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.