Category: Uncategorized
-
Another Day, Another Castle (or) Why Impatient Personality Traits Don’t Work in France
We have been camped at the campground at the edge of Strasbourg and then it started to get hot. Our camper doesn’t have air conditioning (few do), so when it gets close to 30C, it’s time to move. I wanted a campsite with electricity so I can run all my fans and not worry about…
-
Camped at the Foot of a Castle, Instead of Inside it, Like a Chump
It was weird being the only “French” people in the German campground the last few days. Almost all the campers were German or Swiss with a handful of Austrians and Dutch thrown in. We had the only French tags and I felt a certain responsibility to represent. So I cooked a little outside and thought…
-
Our First Border Crossing Since the End of the World as I Knew It
We made it to Germany! If you zoom into the upper right part of the picture you will see the bridge I crossed today at Great Risk to personal well being and property just because I wanted my first post-Covid border crossing to be on the bridge that is one of the symbols of the…
-
Today in Alsace, Tomorrow the Black Forest?
Today’s free camping is in Avolsheim at the foot of the Vosges Mountains. We had planned to eat out, but the restaurants shut after lunch and did not reopen. This is a sleepy little town with flowers everywhere. Our campsite is along a little river filled with ugly geese and beautiful ducks that G fed…
-
Camped on the Border, Will We Be Allowed Across Tomorrow?
Président Macron is speaking tonight at 20h and hopefully he will announce the further easing of restrictions. The numbers have been good here in France. Hopefully that will be the payoff for a really restrictive confinement. Or at least a reprieve, a break before our numbers start going all Texas-Florida again. Obviously, the government here…
-
I had to drink wine because there’s not enough beer in Burgundy worth drinking.
We were stuck in a maple grove next to a river in Burgundy having to endure 68F weather while I made BBQ on my new grill. It would have been perfect if Burgundy had beer. I suffered through a 7€ pinot that actually was kind of magnificent. I only brought one long sleeved shirt and…
-
Another Day of Burgundy
We went to Beaune today and shopped their marché. We wanted to park at their centre ville campground and go to the famous hospice for lots of wine tasting but it was yet another campground that hasn’t reopened. We experienced a lot of that yesterday near Dijon so we ended up in an aire de…
-
Camping Free in Épineuil
We are somewhere in Burgundy parked in a grove of chestnuts on the edge of the bourg Épineuil. This area is full of vines. The village provides free dumping of grey and black tanks. If you want to top up your fresh water, you have to go to one of the businesses listed on the…
-
Enjoy your BBQ, but try to remember what Memorial Day is so we can stop doing this.
I did not know that the largest American cemetery from World War II was in Lorraine, not the more famous ones in Normandy. We discovered these 10,489 souls just 100 km from our home, near the little village where Gee’s father’s family came from. By contrast, the more famous Normandy cemetery has 9,385 heroes. It…
-
Nine Months and Counting
So it looks like we’re staying here in France for a while longer. First, there are so many travel restrictions and quarantine times that moving across an ocean is even harder than usual. Second, my wife’s employment opportunities in the United States are disappearing. Rumor has it that American universities are asking lots of faculty…
An American in Alsace 