Day 90: Nantes

October 19, 2015

It seems reasonable to carry on the tradition of recording the scene from our window each evening. So here is what that has looked like these past days chez Michel. Michel lives in a quiet and pleasant cul-de-sac which notwithstanding is within easy reach of three bakeries by bike and some giant stores by car.

We have been here long enough to appreciate local politics and affairs a bit. One of the "fun" events of the past week was a dispute between Air France workers and management, which included some managers getting their shirts ripped off. So the idea of management showing up at a meeting with their shirts already off is pretty comedic. That is the theme of this cartoon in the local paper:

Michel has taken a lot of care to come up with foods that we will like. It's a little tricky, because of course we like and would like to try many or most French foods. On the other hand, for anything pancake like you can not beat Canadian maple syrup. So Michel went out and restocked on this. Interestingly this sysrup is bottled at Maisons-Lafitte.

We used the car to go to a butcher today. Just as with bakeries, the butcher is kind of an artisanal guy, even if located in a small supermarket. This is one thing that is really not so different from Canada and the US. What was different was the meat on offer. Here I am not referring to the standard pig's noses, cow's udders, rabbits, and stuff that we do not usually eat, but only to the beef, which was our focus today. The beef we saw was the leanest I have ever encountered. That no doubt comes both from the way it is raised and the way it is trimmed.

With zero fat in the meat, we clearly are not going to fire up the BBQ, if we had one. So it will be some form of pan frying with butter. Michel does not generally do the cooking, so he has no experience, and in this neither do we. We are waiting until evening to build up our courage for this cooking challenge. Oh, what are we thinking. If it's a cooking question then one turns to the "red book". and hey, our meat is right in there on page 254 under "Tournedos". Only thing, they want us to serve it on toast - not too sure about that.

edit: Dodie wants me to point out that SHE felt no alarm at the thought of cooking the meat, and in fact turned out a delicious meal this evening. She did use the house cookbook, but only for reference.

Meanwhile, we have begun the sad process of packing up our stuff, to be ready to fly tomorrow. Pulling things like the flashers off the bikes feels like ripping the stripes off a demoted military officer. Degrading for them to become just pieces of luggage, sad for us to not be cycling on them. After all, isn't that the Velodyssee we just saw? Isn't the Atlantic Coast just waiting to be cycled down. Maybe we can go catch up with John Fleckner, now in Bordeaux .

The bicycles were not happy to have their lights ripped off

This is where Michel normally puts his Christmas tree (so there is a time limit (December) for moving our junk out!)

OK, the junk has spread to the rest of the room! Soon (!) it will all be organized and ready to fly.

As you can see, these are just wild musings. Of course we have to buck up, and fly out. The last time we were in this situation, we had in fact come up the darn Atlantic Coast, and I was crying about not being able to continue on La Loire a Velo. So pay no attention, the tears will dry and we will be back soon on some other crazy route.

As a consolation, Michel has offered to take me in to town on a trike. Dodie will stay behind - packing, packing. Check back in a few hours for that triking adventure!

So ok, it's a few hours later. Michel dragged out his Hase trike for me, since we already have the pedals of the Friday's off and packed. The Hase is the style with two wheels behind and one ahead. This configuration in a trike is called a Delta, By contrast, the Scorpion - with two wheels ahead is called a Tadpole. Michel "upgraded" to the Tadpole so that he could put a Rohlhoff hub on that single back wheel. The Delta has three chainrings up front, and a derailleur with 9 speeds in the back.

I mainly rode the Hase, but tried the Scorpion as well. It was hard to say which was better, but somehow the Hase (Delta) seemed more nimble. The recumbent position was fun too. Somehow I felt on a little more even footing with any cars, just because I was wider, and of course in no danger of wobbling at any speed.

Mentioning cars here is mostly irrelevant, since Michel could obviously take me on kms and kms of mostly car free routes. Paradoxically, the main street of St Luce (which is actually only about a block long) was generally off limits because of "rush hour" traffic and a roundabout right in front of the church. Michel said that there had been an initiative to create a car free zone there, but it was rejected. Consequently one could not really say that St Luce has a central place where a tourist like me could stand around taking pictures.

More than anything with today's short outing was how great it felt to just be pedalling. We know well that this will be a problem once we fly out tomorrow. In Montreal, I will be able to grab Joshua's bike in the morning and go off looking for bagels. But Dodie will want to stick with the kids. Then once back in B.C. it will be rain and cold, and finally, Christmas. We will just have to think of something (but not another circle of Florida!).

Main street of St Luce is not so photogenic, but it does have a bakery at either end!

The chateau at St Luce, with a dumb tourist in the foreground.

Flash - proud of our flag again- we hope

We were relieved to find that people in Europe had not seemed to notice the past ten years of horrible policies by the Conservative Harper government in Canada. This included Canada`s failure on Kyoto and involvement in Afghanistan. Because of these policies. we were not flying the Canadian flag boldly as before, though we still had it on our safety vests. So last night we were closely following the Canadian elections, and were relieved to see Harper finally thrown out! Hooray!

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