Friday

This has been a busy day.  And it is October.  September was a vapor trail.

I'm thinking that this pic from the French countryside could easily be made into a postcard or a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle.  I took it with the iPhone on the country ride that late afternoon in Castres.  Beautiful scenery.  Same for the new Home Page pic which was taken on the wine tour in Saint Emilion, a couple hundred kilometers from Castres.

Another accomplishment of the trip was the fact that I watched exactly zero television while in our destination cities.  I did catch some random movies on the planes...nothing that I'd pay to go see.  And I routinely fast-forwarded most of the shows that I did watched.  I just don't have the interest.  My recollection is that 2 and I watched little if any TV on our last trip.  And I may have commented here about how easy it was for me to turn off the tube.  Let's face it, reality TV sucks.  And most of the recurring programs are not exactly mental gold mines.

2 and 4 definitely merit the distinction of Daughters of the Vacation...since Daughters of the Day seems like an inadequate designation.  They were generous with their time, and always considerate of Dear Old Dad throughout our trip.  I will always be grateful of their choice to spend time with me on a trip that offered little advance guidance...and food choices that left us all uncertain at times on our best menu options.

Our Hertz rental car was a mid-sized Ford with a hatch-back...that gave us sufficient room for ourselves, the bike box and our three suitcases for that trip to the Bordeaux airport.  Initially, I thought I might have to collapse the box for that short trip, and then expand it and box the bike after arrival at the airport.  But we were able to angle the box while still leaving one of the back seats upright for passenger seating so as to avoid that extra step packing at the airport. 

The car was a 6-speed manual transmission, with a diesel motor.  Really no problems other than my attempt to use regular gasoline the first time I had to fill the tank...even after reading the printing on the sticker near the fuel cap.  And there was a little bumper car action with some cement railings when I exited the parking garage on the way to the airport.  There is a reason that I subscribed to automatic insurance coverage through my American Express Gold Card whenever I rent a car.

If I had a higher level of cycling interest, I would have made a bigger effort to get out of the metropolitan areas for my rides.  Not that I would have wanted to climb any big TdF hills, but I do prefer country roads to the city streets.  Both Barcelona and Bordeaux had many bike lanes throughout the towns, but you still had to deal with the street lights and other traffic.  And the non-motorized traffic on the paved beach-front or river-side paths had the same challenges as our local bike paths...kids, dogs and old people.


The Bordeaux wine was head-and-shoulders better than the Spanish wines.  We never spent more than 25-30e for take-out bottles at stores, and rarely more than that in restaurants.  A couple of the  bottles that we brought home from our wine-tasting store cost a little more, but we also had a couple lower-priced options that kept the average bottle price under 30e.  I still don't buy into the proposition that any Bordeaux wine is good wine.  I'm more of the, "cheap wine is cheap wine" guy.

Lastly, props to 3.1 for passing another securities examination for his new position on Wall Street.  You da' man!

OK.  All for today.  I go up to the Twin Cities tomorrow to follow 1 in pursuit of another marathon completion.  Look for tweets from the road.

Make it a good weekend in your neighborhood.

BCOT