Day 11 2015

            I was up and wide awake at 3.  The sky was actually filled with twinkling stars, a bright quarter moon, and only wisps of clouds.

            The sanctuary, the site of the grotto, covers a broad area.  There is a large basilica and eight other smaller chapels.  There are several buildings where the sacrament of reconciliation is done.  Along one wall water can be bottled from the spring that magically appeared when Bernadette dug into the ground where the Lady directed.  There are two ways of the cross, a high one that winds its way arduously around a hill and a low one that is far less strenuous.  Finally, there is a place where visitors can bathe in the water.  This could easily be a three to four hour adventure.  The manager of the bar last night shared that the crowds in July and August are ridiculously large.  The scene has grown enormously during her short lifetime and she wistfully remembers a quieter and more reverent time.

            In the morning, I returned to McCafe for a coffee and croissant and Internet.  I was busy doing my e-mail when a pleasant surprise happened!  Carla MacPherson, last night’s apparition, came rolling up on her bicycle.  After buying her a coffee, she filled in more details of her trip and her life.  She will be flying to Italy this afternoon.  She has been on the road for three and one half months and will stay another two weeks in Italy before heading back to Capetown.  She is a strong Catholic and is doing the Way.  Her husband is in construction and they have two boys in their twenties.  None of them want to travel like this with her and although she wished otherwise, she does not mind one tiny bit. 

            During our vigorous conversation, a man strode up and commented on my 49’er jacket.  Michael is a retired social worker from Monterey and is as outgoing as they come.  Sadly, this engaging conversation had to end with both Michael and I scurrying off to complete check out by 10 o’clock and Carla hurrying to the airport.  She needed to have a bike shop package her bike.   Michael did agree to meet back at MacDonald’s at 10:30.  Carla led me to the convent.  One of the nuns said that they prefer a call ahead but that I should check back this afternoon.

            Michael with his broad Irish smile and dapper hat solidly in place appeared promptly at 10:41.  Having issues with the Internet at MacDonald’s, I suggested walking over to the Tourist Office for help.  Yesterday Julie had worked wonders for me.  Once again, Julie the magnificent stepped up to the plate, put her varied skills to use, and had his machine humming in the blink of an eye. 

            From the Tourist Office we journeyed over to an Irish pub.  Yes there is an Irish pub in Lourdes ready to serve the many Irish pilgrims visiting Lourdes.  Of course everyone remembered Michael from the day before.  Both of the hostesses were from Ireland, one for 16 years and the other for one week.  The chitchat continued for more than an hour with everyone contributing a fair share.  The young lady who had been there 16 years looked like she was less than 25.  She had met her husband in Dublin while he was studying at Trinity College.  He was from Lourdes and she moved back here with him.  They have three children, two boys and a girl, ages 15 to 12.

            By the way Michael is 62, is married, and they have two children, a son and a daughter.  The son lives at home and the daughter in San Francisco.

            Then we flew off to see the sanctuary and the grotto.  What an amazing place!  First of all, there is no fee to enter and outside of the gift shop nothing is for sale except candles.  Anyone can bottle the water, anyone can bathe in the water, and anyone can walk through the grotto.  The basilica built above the grotto is married beautifully to the terrain but dwarfs the grotto.  I wish that more of the natural setting had been retained but otherwise, every visitor respects the sacredness and holiness of this place.  Conversations were conducted quietly in a confessional tone.

The Grotto!!!

The Basilica!

            Michael had to leave at 3:45 to catch a ride to San Sebastien where he will meet his wife.  But before moving off stage he shared a few small world items.  He has relative who is a second year math teacher at St. Ignatius and has just returned from an immersion trip to Central America, a relative who graduated from Riordan, a relative who graduated from St. Ignatius, and his father-in-law was a math major from Berkley who served in the Pacific during WW II.  

The last comment about Michael, if you see someone standing alone it is surely not Michael.  He attracts people like flies to honey.  We were separated for a short time and I found him talking to four Italians.  Then he moved over and introduced me to the director of the volunteers who he had met briefly yesterday.  By the way, young and old volunteers come from all over Europe to help the old and the infirm navigate the grounds, pushing them in wheel chairs or pulling them in a carriage like contraption much like a rickshaw.  They all wear a light blue beret.  Reminded me of the community service that our students do.  Michael is seriously thinking of volunteering sometime in the future.

Michael and Me!

            Then he was gone, riding off into the sunset with “Hi ho Silver!”  I returned to a quieter world.  I retrieved my bicycle from the Irish pub and rode over to the convent.  They had a lovely room available with every expected convenience plus a kitchen.  The nun that handles hospitality is a spritely 67-year old former elementary school teacher.  She once spent a week in San Francisco.  There are five nuns at the convent but unfortunately it will soon be closing.  Their motherhouse sees this convent as a financial liability much like schools see older teachers.  The five nuns will be dispersed to places around the globe including India or Africa.

