August 19, 2024
Day 11: Villandry to Huisme
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The streets of Villandry are very quiet, allowing us to line up our bikes and getthem ready to go. I think our expedition is quite impressive when set out like this.
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The road out of Villandry is small and fairly quiet, yet we needed to take care to keep out of the way of approaching cars.
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You see above Joe tucked in behind Dodie and Amelia, but he was chafing a bit at the slow speed. For one thing, he was concerned about possibly plowing into Amelia, should she and Dodie stop suddenly. I explained that since we (him and me) are "experts", we are always alert for upcoming obstacles, and we use our finely tuned reflexes to respond to anything that gets thrown at us. I don't think I fully convinced him. But anyway, some kms outside the town of Brehemont we got cut loose from the group, and invited to meet them up ahead in town. So we took off, with Joe displaying a flush of energy and reaching 34 km/h. We were encouraged by finding we were following some other cyclists who were going along at the reasonable clip of 20 km/h. We passed them a couple of times, but decided (I decided) to hang back and not bug them.
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After a while, we seemed to be out on the road on our own. This had me spinning the fantasy that we were alone in the wilds of rural France. Since Josh's phone is out of battery, we could also say we were out of communication with our group. "No matter", I offered, "I have one credit card on me, we could fly to Brazil if we felt like it". "No way", countered Joe, "my passport is back with the group. The best we could do is maybe get on a boat. No, we are doomed to cycling France forever". These musings were interrupted by Dodie, Josh, etc al pulling up behind us. We had become so absorbed in our musings that we forgot to maintain speed!
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We stopped to eat some sandwiches near another cycling family, that we had also encountered yesterday. The father, or maybe uncle in this family was really engaged in making a photographic record of the trip. He caught my attention by having not one but two giant cameras. As is now the case with me, one camera was eating up the entire handlebar bag space. But for the other one, he had a custom mount on the strap of his backpack. The large camera hung there, but could be quickly released to record anything of interest. As we passed, he was recording their two kids in a trailer. OK.
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KIDS' TAKE
Evee:
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4 months ago
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4 months ago
love from Eve :)
Joe:
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4 months ago
Josh's Tail?
Apparently i get to follow an ass and a horses' ass. Upon entering Rigny-Ussé we looked at an epicerie to get some food, fail, it closes at 1pm and reopens at 3pm, it is currently 1:20. Ohhh a boulangerie! nope it is closed permantly. After passing through Rigny-Ussé we had the choice of either climbing a giant looking hill as a group to go to an epicerie to find foods or to continue on the the Gite in Cuzé where would could ditch Steve and the kids while Dodie and I carry on a couple km to go to an epicerie in Huimes. Dodie and I arrive and lo and behold epicerie is closed until 3pm, time check? 2:20pm, nuts, okay well we just passed a brasserie lets go get a coffee and some food! Sure have a seat they say, how can we help you? oh you want food? No, sorry, no food here we close at 2, okay fine you can have some dessert and coffee. So we hung out there for 40 minutes and then headed back over to the epicerie. Upon approaching we saw an ant (another cyclist coming out carrying a bag of chips and a drink). Went in and got an assortment of fruits and veggies and things that we hope the kids will eat. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures but, this establishment features exclusively Bio, and Local goods. While the nice lady was processing our goods, it took her a good thirty minutes, a young couple came in carrying a little basket with about six jars of something. They did some negotiating with the man at the store, and were provided with some kind of ticket for their goods, maybe they sell the preserves on commission? The lady had some trouble cataloging all our goods, we got some fancy looking Bio Herbes de Provence & Tomates potato chips for free because she couldn't make them scan properly. She later had to call on the other fellow, maybe her son?, to help her capture the Local Gouda that we chose. We then cruised back downt the hill to the Gite and shared our spoils with the family. Not long after we returned it has started pouring rain!
Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 233 km (145 miles)
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