The skies of France

Sometimes the photos I take simply drive the BLOG. There is no real story with this BLOG - just an obsession with the sky and clouds of France. Partially this is due to the openess of the geography so that we see the sunsets from the barge. The light in Europe is different - soft and often with a slight haze so that it is diffused. This of course leads to my poor attitude during the winter when this haziness becomes an overall grey because the sun is so weak. The latitude is very far north so the summer days are long - till 10:00pm and conversely the winters are really really short with the days ending at 5:00pm.

So enjoy the photos. You can click on this address http://jalbum.net/a/822455/ or you can click on the Jalbum widget on the right side of the page.

Sancerre Vendage

On the right side of the BLOG is a place labeled "Jalbums". Just click on the space and it will take you to a wonderful site that does justice to the photos. I am still working with it and will have more photos of the vendange. As you click through be sure to see all the photos by clicking on the arrow on the right of the photos at the top.
The vendange is the French word for grape picking and the beginning of the process of making wine. It is a special time. When we arrived in Sancerre this fall it was about a week before the beginning of the vendange. The grape vines were resting and doing the best they could to be the best grapes ever. There were no workers, no trucks/vans - nothing was happening . There was stillness, a serenity in the vineyard that was just magical.
The second week we were there the vendange started on a monday and the energy level changed dramatically. People were working in the fields both by hand and machine. The smell of the crushed grapes perfumed the air in the village. Life was good!
Some of the photos I took were early in the morning before the sun came up. At the base of the village of Sancerre is the Loire Lateral Canal and the River Loire. In the fall the cool nights produce heavy fog over the areas of water. As the sun rises this becomes an unusual sight. Tulah and I were running through the vineyards and as we turned around at the top we were able to see this fabulous vision.
It is our favorite place to be in the fall. So very special.

Two days of life in France.

Ancient cross hidden in a hedgerow next to the road where we were biking.

The gate to the chateau in the following picture

Of course - Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party".

A rare picture of the two of us - taken courtesy of Olivier.

"Monsieur Renoir" getting ready for the grand luncheon.

A photo of the back of our barge this summer. The flowers were trailing in the water and the Rooster has been repainted and is crowing.

We have just had two great days - riding our bikes and visiting with friends. We have been lucky enough to ride our bikes each day we have been in St. Leger sur Dheune - now going onto our 4th week being moored in the Port. Fortunately we have a great friend in Philippe who is the captain du port and he has not only not thrown us out but has taken us on a "field trip" to Savigny les Beaune with his "amazing" wife Michelle. Another story for another time. We have ridden just about all of the Cote d'Or/Bourgogne and have discovered many wonderful, secret places. Our biking is really just a version of "slow biking" perhaps doing 20 - 60K per day. This has also been a good summer to go very slowly with our barge. We are loving the connection with the country and the people that we miss when we move more frequently.

Yesterday we decided to leave for a ride after lunch - we were in search of sand paper so that Eric could continue his painting career. We needed to ride 15k on the path along the canal to Chagny to get to a Brico ( equivalent to a Home Depot). We decided that on the way home we would go a different way through a lovely small valley called the Chassey valley. This valley has about 3 tiny tiny villages in it and stretches for only about 10k or so. It has white cliffs on one side and vineyards on the other. The first village is Remigny which is an old 15th -17th century village with lovely old homes. Afterward we came to the village of Chassey le Camp. We turned in here - lucky for us as we found a farm with vegetables and fruit for sale. We stopped and the farmer who was engaging and great fun picked lettuce for us and tomatoes as well as zuchini and eggplant. We resisted the potatoes, leeks and carrots until next time. We can order raspberries and strawberries but we will need to call the farmer the day before we want them as he picks them fresh. After we filled our bike paniers we continued onto where there is a large Auberge ( the auberge was actually bigger than the whole village) and a road sign to a neolithic site in the next very small tiny village. We decided to lock up our bikes and hike to the top of the mountain behind the village where there is indeed an archeological site where people lived dating back to 1000 years BC. Amazing amazing amazing.

As we rode on we passed up several wineries - one in particular which was a large chateau and looked really interesting. We went on to Chamilly and there was a sign directing us toward a place called Amarantha where they make bread. Amarantha was hidden behind another old building and we could see inside that it had an old wood burning oven in which they cook the bread. As this was Monday they were closed and they would be open on Tuesday through Saturday from 5:00pm to 7:00pm - as the only time they sell their bread. An interesting change in France from the normal Boulangerie where they start selling bread at 6:30 am. We will have to return to taste this bread which has to be wonderful. A true artisanal bread. We then rode up to the ridge which was about 2k where we discovered a very old cross hidden in the hedge row.
The ride down the other side to the canal was spectacular and we returned home to our barge in St. Leger.

