Oh, yuk! I hesitated to vote for a write up of such a crappy day - what a discouraging way to arrive. I’m so sorry.

Have fun! We look forward to reading about it. Safe travels.

Good work getting the é in Montréal. I have found a way to do this with my keyboard, but so far can not easily do ‎€.

Hi Jacquie.

Getting nearer to departure now for you.
Sue and I have been interested in the Lot and Tarn for a few years as well. I can't wait to follow along.
We cycled from Bordeaux to Brive along the Dordogne in 2014 as part of our France coastal trip in 2014. This is a beautiful region, as I'm sure your research has indicated. Excellent food too!
Happy packing and bon voyage.

Patrick and Susanna

Hi Patrick and Susanna

I remember you and I followed along on your blog last year. I had to tour vicariously then but hope to make up for that going forward. I'm feeling brave for this one, creating my own route after the first three weeks.

I'm going to try to journal on both sites though one may get priority--whichever proves easiest to upload photos. I write using the Notes app on my iPad then copy/paste so the words part should be easy.

Jacquie

Hi Jacquie.
It's Patrick and Susanna writing from Vancouver BC. We corresponded a couple of years ago around our French Alps trips in 2017. Seems wherever I go, I end up seeing the same names...The Andersons, Grampies, The Klassens and you both.

Glad to see you are off on another trip. Looking forward to reading your blog. Sue and I are still on CGOAB and went to the Pyrenees last year....Again inspired by The Andersons.

Happy retirement. Looking forward to reading. Perhaps for our next trip we will post here.

Patrick

Agreed! I based my 2016 Pyrenees trip on Scott's journal and in 2017, when Al and I were following the Andersons' French Alps route (sadly only the first half due to time constraints), we met someone else doing the same thing on a recumbent trike and there were two other couples from BC doing the same thing. We didn't meet them; I saw their journals online.

Thank you, Jacquie. The stories/writing is easier having been to the places many times for 45 years.

Scott is a great source for information on France and many parts of Europe. His journals are very informative.

And I'm hoping my writing is as evocative as yours!

Thanks to Scott's comment, I am planning to go through Cognac on my way north--unless I change my mind and go a different way.

When Scott says, "....worth an extra day" that actually means several extra days. But that's me. I like going slowly and not planning where I'm going to sleep. If you are camping you can more easily not plan in Europe I think. But I've never toured there.

I'm looking forward to following your adventure.

I wanted a small digital SLR and that led me to a micro four thirds system. You can find a lot online about the merits and drawbacks of micro four thirds vs full frame sensors, but for me the merits win out.

I looked at Olympus and Panasonic (the partners of M43) and Olympus just made more sense to me. I also wanted a weatherproof system and that narrowed my choices to either an OM-D E-M5 Mii or OM-D E-M1 Mii. I came home with the latter for a few reasons: a much longer-lasting battery, better autofocus system, slightly better image stabilization, and it just felt better in my hands. Unfortunately, it's bigger and more expensive than the M5 Mii (which would have done the job and which I would have bought had I been on a tighter budget).

Since then I've invested in several lenses and will be bringing two with me: my M.Zuiko ED 14-150mm f4.0-5.6 II (weatherproof wide range zoom that's reasonably light and compact) and my M.Zuiko 17mm f1.8 (sadly not weatherproof but tiny, light, and much faster for indoor and low light shots). In fact, Olympus markets these two together as a "travel lens kit".

I should add that I have soft spot for Olympus because my old film camera is an Oly and I love it, and that I've had my current camera with a weatherproof lens mounted out in the rain several times with no issues.

What is the camera make and model? How/why did you choose it?

I often consider that and think about this:

In "No Shortcuts to the Top", Ed Viesturs describes returning to base camp and setting up a tent that one of his climbing partners "had carried all the way to high camp on Makalu" and down again and finding a "softball sized rock inside it". The tent had been carried as a backup so hadn't been set up since the stone had been tossed in as an anchor while demonstrating the tent at base camp.

Make him carry all the bricks.

I'm anxious too! Al's pretty patient, but he's a very strong rider and can leave me way behind without much effort on his part.