            The rain continued into the evening and the forecast is more rain tomorrow.  I will probably stay another night.  I want to see the sanctuary again and there a very nice cathedral and chateau.  If the weather allows I will bike into the Pyrenees for 18 km, without packs.

Much joy!!!
Hardy  

Day 10 2015

            Fr. Siebenand alerted me that I am calling this 2104.  I was piggy backing on last year’s blog.

            The easy ride into Lourdes turned nasty at the end.

            For the first time a clerk in the Tourist Office in Tarbes was less than gracious.  She impatiently dealt with a long line of two as if we were stacked twenty deep and she had a luncheon date.  She found a biking trail more suited for mountain bikes, very similar to several of the bumpy canal roads of last year.  Riding at tempo would have shook my bike apart.  I wisely jumped off at Julian and blazed my own trail through Louie and Barry.

            I zoomed by my first option, D507a, and failed to find the second option, D 973.  While doubling back, I was passed by several unencumbered.  They would be startled to see Aaron keeping pace with them.

            Turning onto D 507a, I found a challenge worthy of the Tour de France.  With the help of the granny gear, I pedaled a major portion.  After four walkups, 2 km, and certainly an hour later, I triumphed and immediately began creeping down the difficult descent.  Another cyclist whizzed by on the ascent but of course he was not packing 35 kg.

                                                                      The Climb!

                 

            Here is Lourdes!  Growing up as a young Catholic boy, I was mesmerized by the marvelous myths of Fatima and Lourdes.  And here I am!  It is like stumbling into Alice’s wonderland.  The town bears little resemblance to the village depicted in “The Song of Bernadette.”   Of course the apparition happened nearly 150 years ago and the village has grown into a small city centered on the tourist trade.  Besides the vast array of hotels and restaurants there is a myriad of shops selling religious items.  This commercialism has brought plurality to a very traditional French town.  I wonder how well this diversity has been accepted.  Probably, with the same difficulty that America has dealt with the new immigration.  Diana Eck mentions that a different aspect of these immigrants is that they do not leave their homelands behind.  Through the convenience of Internet and travel they easily  maintain intimate ties with family and culture.

            The first campground on the edge of town was filled to the gills with campers and did not have a shelter.  More rain came gushing down as I wound my way toward the center of the town.  Ducking under a convenient cover, I had a brief nap.  Isabelle can attest to my ability to sleep anywhere, three years ago in the Louvre and this year while standing up in the Churchill-De Gaulle exhibition.

            At the Tourist Center I ran into the same pair who were in Tarbes.  They had taken the bus.  Luckily, the camping near the center of town also rented rooms.  With dark gray clouds hovering overhead I decided on a room.  The choice was wildly acclaimed as rain fell within minutes and twice later in the evening.  Californians can only wish that they had this problem!

            Not being high season many of the smaller restaurants had rolled down their metal shutters.   The lights of a bar near the Halles, the town market place, were still on.  Being late in the evening the proprietor offered a very limited menu but managed a very nice grilled ham and cheese sandwich.  This was washed down with half liter of red wine.  The harshest storm struck with strong winds and rain.  After three scoops of ice cream and coffee I staggered back toward the campground.  Biking under the influence, BUI, was not a good idea.  Stopping halfway at McCafe was a better idea.  Even a better idea was having a full meal of burger, fries, and soda.

            Suddenly, a very attractive woman in her early forties was asking about my bike.  Carla has been biking and hiking Italy, France, and Spain for over three months all on her own.  She is from Capetown, South Africa, and is a pharmacist.  She was staying in hostel run by five nuns.  She handed me a list of such places and then disappeared around the corner.

            After this brief apparition, I biked back to the campgrounds with a light Irish mist falling.

Much joy!!!
Hardy

            The Warriors win and tie the series!  Now back to Oakland for a game on Sunday.

                         

              

Day 9 2015

            The lorries are back!!  Let’s hear for the lorries.  Most of the lorry drivers use good discretion and even wait on climbs until they can safely slip by.  Others, thoughtlessly, leave only narrow strip of pavement.  By far the scariest situation is when oncoming cars pull out to pass.  Last year Aaron was forced into a the ditch when the stupid driver came right at him.  Yesterday, a white van crossed the centerline and was halfway in my lane.