Tuesday was another unusual and special day in France. We are lucky enough to have some great friends Mary and Jim who have arrived in St Leger with their barge this week. They have a number of visiting guests during the summer and Tuesday the guests were Olivier and Veronique and their two children from Villerest which is a village near our home port of Roanne. At about 11:00am we went, altogether, to a wine tasting in Mercurey. This was a special place - okay so all the wineries are special in this region. The wine was great and although we bought a few bottles we think the Olivier and Veronique bought several hundred for their restaurant Chateau Champlong. We then returned to Mary and Jim's boat - Festina Tarde - for lunch prepared by Jim and Olivier. What fun and delightful. It was truly reminiscent of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party". Starting with Champagne and foie gras. The foie gras was home made by the Olivier and served spread on bread with ground course salt on top. The main course was Cote de Boeuf ( prime rib cut of Charolais beef ) cooked on the barbeque and served with girolle mushrooms. We all decided to skip the cheese course in favor of vanilla ice cream with fresh blueberries (delicious). There was a beautiful magnum bottle of red wine that was rich and smooth. All followed by naps as by this time it was 5:00pm. The French seem to do this quite often and it is amazing that they are not all dead by 30 years old. So wonderful and so much cholesterol- so it must be the red wine???????
We have had many magical days like these - we are so lucky.

Swans swans swans......

We seem to see a lot of swans mostly on the rivers . They are such beautiful birds with an elegant shape and gracefullness. Their feathers form a thick an beautiful protection from the water. As you can see by their necks they spend a great deal of time with their heads underwater feeding. This action unfortunately discolors their feathers.

The swans are aggressive birds and often demanding. They know what a boat/barge is and will come up to our boat "begging" for food handouts - then start hissing and pecking toward us if we move toward them. Tulah in her inimitable style will bark endlessly at them and is furious when we feed them and not her. They then start hissing at her which only makes her more furious so we all retreat and call a halt to the proceedings for the time being.

Swans make the most wonderful sound when they are airborne. They seem to only fly a few feet off the water but the "swish" sound of their huge wings is unique to them and you can tell by the sound when a swan has taken flight. We were in a mooring in Verdun sur Doubs and heard them flying at night. Not sure what that was about and it seemed so very unusual.

Enjoy the photos.

Taking our barge to St Jean de Losne.

The Alp Horn concert in St Jean de Losne

Fabulous sunset on the Saone River.

The Painter! No not Picaso but close. He is standing next to the working barge from hell.

Oldtimer in all her glory on the skids in the slipway.

We had only one "deadline to meet" this year and it was for June 1st on the slipway at Atelier Fluvial. When you own a barge it is necessary, approximately every 5 years, to take the ship out of the water to have the bottom cleaned, checked for thickness of the plating on the bottom and then have the bottom repainted with antifouling paint. Now if you talk to any one who has done this you will hear so many many stories both good and bad about this experience. In fact we were feeling a little left out as we did not have any boatyard stories to tell. The boat had been taken out and surveyed when we bought her but to be honest we did not have a clue as to what we were looking at - really not a clue. So we made our way to St Jean de Losne after we left Seurre on May 25th this year.

We arrived early - 5 days early - so we parked on the "steps" in the town of St Jean de Losne. The weather was good and we waited till we could go into the yard. We arrived at the yard at the designated time and day and were immediately put onto the "skids" that are on a cog rail and hauled out of the water. Such a strange sensation and the barge felt very strange being out of water. Tulah was totally dumbfounded by the whole thing. As is normal with the French there was no declaration of the pending schedule so after several requests for information we were told they would clean the bottom the next morning, then measure the thickness the next day, then paint the first coat the next day and the final and 2nd coat Friday morning - then we were to "rest" in the yard till Monday when they would put us back in the water. What we had failed to remember was that the French are done with work at noon on Friday so there was no question we were to stay in the yard till Monday, suprise suprise. As it was this worked well for us - painting of the remainder of the bottom up to the "rub rail" with our great Dutch Blue color - courtesy of Eric happened over the weekend. So you want to know- what did we do about brushing our teeth and other personal hygiene issues - for us the answer was a local Auberge. Some people stay on their barge and use the bathrooms in the ship yard. My "princess" attitude dictated a bed and shower in the Auberge after spending each day getting filthy in the yard doing chores on Oldtimer. Dining out was a must for dinner and our favorite place was at the campground. Les Harlequins which is run by Claire and Jean-Michele was a delight and delicious. We have also decided that the Boulangerie Bazzali has the best croissant in France.

We only came away with one shipyard story - but now we have our very own story. The first day we were there we were brought out of the water and placed next to a 70 meter working barge. This barge is the work of a demented handy man - we think. The wheelhouse is an old truck cab. At any rate they decided after taking us out of the water to pressure wash this old barge. Yes you got it - we ended up covered in slime and muck and anything else that came off the bottom of this other barge. It was pretty disgusting. We then spent from 5:30pm, when they finally finished spraying, until 8:00pm washing and scrubbing Oldtimer. A huge mess.

