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Published: June 20th 2006
Friday the 16th of June
Good news = It’s cool today and not raining. Bad news = Long ~30 mile day with some pretty bad hills on our way to Doulcon. The scenery has changed some more, as it’s wont to do on long trips, with the fields of grain turning more to pastures filled with cows, sheep, and some horses. We all kind of felt like we hit a wall about 2 hours into the ride. Riding every day, the hills, and the headwinds are starting to catch up to us, apparently. We had lunch at a memorial to the First US Division from a battle between the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River during World War I. Reading from the plaque on the monument:
“The First Division A.E.F. attacked from the crest of the Baulny on the morning of Oct 4th, 1918. In eight days of severe combat it forced the German line back 7 kilometers and assisted the First American Army to join the 4th French Army at Grand-Pre, thus driving the enemy from the Argonne. Losses: Killed 1,790 Wounded 7,126. This monument to a foreign ally from a war 88 years in the past is still kept in immaculate condition. The gravel around the base of the monument showed rake marks and the grass was tightly cropped without a weed in sight. In all honesty I had a lump in my throat looking at these lists of companies that had fought and died in a foreign land, but were forever immortalized on this monument at a French cross-roads. I hadn’t felt anything yet. We noticed on our map that if we took a slight detour, we could go to the “American Cemetery” in the town outside of the end of our ride. This turned out to be the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, the largest American Cemetery in Europe. It is the final resting place of 14,246 of our fighting men that never made it home from the First World War. Additionally, the names of 954 men whose remains were never recovered or not identified are inscribed in the loggias of the memorial building. 486 headstones mark the graves of “unknowns”. This was a very stirring event for this writer, leaving a lump in my throat that was increasingly hard to breath around, moving me virtually to tears. It took the entire walk of the plots and the ride up the short hill to the monument building itself for me to fully recover my voice. I’ll be spending some time back in the history books when we get back so that I can better understand and appreciate what these boys went through. We rode out of the Cemetery sobered but refreshed from the rest. When we made it into town it seemed like a good time to ring up a 30 beer tab (at by 2:30 at the bar, followed by a French Siesta and more beer with dinner.
Saturday the 17th of June
The ride today wasn’t too bad until we ran into some more long hills, a few with a nasty little headwind. We had lunch at the first roadside rest stop / picnic area that we’ve come across, since we were riding on a busier road than we normally do. More WWI monuments in several towns that we rode through. We also came across one of the old small forts, possibly from the Maginot Line. Hard to imagine firing a cannon or artillery piece while inside of an enclosed concrete structure. Talk about your ears ringing! We stopped at one of the largest towns we’ve seen since Paris, and we’re all feeling muscles that we didn’t realize that we had. The hotel room wasn’t going to be ready for a couple of hours, so what are we to do? “Trois biere!” of course, and keep ‘em coming! LOL!!! That’s become our favorite phrase, and we use it often. While we were waiting at the bar, the town life-of-the-party showed up and kept everyone entertained as he said “Bonjour!” to every passerby and occasionally yelled other comments at the top of his lungs to those passersby or to cars. Not much was verbally understood between us, but we had volumes of fun. Margaret asked where the local bakery was and headed down to it, returning with some pastries for all! The townie returned the favor and bought us a round, so all was well.
Sunday, the 18th of June
We started the day in the river valley we’d ended the previous day in, then climbed up and scooted down several more hills along the same river valley. We had several really bad hills that actually had to be walked up, and we had one 2 mile slog that we rode up, but was very tough. The payback was a several pretty cool downhills, but two of them were a little scary with some tight turns and STEEP downhills that required heavy braking. We crossed into Luxembourg and stopped in Differdange for the night. When we stopped we had for lunch, of all things, citron sorbet and “trios biere”. Damn it was good. After cleaning up from the ride we walked around town a little bit during the flea market that was held in the town square and other side streets. We had sausages in rolls with mustard and the obligatory “trios biere” from a trailer stand like you’d see at the county fair or other events. It was quite entertaining as the trailer was manned by 7 or 8 underage (had to be high school kids) Dutch & French kids dancing and singing to Wayne Newton covering 40’s big band tunes while learning how to properly pour a correct glass of beer from the tap. The World Cup of Soccer was on, and the hotel’s restaurant as well as the sports bar next door had TV’s out front so the patrons could watch. Pretty good commotion when Brazil was playing. Unfortunately, France was playing after we’d retired for the evening, so it was LOUD outside our windows, which were open because of the heat.
Monday, the 19th of June
Shorter ride today as we rode to the outskirts of Luxembourg, the capitol. A couple of miles after we’d started pedaling, we had to wait out a half hour deluge in a covered bus stop. Once the rain stopped we continued on, but within several more miles a very light sprinkle started which stayed with us the rest of the way. As we were riding our few easy hills for the day, we noticed that the homes started getting more modern, the cars started getting a little bigger and a few weren’t even diesel, and more of them were modified with new wheels, tires, mufflers, graphics, etc (“riced”, in other words). After the normal clean up we had lunch at the hotel’s restaurant, which served mostly Italian food. We then walked the 2 km down to the train station and the beginning of the main portion of downtown. After stopping at the tourist information stand we decided to hop the city tour “hop on, hop off” tour bus. We never hopped off, but we learned quite a bit about Luxembourg that we didn’t know. We had dinner at the hotel on the patio again, and celebrated Margaret’s 60th birthday as it started raining once again and the thunder pealed across the valley. We did the math this afternoon and determined that we’re running a little short of days. The map scales between the previous map and map we were moving to changed, and that really screwed things up. Unfortunately we didn’t catch that during our planning stages, so we’re going to be changing our plans a little. But hey, we’re having fun!
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Dorothy Dargie
non-member comment
Hooray for the French and their memories
Jessie ~~ we are soul mates as I thought I was the only one who visited war memorials and hid so I could cry. I think it so interesting how litle most Americans know about the high esteem in which the French held us. Norm's brother is buried in a National Military Cemetery in Draguignan, France. It is, of course, an American cemetery but the French treat it with reverence and the honor they give it on Memorial Day is unbelievable. I think you will come home with a new idea about the French.