Good-Bye Provence, Hello Alsace

It was not without sadness that we packed up the cars and trailer on Saturday and drove away from Sophie's house for the last time. The sound of doves, the dry warmth (where clothes hung on the line dry in about an hour) and the sound of the wind in the pine-covered hills, the sound of Swiffer the horse galloping about in his pasture... The swimming pool... Provence is a nice place.

But, on to a new adventure in Alsace! It took us a good eight or nine hours to drive from Sophie's to the gite she had found for us just outside of the small village of Le Val d'Ajols. We have the whole gite, four bedrooms, two baths and a garage for the trailer and the garage. The owner lives in one side of the building which is a large old farmhouse. A widow, she runs the gite, works in town as a caretaker for the elderly, and raises rabbits and chickens. Left, Rick rolls down one of the forrested hills near our gite. Below left, the gite (we had the right half of the building.) And below right, Sophie compares beanies for the REV as it looks to be very wet and will be cold on the hilltops.

Alsace is all that everyone has told us. Beautiful, green, rolling hills bordering on mountains. Pastures with cows and fields of wheat and corn are the rule here, rather than grapes and olive trees. Below, the view of "our valley" from the gite.

The plan here is for Bob and Sophie to do the race/ride Raid Extreme Vosgiene (REV.) This is a tough ride, even in Randonneuring terms. REV is 594 killometers of riding, with approximately 40,000 feet of elevation gain. No one sleeps. The time limit is 35 hours.

We arrived just a bit before the pre-ride meeting so Bob and Sophie headed out for that while the rest of us settled in and changed a tire on Bob's bike because somehow he had acquired a flat while riding in the car with the bike in the trailer. Obviously we need to work on our system there. The issue turned out to be a worn spot on Bob's brand new tires from friction en route. The solution turned out to be, once again, my brand new tires moving off of my bike and onto Bob's. (This happened on PBP as well, where one of our riders needed a whole new wheel and my bike was handy.) Glad to be of service...

Anyway, Bob and Sophie took off with the rest of the REV group (only 21 riders) from the nearby town of Luxeul-les Bains this morning at 9 am sharp in a light rain (Alsace is green for the same reason the Northwest is green, I think.) Rick, Dave, Cathi and I were there to see them off and then we wandered through the historical town center, had a cup of cocoa and a coissant at a local cafe, and read the Tour de France report in French.

The French cafe thing works like this: You hit a bakery and buy whatever you want and then go sit down at a sidewalk cafe, order your drink, and eat your pastry. At dinner last night, we met up with some French friends of Sophie's at a restaurant. We were all ordering dinner but they had brought a big tupperware bowl of salad and pasta for their dinner, thinking they'd eat it at the gite. The owner of the restaurant had no problem with them eating their own food while we ate our orders.

Speaking of food, I need to take a break here and cook Ricky some dinner so I'll just upload this right now and add more later. Send good thoughts to Bob and Sophie who will be riding all night.