We left the yard on time the following Monday, very pleased with Atelier Fluvial and moved Oldtimer back onto the "steps" in town. At lunch time that day a rental boat moored onto us and out came an Alp Horn which was such a treat. A lovely Swiss concert.

After a few days we left and went to the Bourgogne Canal through only 2 locks to a very quiet mooring . After about 2 days (without services at this particular mooring) we discovered that we really are in need of new batteries - so back to St Jean de Losne we went. We arrived to find a carnival on the Quai and everyone gearing up for a big weekend of partying. So we moored up the Saone under the trees while we decided what to do about our batteries.

A few days later we decided to move on to Seurre again. We left the morning of the blessing of the ships. It was to be a busy day in St Jean and we were ready for some peace and quiet. The wind was blowing a lot - perhaps 25-30k. We were excited to be on the Saone going with the current and with the wind at our rear. This would be a fast trip. In fact too fast. We arrived at the first and only lock that we needed to do that day and the green light was on for us to enter. What a treat. We moved up just as the eclusier changed the light and began shutting the doors. There was plenty of room in the ecluse for us - we have heard from others this is an elusier who often does this-shuts the doors in your face. All that was fine and doable except that we had anticipated getting into the lock, when we saw the green light, so we were quite close. The ecluses on the Saone and other rivers are quite large and as they fill or empty they create a great current/draw on the uphill side which we were on. So after a frantic few minutes that felt like a lifetime as we moved closer and closer to the ecluse with not enough power to back up and away because of the pull of the water we finally were able to get onto what is called a dolphin. A dolphin is just a large post in the water with some tie off points. We were only able to get one rope on and hang there to wait out the emptying and filling of the ecluse. Not an easy task and stressful to say the least. Finally the ecluse stopped draining and filling and we were able to enter. I think we were so done in by the stress that we did not have the energy , after mooring, to walk back to the ecluse and give our two cents worth to the eclusier. Probably better anyway.

Seurre was again a treat so we decided to stay for another week with the swans. Okay, I do have fun pictures of the swans - for another blog at another time.

On the "canals" again!

We are back on the "road" again - actually the water. It is a wonderful feeling and quite different to be free of land and for us it is freedom of another kind as well. We leave our 10 year old Ford (fix or repair daily) parked in a garage during the summer. We are reliant on only our bicycles and our feet to get us to the store and on trips through the country side. It is quite suprising how different that feels. We quite like the idea of being self reliant. Riding our bikes also provides us with more contact with people and the countryside to say nothing of the much needed exercise. We also tend to see the world we are in through a microscope rather than just whizzing by it. One of these suprises was in Seurre on the river Saone. We happened to stop there because there was a large commercial - I mean large- ship comming toward us out of the ecluse we thought we wanted to enter and another large (double pusher charge) bearing down on us from behind. Needless to say these ships, which are longer than 100 meters and about 12 meters wide, have the right of way. The better part of valor and the only thing we could do was to pull over and let both of them pass us and each other. Fortunately there was a mooring just at that point - actually we knew it was there but could not see it from the place we were on the river. We were just hoping there was a space for us to moor - there was and we did!!!!!!! Well we ended up staying for 2 nights. The photo below is the 13th and 14th century church in the village of Seurre. We went to see it because of the barge that hangs inside. To our delight and suprise we met in the church a man named Rene Vila - 90 years old with very imparied vision but a large and generous spirit. He proceeded to tell us how the church, which is his passion, survived during WWII when all else around it was devastated by German bombs. He toured parts of the church with us and explained the different places - all from memory as he cannot see it now. Rene took from his plastic shopping bag a wooden flute and began to play the most astounding music. The Star Spangle Banner , the Canadian national anthem, Amazing Grace and on the harmonica he played Ave Maria. While I wept of course. Rene went on to explain that he was in Berlin at the end of WWII with what he described as his compatriats the Americans, Canadians and the English. What a gift to us.

These are old vines in the area of Pouligny-Montrachet. We spent the day riding

our bikes through the beautiful beautiful vineyards of the Cote d'Or.

John and Jack's birthdays aboard Deja Vu in Melay.

A welcome home party for Karen and Barry

John - Eric - Jack - Nigel

My - how did all that white hair come to be??????

Sitting on the fence waiting to leave for a wine tasting event. One of our favorite parts of boating has become the friends and people we have met. As you can see we are all of a "certain age" and barges large and small are the common denominator.