            This morning rain clouds hung ominously overhead.  To my amazement, I had the best sleep, from ten to seven.  With breakfast out of the way, I rigged for a wet day.  A short shower delayed the start.  And then misfortune struck.  The rain pants allowed less flexibility.  When I swung my leg, it caught on the panniers and down I went.   I was not hurt but the screen on my camera cracked.

                                              No Attendant, No Fee!

Life is filled with “what ifs.”  Maybe that is why the middle letters are i and f.  Some “what ifs” are larger than others and tend to haunt you longer.  Ironically, the rains never came and the rain gear was tucked away.

Freud said that much of the human problem centers on our grasping nature.  We want things and we want to hang onto them.  Letting will lead to happiness.  

Oddly, isn’t that what Jesus said 2000 years ago.  Maybe I was not meant to have a nice camera.

            Hot coffee and a delicious pastry came in Bassoues.  There was a four-story tower from the 14^th century.  One hundred ninety-seven steps led to the roof for a wonderful panorama of the entire area.  Lunch was in Marciac.  During the summer the town hosts a huge jazz festival.    A magnifying glass is necessary to find these places on a map.

                                                           A View From the Tower!

                                                                 A Jazz Artist!

            In Maubourget, the friendly lady in the Tourist Office listed five towns that would serve as guides to this evening’s landing spot, Rabastens-de-Bigorre.  The ride was a breeze, a totally flat road, winding like a snake through fields of corn and beans. 

The campground was expensive and did not have shelter.  When the rains came, the hosts first offered the laundry area and then a bedroom upstairs.   With the tarp covering the bike, I opted for the privacy of downstairs.  They did have Internet but it was not working.  Hopefully, tomorrow morning Wifi will be up and running. 

            The hosts were themselves world travelers.  The four of them, a daughter Lucy and a son Julian, have been all over the world.  China, Russia, USA, Mexico were a small part of an extensive list. 

Julian is 20 and is studying Computer Gaming.  He displayed several pieces of his artwork on Apple computer.  Several pieces were done with a menu of points very much like the drawings I was teaching my students to do on their TI-84 programmable calculator. 

Lucy is 17 and is finishing her baccalaureate this week.  She will do a degree in English with the hope of being an English teacher.   She was incredibly grateful to a teacher of English who spurred to do two years of work in one.  I encouraged her to send a thank you note.  The teacher would certainly appreciate the gesture.

Most of us fail to recognize how much help we have received from other people.  Do we really think that we have done this all by ourselves? 

She thinks that the French people consider France to be the whole world.  Having seen so much of the world she wisely knows otherwise.  Of course, most citizens, including Americans, believe the same of their countries.  Eavesdropping on a conversation she was having with a cyclist from New Zealand, I overheard her say that her favorite country was the USA.

            Tomorrow, I hope that the Tourist Office in Tarbes will offer advice on Lourdes and maybe a ride into the Pyrenees..

            The Warriors lost the third game and down 2-1.

Day 8 2015

            The camp host said good-bye and I answered avoir.  The walk up was dreadful.  The ride into Montauban had the usual torturous ups and treacherous downs.  The decision to stop in Molieres turned out to be a good one since there was not another campground before Montauban.  The last 5 km was as flat as Kansas.  Fields of corn are suddenly appearing on both sides of the road.  Maybe I am in Iowa. 

The Tourist Center was found with relative ease and was on the ground floor of an old Jesuit college.  Other city offices were housed in different parts of the college.  Thankfully, the chapel for the Jesuits was left untouched.  The restoration of the old brick buildings was reminiscent of the restoration of the old brick quadrangle at St. John’s in Minnesota.

                                                           The old red brick Jesuit College

                                                          Is this my sign or what?

           The wonderful clerk gave directions to the Decathlon and to two campgrounds, 10 km and 33 km away.  The bike man at the Decathlon was an older gentleman and delightful.  He was knowledgeable and efficient.  He expertly adjusted the rear derailleur for the low gear.  I now have the “granniest” of granny gears.  He inspected the tires and wheels and declared them fit and ready to go.  He did add that there has been a growing interest in restoring older bikes.  I doubt that it will reach the popularity of restoring older cars.  His father actually knew the inventor of my rear derailleur.

            Now you gourmets, real or imagine, hold your collective breaths for I had lunch at MacDonald’s.  The place was packed and the food was delicious, hunger being the best sauce.  

            I crossed paths with another Englishman.  This man was a recovering alcoholic from Manchester.  He had tried various treatments in England and failed at all of them.  He had found this center in Montauban on-line.  He has not had a drink in six months and is holding a steady job.

            The ride to Lomagne was straightforward, the main feature being a plateau with a steady up, the ride across, and a quick descent.  

            For the first time the campground did not have Internet.

Much joy!!!
Hardy