Touring in France

well, these pics from my brother's
and my tour in France are a long time coming,
but they are certainly worth the wait (to me,
at least).
Last summer, my brother and
I landed in Paris and took a train outside of the city
to Versailles. From there, we hopped on our
bikes and started riding.
We quickly realized that there were several issues
with the planning of your trip. First, neither of us spoke French.
Second, we had not planned where we ouwl stay each night.
And third, the roads we had envisioned as being quaint country roads
with patched pavement were actually full on, three-lane freeways.
Eventually, however, we made it to Saint-Malo to see the epic castle,
le mont st. Michael.
Then we rode through Rennes
and down to the Loire Valley, staying at hostels and hotels
along the way. Upon arriving at the coast, it was
10:00 PM and we had nowhere to stay. So we asked around
at peoples front doors. After being turned down by six different people,
we were finally invited to camp in a family's yard. So we spent the night,
and woke up at six in the morning to continue meandering up the valley.
This was the best part, really, because we got to see sweet wine storage caves
built into the side of the cliffs.

We basically lived off baguettes and Nutella for the entire trip,
with the occasional meal here and there. All in all, it was an epic trip, and
I certainly learned a lot about myself, how irritable I get when I have been
riding for nine hours, and about bike touring. It was a rough awakening to the
potential problems associated with bike touring. Next time I won't
have a giant trailer swaying behind me the whole time!

On a different note, the riding in Colorado remains great aside from the
occasional muddy spots. Of course, it looks like the mud here is nothing
compared to california right now. I wish I was there doing grasshoppers! This
last one looked like a blast! Until next time,
this is daniel signing out