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November 4 Friday Bicycle touring France from some nuclear power station to Lurcy-Levi France We got up before sun-up and pedalled off on our unsupported bicycling adventure. No problem seeing, or being seen, from the glow we give off after sleeping beneath those nuclear power plants' cooling towers. It would have been a nifty photo of our little tent and those huge towers in the background. We saw a patisserie, where one buys bread. I love saying, "Give me some pain." There were benches by a canal. We pulled our touring bikes to a halt and sat down to eat some choco-type cereal that I found in the grocery store yesterday. Sharon had one taste and said it was like chocolate cake that burns a bit on the side and curls up. It changes the milk into chocolate too. A houseboat on the canal had occupants who figured we were interesting to watch. The Marie (town office-mayor's office) was across the street. I had to go to the washroom. The people in the information office at Nemours told us to go to any Marie when we were in a town to find out about accommodations. They must have washroom, too, I figure. The Marie office was still closed. The post office is in the same building, so I decided to check there for a toilet. Not wishing to appear rude by just barging in and requesting to use their washroom, and hoping that a bit of my background history would allow me to use the washroom even if it was normally reserved for workers only. So, in French, I explained to the young woman working there a bit about myself. I told her that I lived in Canada and that I was bicycling around France -- using my best French accent, of course. After making my introductions, I got to the crux of the matter and said, "twah lette," just like it showed in my French translation book. Well, this caused all manners of confusion. First, she looks at some chart. Then she gets on the phone. Finally, after trying three different numbers, she succeeds in getting a hold of someone. She hangs up the phone, reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a book full of stamps. "Trois?" she says to me. After she's gone through all this trouble on my behalf, I figure I better buy some of her stamps -- besides, I bought four postcards yesterday, so I say "cat" or some facsimile of the French number four, and she sells me four stamps. This business transaction out of the way, but still of pressing concern is another matter on my mind. I try dropping my wonderful French accent, and say, "Toilet." She gets a funny look on her face. She says something in French that I don't understand. A woman has come into the office (this post office is run by one person in an 8 x 10 foot room with a desk, a phone, and a computer). The woman says something to me that I don't understand, and points outside. I exit, and return to the bench where Sharon is and relate my tale of woe. Maybe Sharon can figure out what has happened. I hold out my stamps, and say, "France sure has small toilet paper." Upon relating my recollection to Sharon, she bursts out laughing. Right about then, ready to mess my drawers with used choco-flakes, I don't see anything too funny. Sharon tells me that my French accent is so bad that the poor post lady thought I was asking for stamps for three letters: trois lettre. I see. Still not funny. I see a sign across the street near a little building. I go over to check it out. A workman, who has been busy hacking down flower boxes on a second floor, is loading armfuls of stalks and dried flowers into a work cart. "Twahlette," I say to him -- half expecting him to send me back inside to the post office -- but, he instead takes me over to a little building with a sunroof. Inside is a urinal and a sink and three closed doors. Will it be Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3? I open the first door. It is a shower. Hmmm. I never would have guessed that. I turn on a tap. Hot water comes out. How about Door #2? It's locked. I am really hoping Door #3 has what I'm looking for. I grasp the doorknob and pull it open. Bingo. It even has a roll of pink toilet paper. Very clean and spacious with a tiled floor. I should have brought my towel with me and I could have taken a shower. The sky has gotten darker. We get on our touring bikes and pedal down the road. At 11:30 AM, we stop for lunch and buy fruit -- pears, bananas, grapes, Clementine oranges that are like Japanese oranges, but come from Spain. We cycle out of town, and go around a traffic circle. Three guys at an outdoor café start shouting and waving their arms. We return to them. Apparently the road I chose only goes to a cement plant. We cycle off in the other direction, since there are only three possibilities and we came in on one of them. We haven't got bread yet though -- and no lunch is complete in France without French bread. At the next town we hit a bakery. The woman cuts the loaf in two for me. I wonder, just for interest's sake, how one says "cut" in French. She doesn't understand what I am trying to ask and tries to cut my loaf in four pieces. "No," I say. Lengthwise then? No. How about little slices? No. We both give up. I take my loaf and leave. The woman is still standing there, wondering what it was I wanted. We are bungeeing the huge French loaf onto the back of Sharon's bike when the woman comes running out of the bakery with a plastic bag. "Ah, sac!" she says, and points to the ever-darkening afternoon sky. "Pluie," she says. "Oui," we say. It does look like rain all right. "Tout suite," she says and points to her mouth "Oui," we say again. We point our touring bikes out of town. Shortly, we cycle into a forest and come across two rustic picnic tables made from tree logs. We pull our loaded touring bicycles to a stop and sit down to eat our baguette. It starts to rain. We stand under a leaky tree, seeking shelter. There is a road sign on the corner: Sangarue 12 km. "Hmmm," Sharon says. "We passed there a long time ago. We should be farther than that," she says. "And we shouldn't be going toward it." Oh no. I took a wrong turn somewhere and now we're going in the wrong direction. I suspected that tailwind was too good to be true. The road was marked 978 in both directions. They don't put N - S - W - E on signs, so it is tough to tell which direction we are cycling -- especially when there is no sun. We stand under the tree a while longer bemoaning our fate and lack of directional skills. A car pulls up and stops. They study their map, then they turn around and head back in the direction they just came from. Sharon and I share a smile. It must be a common occurrence in France. Reading road signs is weird. We pedal off in what we hope is the proper direction. It rains on us. It rains on us some more. It stops. I take off my rain pants. It rains. I don't put on my rain pants. Now my riding pants are soaked. Did you know there is apparently no laundromats in small town France? Therefore there are no dryers. We ride our fully loaded touring down the road. It gets later. I don't stop at a farmhouse. I don't stop by a forest. There is nowhere to stop in town. It rains harder. I am soaked. I find a park. But there are too many cars -- it's too open and there are too many people to try and camp with our bicycle tent. It stops raining. We ride away. It is almost dark. It starts raining again. I can't see any good spots to camp. Cold. We stop our pedal bikes at a corner to look at the map in the rain. It is dark. We ride through Lurcy-Levi and out into the countryside. It is very dark. I can't see anything. My glasses are splotched with rain. We ride our bikes blindly along the side of the road. We turn our rear flashing red Vistalites on and our yellow flashers in the front. It has a most curious effect. Cars coming towards us slow down to a crawl to check out what can this be. Some pull off to the side of the road and wait for us to go past. Must be a new emergency vehicle I bet they think with that flashing yellow light? It's odd. I feel safer riding in the pitch-black in France than I do riding in broad daylight in America. A car goes past. In its headlight beam I think I catch a glimpse of an opening on the side of the road. Sharon takes her flashlight and, leaving me holding her fully loaded touring bicycle, goes to check it out. She reports back that there is a big deep ditch that we would have to cross, but there is an opening behind it. When no cars are coming we struggle with our heavily loaded touring bikes and bump them through and over the ditch. Thorns. Brambles. Uneven ground. There is a small clearing. We lean our bikes against a tree. We set up our little bicycle touring tent. Our hands are very cold. We cover the bikes. We get into the tent and I crawl into my sleeping bag. I can barely move I am so cold. Sharon feeds me bread and pudding, apple and cheese. I fall asleep. I wake up. Rain is crashing down. I fall back asleep. I wake up. Rain is still crashing down. It sounds like that ditch we crossed is now a rushing river. Oh, oh. How will we get back across? I fall asleep. I wake up. Still raining. Now it sounds like a river is rushing past our tent. My ears must be playing tricks on me, I think. I fall asleep and dream that our little bicycle tent is being washed away with us in it. |
