all happy birthday to Andrew and happy anniversary to Lur and
Andrew! Memories a very fun weekend in Illinois around that big
event!

More memories too as we drive around the beach towns in Rhode Island
where we had five summer vacations, with picnic suppers of lobster and
corn on the cob, squeezing into Grandma and Pop's station wagon with
children and beach accessories to save money on beach parking, walks
to see the snapping turtles at Trustom Pond, closing our eyes at
Moonstone Beach, dancing to Billy Joel with vacuum cleaners as air
guitars and mikes. We thought they would never end. Well, they
didn't; just a different venue: the Poconos!

Anyway, we came down for a weekend of beach, AAA baseball, good food
and good company. Staying at Marj and Lew's and continuing to explore
the area.

Joe tracked us down yesterday for a FaceTime chat with Thomas who took
his first independent step yesterday. We saw a few photos of him in
the pool yesterday. Leonor also had a bom anniversario last week.
(Excuse the bad translation for happy birthday.)

Annie also tracked us down as she was driving back to the Bay Area
from a weekend in LA, where she said the thermometer hit 118. She
said it felt like an exhaust fan blowing hot air. I bet that was even
hotter than it got in Florida, where John and Marilyn usually receive
the summer heat awards.

I think heat was a common theme for almost everyone, with the
exception of Peter and Janet who were blissfully unaware as they
toured around the French countryside, castles, cathedrals, museums and
good dining offerings! Quelle chance!

We had talked earlier with Margaret who recounted Washington heat
stories as well as Leonor's birthday party that Jeff and Melodie also
attended. Despite the heat we see photos of baseball games and porch
parties. Does anyone work? Why don't people post photos of work on
Facebook? I think I know the answer.

How was your 4th of July? I think I know the answer to that as well:
hot. It was hot at our parade, hot at fireworks and barbecue. Mary's
high school friend Judy joined us with her daughter Bridie and husband
Tom, who enjoyed a more rural respite from the eastern part of the
state.

The garden has been a little disappointing because of a family of
groundhogs who figured out how to squeeze through the fence holes.
So, I declared war, put out peppers, did my best imitation of farmer
Magregor (from Peter Rabbit) and then pulled out the two useless
haveahart traps in the basement. Final result, two young groundhogs
have a new home miles away, and the garden is coming back to life. I
was afraid my garden was going the way of Pop's who finally gave up
and just left the gate open.

Other big news: Claire got a job! Her first teaching job, in
Michigan, near Luddington. I know, she had been teaching, but that
was connected to her student teaching, I think. Anyway, what a
relief. We also saw a short video of her on Facebook playing a silly
game. Looks like fun.

We've been to Tanglewood a couple more times and I finished my summer
lecture requirements. And a few too many trips for ice cream!

This is what we wait for all year long. Summer! Hope yours is super enjoyable.

Love from up here.