After joining the others for breakfast at their hotel, we gathered to do our first ride together, meeting at the base of the iconic Saint-Etienne Cathedral. I was finally getting to ride with these three. This made me very happy.
It was an easy ride along the Moselle and its canals. It’s a popular bike touring route and it’s well signed. The knock against canal trails is that they can get pretty boring because they’re flat and usually with no views of anything but trees. But I didn’t care, I was in France, I was riding along the Moselle with friends, it wasn’t raining.
Today was Mother’s Day in France. That explained the difficulty in finding a reservation for dinner. We eventually found a place called, appropriately enough, Mame ma’dit (Mama told me) that had a table free. There was a little girl across from me that particularly caught my attention. I loved her face and her expressions. She entertained herself very well as her mother, father and grandmother talked among themselves. Apparently it was also the girl’s birthday because she got a special dessert. Her reactions just killed me.
This girl had the best expressions. She entertained herself very happily and quietly during the meal. But when this came out for her - oh my.
I don’t know if it was the heavy meal that we finished late, the espresso that I finished it off with, and/or jet lag’s last gasp, but I could not fall asleep tonight. Since I was wide awake and prone to worrying about anything that could be worried about, I decided to deal with some credit card issues between my bank and Apple Pay around 5 a.m. By the time I finished up near 6, I was finally tuckered out enough to sleep. I texted Susan and Suzanne that I’d see them when I see them.
Tomorrow - er, today - is definitely going to be a zero day for me.
3 months ago