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Published: June 15th 2006
Wednesday the 14th of June
Finally, a day where we bike out of town and don’t have to go up a hill! As well, we didn’t get lost going out of town this time. The last several days have been VERY hot while we were biking, so we decided that we’d wake up early and start the ride early in the day before it got too hot. This was a GOOD plan. The ride out of Vertus and towards Mourmelon-le-Grand where we were planning on staying was wonderful. The weather was cool, there was just a little bit of breeze, and the road was mainly flat, with easy rollers of hills. We had a bit of a surprise when one of the roads we planned on using turned out to be dirt! We looked at the surface and decided we’d continue with it since to detour would have been long and on the larger roads that we’ve been trying to stay off of. The dirt road lasted for about a mile and a half, with a 50 foot paved section in the middle. Quite strange. There was a unique little monument that we ran into on the way that was made out of a propeller that had been on the aircraft when it made a belly up landing. It was dedicated to fallen aviators during World War II. One of the things that struck us was that it was still very well maintained, with crisp, clear paint and no rust. Everything was going well, and we were feeling good and expressed that to each other when we stopped for a little halfway through the small hamlet of Vraux. Mother Nature promptly slapped us with a nasty headwind when we exited Vraux, gusting to roughly 10mph, until we reached our goal. Our target town was Mourmelon, which is directly next to a French Military base. There was a lot of military traffic on the road in, and every 10th person on the street was in camouflage. At least they weren’t carrying FAMAS assault rifles like the 3-man squads we saw at the train station and the Eiffel Tower. We went all the way into town, passing the first little hotel that we’d seen. Turns out that was the ONLY hotel, which is pretty strange considering it’s a military town. You’d think there’d be more hotels around for military families, etc. (I know it was that way when I was motel manager next to Ft. Ord in Monterey -Jesse). The place was a small little affair, very old world. There was a single room bar and pizzeria, with the kitchen in back, and all four rooms the place had to offer upstairs. We were able to store our bikes in their backyard. While the construction was very rustic and not up to the standards of a Motel 6 in the states, we still had the grandest time there talking with the proprietor, his family, and several of the patrons, using a combination of gestures, Erin’s pidgeon French, the little Franklin digital translator Margaret brought, and good intentions. We had a great time talking about our trip, where we were from, what we did, what we thought of France, etc. All without anyone speaking much English or French in the opposite direction, if you catch my drift. That afternoon as we were taking a siesta (I swear the French invented it, and not Mexico), thunderstorms and rain rolled into the area intermittently. When we awoke from our naps, we had dinner downstairs. There was one pizza with a kind of meat sauce, and another that when we ordered thought would be a pizza, but was like a giant calzone with ham, onions, mushrooms, bacon, and cheese that was marvelous. Erin topped it off with a wonderful chocolate Sunday, then we went for a long walk to work off some of the pizza, before retiring for the evening.
Thursday, the 15th of June.
We bid “au revoir” to our host under gray skies. It had rained as late as 6:30 this morning, and had rained off and on through the night, so we were a little apprehensive but we still climbed back into our bike saddles and started pedaling. Within the first mile or two it started to sprinkle enough that we put on our rain jackets. We ride alternated between beautiful little towns with ancient churches and buildings, and wide open rolling farmland. In one of the open stretches in the middle of nowhere we came upon a monument dealing with several officers from the First World War and the Western Front, from what we could make out. There was also a laminated card slipped under the edge of one of the plaques from a pair of British bicyclists “in their sixth decade” as they’d put it, who were riding from Switzerland to Belgium along the former Western Front to commemorate those that had fallen on both sides during the Great War. We’ve run into small monuments all along our ride to the fallen in both World Wars, and there are almost always fresh flowers and draperies in some cases, and all are always well maintained. These people lived the horrors of the wars in their front-yard and will never forget, while I mourn the ignorance of our modern youth and their complete lack of understanding of our world history, thus dooming us to the possible repetition of said history. After 9 or 10 miles, the intermittent showers started gradually increasing, and eventually turned into a steady rain which kept on us for the remainder of the ~32 miles that we did today. We were thoroughly soaked to the bone by the time we made our planned stop in Vouziers. Of course we picked the wrong fork of the road and went all the way into the old town only to find out that we had to go back and take the other fork. Oh well, what’s a mile in the soaking rain between friends? We met a wonderful couple from England as we were in the later stages of checking in and lugging six sets of panniers, 3 or 4 misc handlebar and rack bags, and three sets of helmets and gloves up to our room. Michael and Caroline were motorcycle touring in the area and were stopping due to the weather. We later met up with them for drinks before dinner, and had dinner with them as well. We had a wonderful conversation with them about our travels and theirs (they've done some 15,000km on motorcycles in the last 10 years or so), and everything in general. As much fun as we've been having with the locals, it was nice to converse in English again for an extended period. Another wonderful dinner, delicious desserts, and excellent company.
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Lisa
non-member comment
Trip sounds delightful
I've posted a few comments but don't know if you're getting them or not. I love reading your journal - it's almost like being there. I admire all of you for doing this but especially Margaret - I don't think I'd have the stamina. Tell MAB that nothing's been happening around here in her absence which is a good thing!