We somehow managed to get all our stuff organized and touch rubber to asphalt by 10am. I purposely made our first day of touring a short one. It's a shakedown of our packing strategies, our bikes, our fitness, and our camping gear. I'm happy to report that we're off to a good start!

The highlight of today was meeting up with fellow traveller Susan Carpenter, who kindly offered to watch our bikes as we attempted to get a pass sanitaire at the Mairie du 15e Arrondissement. That mission turned out to be a bust. They appeared ready to help us, but two administrators had a long and rather tense discussion that ended with "we simply aren't allowed to do that." It's been 3 weeks since we first submitted our application via email, and 10 days since resubmitting it on their new web site. I think they're going to come through with it, hopefully before a campground turns us down. The one here near Versailles accepted our CDC cards, but it wasn't automatic. It was more like, ok, this proof of yours looks a bit suspect, but let's just say you're good to go.

Anyway, it was a real pleasure to chat with Susan, who is headed off on her own cycle touring adventure on Friday. We enjoyed a little picnic in the park adjacent to the Mairie. Then she casually mentioned that today is her birthday. What an honor to share a small part of the day with her. She kept saying, oh I'm sure you have to go, to which I kept replying, no, I'm sure we don't have to go, but she was right that at some point, sure, we did have to go, so we did, and parted with the feeling that we had just made a new friend. How exciting!

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Kathleen JonesF2F IRL!

Or, love that you met up.
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3 years ago

Rachael AndersonWonderful you could meet up! We’ll be having dinner with Susan soon and are looking forward to it!
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3 years ago

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Remember how I complained about the cycle paths yesterday? Well, today's were much better. Since we weren't hopping from place to place, the nav app chose a route that avoided a lot of traffic signals and other city mayhem. Once we were out of the city it improved further. It was pretty hot. We went through our water supply quickly.

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The campground has all the fancy European amenities like a cafe and swimming pool. They asked us if we wanted to order pastries for the next morning. We jumped at the chance. Let's glamp a bit. As for tonight, we feasted on ramen, rice, lentils, mushrooms, and broccoli. We're slowly learning how to piece together the elements of our style of touring.

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Journaling is a great part of the daily routine. I'll try to keep it going. I'm not religious about it, though. Especially when we're staying with a host, we like to give them whatever attention we can muster. There are also some days that sap my energy too much and I just need to be a zombie for a while. Lastly are the technology glitches that happen from time to time. I don't pretend to be a great writer or adventurer or influencer or whatever, but as we were reminded today, we are part of a little cycle touring community that, when we're not touring (and sometimes even when we are), love to participate vicariously in other's tours. That sure was a long and jumbled sentence! Time to call it a night.