A few bricks short of a road

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The title of today's blog is - a few bricks short of a road. An alternate title for today could be - how annoying can Americans be? After you read about our day, let me know what you think the title should be.

Dave was so excited to start the day .. The parking ramp we are parking in overnight gave us free parking!



So, today started off even better than planned. We were first going to go and find the Roubaix velodrome and the Pave clubhouse. What we had hoped to do was to have some coffee at the clubhouse and maybe buy a Roubaix coffee mug. Well, we found the velodrome without much trouble - and it was pretty much what we had read it would be. An outdoor velodrome, the huge paving stone monument ... But sadly, the clubhouse was not open. So we took some pictures, watched the workers paint some of the pavement, and decided that we would move on to our next event.... trying to follow a 70 km route of the Paris Roubaix route and find some of the fabled cobblestones.

We had a map of the route ... How hard could it be? Well, after 2 days in this country, I honestly cannot explain how anyone here ever finds anything. There are approximately 3 street signs in the whole country ... And we have onlyseen one of them. So - for example - you are driving along and you are supposed to turn on a particular street ... good luck With that. So, we made an attempt to follow the map, and then decided that instead of doing that, we would instead cut to the chase and drive directly to some of the cobblestone sections.



This is where the trouble began. We decided to drive to cobblestone section 10. A 5 star rated 3000m section of cobblestones in the municipality of Mons-en-Pevele. This section is one of the key sections of the race and so we thought this would be a good section to find and see. So, we loaded the town into Garmin and off we went. A couple of missed turns, and Garmin recalculations later, we were within about 5 minutes of the town. Garmin said, turn right, we did, the road seemed fine - paved but narrow, then the road was hard packed dirt - still narrow, but OK, and then we were on a very muddy and puddlely path - narrow, muddy, bounded on both sides by a chain link fence. What we should have done then was to stop and back up - what we did was go forward, out of the fenced wooded area to a grassy path bounded on both sides by plowed mud fields with a chained gate blocking the path. By the time we got to the fence, we knew we were in trouble ... And we were right. We stopped, got out and looked things over and decided that we needed to try and turn around and drive back out. That didn't work and we were well and truly stuck now.

But, don't despair - sometimes it is better to be lucky than good ... And today we were really, really lucky. By the chained gate, there was - for no apparent reason - a large pile of broken terra cotta roof tiles. We started out trying to make a path of these for the front wheels to use for traction, that didn't work and we were spinning a pretty deep wheel hole. So we got the jack out of the trunk, jacked up first one side and then the other side of the car and wedged lots and lots of tiles under the front tires. It took a pretty long time, but then we were able to back up about 20 feet before we got stuck again. This time, only the drivers side was stuck, so we jacked that side up, more tile and we made it another 3 feet before the passenger side was stuck. Dave (bless his heart) jacked the car up one more time, and we moved more tile under the wheel. By now, about 2 hours had passed, it was rainy - though thankfully not raining - cold, and I was losing faith that we were going to be able to get out of this without help.

I was actively lobbying that we lock the car, walk into town and try and get help - Or call the rental car company, and tell them where we were and what had happened and have them send help. I even told Dave that we could blame it all on me for being stupid enough to follow Garmin's instructions into a mud bog. Andy and Emily - pay attention to this part because you know this is one of my theories - so when you have really given up hope that something is going to work out .... that is when things turn around and work out. Dave said, let's try one more time and then we can go for help.

So, we had the tiles under the wheels again, and then we raided the tile pile again, and laid about 50 feet of tile bits on the path behind the car ... just in case it might help. We were ready ... I had been trying to push the car and Dave had been mostly driving it, but we decided that we needed him to push and that even though I am not a great backer upper, that I would drive. If our plan worked, we had to back up about 200-300 yards, through mud bog, puddles, on a very narrow path bounded on both sides by mud we would never get out of. No pressure. We started rocking the car forward, backward, forward, backward and then .... Amazing, the car got free and I was backing up like a race-car driver ... I backed and backed and backed, through the muck, between those fences, around the corner and all the way back to the pavement. We were finally free! It took about 3 and a half hours, but we were not stuck anymore. Whew - what a relief.

So then, we decided to resume our search for the cobblestones, but we have a couple of new rules for our trip. Rule 1 - never drive on anything that is not pavement. Rule 2 - unless we both agree that whatever idea we have is good, we don't do it.

We got to the town, and could not find the cobblestones. Don't despair though .. We had the GPS coordinates, so we loaded them into Garmin and we found them. Section 10 - you will see the pictures. Dave wanted to drive on them, I invoked rule 2, and we did not. But standing there looking at those cobblestones, still scraping mud off our glasses, shoes, clothes, and still rejoicing that we had escaped the mud ... It became clear to us why France has cobblestones. People were tired of getting stuck in the mud. Clarity! We also then thought about the farmer whose field we had been stuck in ... Coming out wondering what I the hell had happened here and why he has tiles scattered all over the path ... Smile.

We were in need of comfort food and a car wash, so we looked for a McDonalds. I needed a Big Mac. The McDonald's we found had a station where you could input your order and pay for it, and the McDonalds worker brings your tray to your table. And they had instructions in English. We had to try it ... And the order part worked, but the credit card payment didn't. Sigh ... None of them spoke English and all Dave and I have picked up are hello and thank you. But we worked through it. Dave talked me out of a Big Mac though ... We got cheeseburgers instead.

Oh happy day, there was a gas station and car wash in this shopping plaza! We decided to get gas first. We knew that American credit cards do not have the magical chip that Europe uses .. But we also knew that most of the time, they have a magnetic strip reader that will work. Unfortunately, the French guy waiting behind us to get gas, was not happy that it was taking us so long to figure it out ... The workers in the adjacent store that I went to sort out the payment were not happy either. But we got it sorted out and had gas. Next was the car wash - and that worked just fine. Our car no longer looks like we have been off road muddin.

It was about 4 o'clock by now, and starting to get really cold. Too early to go back to the hotel, too late and cold to bike ride, and we weren't sure that anything would still be open. So, we decided to drive to Dunkirk in honor of our escape from the mud and the British escape from the Germans in WWII. We couldn't find a WWII memorial, but did find a WWI memorial and took a picture there.

Then it was time to go back to the hotel. While Dave was putting the jack and spare tire back into the trunk, I went down to the grocery store to pick up some pastries for breakfast. Dave and I have been to this grocery store each of the previous two days, and I would like to think we blended in - but I think maybe we didn't. I think this because, I went in, picked out the pastries, and then decided to use the self checkout lanes. I saw the kid working the lane was them same as the last two nights - but we had never had any interaction with him. So I go up to the kiosk thing, and look at all of these instructions in French, and before I could even look around, this kid was there, pushing buttons for me to get the thing moving .. Then I check my 2 things out, and he was back helping me pay and showing me where the change comes out. Very helpful, but I got to thinking, that the citizens of Roubaix must be wondering if we are ever going to get with the program.

We finally found a pizza place open tonight, and had dinner there. We picked the place because we could figure out the menu and bonus - one of the waiters spoke enough English that we didn't have to point to order. I was so thrilled, I left a tip!

Tomorrow is a race day and we change hotels. The race is in Gent, our hotel is in Brugge. Still having a great time ... And are we lucky or what?

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Photos

The chained fence in the mud
The tile pile is off to the right

Comments

[MJ]

I really wanted to help--instead, I laughed the whole time!!

[The Ring Travel Saga]

It was quite a day! But all good.