We have traveled from Roanne to St Jean de Losne on the Roanne - Digoin Canal, the Centre Canal and the Saone River. All of 240 kilometers and 73 ecluses in an astounding 30 days. We did spend one week on the Slipway getting the bottom of the boat cleaned and repainted. Even with that included this is slow , slow , slow. What a way of life. We tend to go very slowly as biking is our real goal but there are others that do extraordinary amounts of travel each year - 2000 to 3000 kilometers.

Rocky Mountain High and points west.........

Moab Utah

I am having some trouble with the BLOG website from Google. So the photos in this posting are out of sequence and I was not able to move them around to make sense. So just endure! I am sorry.Sierra Nevada Mountains on the way to Bishop and Mammoth Lakes, California.

Fairly entertaining door repair at Pete and Michele's home !!!!!!!The boys at work.

Lisa and Tom and Eric with the new Buddhist bell that has an extraordinary sound........

No place quite like it - Mendecino California - The county is the largest producer of "pot"!

This King Seal was on the beach in Cambria, California along with hundreds of others - March is the end of their winter "hibernation". Only the babies and older males were still there. The mothers had left some weeks before.

Oil wells in Nevada - some sight to see.

Las Vegas

Utah desert.

It is hard to imagine that the last BLOG we posted was in January 2010. By that time we were in Aspen having a wonderful time. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Aspen - so much so that we are returning next winter - same house for January , February and March.

In March we packed our skiis and boots and "Yak Trax" away in our storage and left for a trip through the Western USA. Our plan was to see family and friends for the entire month. We did just that. What a trip. We went from Aspen to Minturn to Green River,Utah to Las Vegas to Paso Robles to Carmel to San Jose to the coast of Northern California and Oregon to Seattle, to Bend Oregon, to Dublin ( San Francisco - again) to Southern California, Newport Beach/Costa Mesa to Bishop California, to Mammoth Lakes then across the desert of Nevada to Ely, to Moab Utah, to Grand Junction to Palisades ( a whole peach story to follow) and back to Minturn, Colorado. As you may or may not remember we started driving (around December 15th,2009) from Virginia after we bought a car. When we finally stored the car in Colorado on April 6th we had driven 10,000 miles.

We are now back in France - we arrived about 3 days before the volcano. We have a number of friends who were not so lucky but fortunately they were only delayed about a week. It is both good and not so good being back. We have to work hard again to talk and be understood- it was far too easy in the USA and we must say sometimes it was not a blessing understanding everything you heard. This is also true in France. We often just get the gist of something and that is just fine. After all the hiking, running, swimming and skiing in Aspen we have gained weight both traveling for the month in the car but also returning to France and the bread, cheese and wine. As the French say we are now on a "regime." We (that is the royal "we") are getting the boat ready to cruise. We hope to leave the Port of Roanne next week (May 10th or so) and we will return around the beginning of November. Sounds like a long way away - stay tuned for Postings from the canals. Hopefully I will be able to produce a more coherent BLOG by then. Not sure what the problem is with the photos. Any ideas???????

Beautiful Colorado

We made it to Colorado in 4 days with our 2 night stop in St Louis to visit Tricia and Tom. The weather was cooperative and the drive was easy if not boring at times. We listened to "Stones into Schools" Greg Mortenson's new book ( "Three Cups of Tea"). Greg Mortenson is an incredibly dedicated human being - read his books - he has shown what a difference one individual's effort can create. Christmas was with our daughter Mandy and her two beautiful daughters Emily and Carly. It was a delicious and wonderful treat with a "brined Turkey." The best !

Then on to Vail and Minturn to stay with our son Thom and his wife Tracy. So sorry just pictures of their dogs - actually just Petey and Tulah on the Gore Creek Trail.

Then on to Aspen and a sunset looking toward Snowmass from Woody Creek.
The view up Maroon Creek from the top of Snowmass.
Our 1st day of skiing after 5 years with our good friends Bonnie and Phil.
This photo is of the Aspen Grove Cemetary. We are lucky enough to be renting a charming house with a spectacular view, just east of Aspen. The cemetary, dating back to the 1800's is just beautiful and runs up and through the middle of the neighborhood. We are so enjoying being here and back in the mountains. There is nothing like the clear, crisp, blue skies of Colorado.

The mountains of Colorado and the Canals of France are like apples and oranges. Both juicy, tasty, colorful and beautiful but so very, very different. We are so lucky , actually beyond lucky , to be able to experience both of these worlds and lifestyles. For us having this adventure in our lives is as necessary as breathing.

Life in the USA!

We spent a month in Charlottesville living in a Residence Inn. We were grateful for the Athletic Club in town that provide us with an outlet. We left Virginia on December 16th for Colorado. Traveling the highways of American is an amazing experience.

The Truck stops on the Interstate.

A common sign - "meatloaf all you can eat."

A sign at a gas station selling hogs in Tennessee.

Eating ice cream ("concrete") in St Louis with Tricia and Tom on a cold winter day The confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Then there was Kansas... can you say flat?