Christy Rae: July 2012

We did it! We biked 61 kilometers today! I am so proud of us for deciding to buck up and finish the bike tour. While today was long the biking was not difficult. There were no hills really to speak of and it rained last night and so it was cooler today by quite a bit than it was yesterday. We were on our bikes and going before 9AM. Angela woke up feeling poorly this morning. Her stomach was not feeling well. So we waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to be well enough to do this. We started a little later than we had planned but it was still our earliest day. We had planned to leave by 8 AM and arrive in Avignon by 2PM. We arrived at about 3PM. We would have met our goal but we spent an hour trying to figure out the directions. There was a loop that took you into a little town that was optional. We decided not to go on that loop but the directions for not taking the loop were wrong. After we had biked up and down the road a couple of times trying to find the right way we finally decided to do the loop which then put us back on track and made the directions make sense. Unfortunately by that time we had lost an hour of morning coolness and had biked an extra 5 or 6 km. But we did glimpse a couple of great vistas in the village. Unfortunately we were so worried about getting back on track that we didn’t stop to enjoy them or take pictures. We just glanced that way as we biked on.

Other than that the day was pretty uneventful. The directions took us on to what they called a “dirt track” but it was actually a grass road. It didn’t look like it was driven on often enough to be a dirt road. We were blessed because it wasn’t as hot. We had plenty of water. We started earlier. And we didn’t have any stops longer than 15 or 20 minutes. It was good and we both have a great sense of accomplishment. It was a triumphal way to end our 3 week vacation.

So we arrived in Avignon at about 3 PM but our luggage didn’t arrive in Avignon until about 5:30 PM. We were expecting it at 5PM. After we turned in our bikes and equipment we went and used the restroom and then walked to the train station to get our tickets to Marseilles. We then sat in the shade talking and drinking our victory Orangina until it was time to go get our luggage.

We got on the 6:23 PM train to the Marseilles Airport station. It took about an hour and a half to get there. We didn’t see nearly as lovely as countryside on the train as we did on our bike tour until we got closer to Marseilles and then we saw a few beautiful glimpses of what looked like a bay.

When we got off the train, we knew our hotel was very close by, but we weren’t sure how to begin walking there. We were standing looking at the tiered parking lot and all of the stairs that we would most likely have to carry our luggage down when a man came and spoke to us in French. I’m sure he asked us where we were going. Angela told him where our hotel was. He pointed and talked somemore and then said that he would take us to the bottom of the parking lot. Somehow I understood that last bit. He is the driver of the shuttle that goes from the train station to the airport and he took us to the bottom of the train station and to a sign with our hotel on it and an arrow pointing in the right direction. I managed to say, “Mercy bouque, Monsieur.” And we got off of the shuttle. As we began to walk we said how kind that was of him and how grateful we are. I hope that God will bless him for his kindness.

First thing in the morning. We saw lots of sun flower fields today.

This is the "dirt track" we biked on for about 5 km. It was pretty rough.

This is the bridge that took us off of the dirt track.

This was the last sun flower field of the day and it was finally a field where the flowers were facing us. All day we had been seeing field of sun flowers but we could only really see the backs of the flowers.

Drinking our Victory Orangina.

We found our hotel room and it was almost 9PM. We went into hurry mode. We needed to shower and repack our bags for our journeys home. We are showered, packed, have downloaded and looked at our pictures and are ready for bed and it is only a few minutes after 11PM. We have our alarms set for 3:30 AM. My flight leaves at 6:30 in the morning and it is always suggested that you arrive 2 hours before an international flight. We have a cab coming at 4:30 to come and get us in the morning.

Well, we almost died on our bike tour today, but we pressed on and made it all 46 km. We biked over the Alpilles Mountains. That was the part that almost killed us. We actually walked up the Alpilles Mountains and rode our bikes down the other side. I think this is considered an easy bike ride because the hill up over the mountain never got very steep, it wasn’t even ever as steep as a 45 degrees but it was a long slow incline, that was what was killing me. I think I could have handled a few sharper but shorter inclines, but not the long ones. We also biked for a while on a dirt road. Well it started out as a dirt road and then became gravel. We could ride through the dirt, but the gravel was too slippery so we had to get off and walk through that as well. It was also incredibly hot today. So all of those things combined together made me think that I might die. All of this happened in the first 20 km of our ride.

But I do have to say that riding down the other side of the mountain was joyous! The last half of our ride was either down hill or flat so it was much better. After we got back down into the valley and were in a little town we found a bench where we stopped to rest for a few minutes and there just happened to be a tap there with cold water! That was a blessing and a bit of a life saver. Also, when we were shopping for food the night before I suggested we buy so me potato chips so that we had something salty. As we were sitting there eating our chips Angela said that I was inspired. We had other things to eat but the chips were tasting really good.

We did see some very lovely scenery! It really is amazing to be here doing this.

I have to confess that as I was sweating to death and walking my bike up the mountain I was wondering if this was such a good idea and if trying to go on an even longer day tomorrow would be possible. But after a shower and a little nap I no longer felt like I was going to die and could probably attempt to go 55 km tomorrow if we started earlier, had more water. So we have resolved to start earlier in the morning. Our goal is 8 AM. And we bought some more water so we should have plenty of water, but it won’t be frozen or even refrigerated when we leave in the morning. But hopefully we won’t be biking during the hottest part of the day like we were today. I am really proud of us deciding to finish it out.

Angela walking her bike down the dirt road.