More cheese and less sleep

June 15, 2008

Today was long and ended with us sleeping in the car, but I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. The kids got a chance to experience church in French which was kind of cool, but I’m sure a little frustrating also. I tried to translate some of the meeting for Becky, but with Katie wiggily and making noise, it was kind of tough. In fact, that’s the way she is when we go to church in California too so we probably caught about as much as we normally would of the message.

After church Alex and Zac once again thought they had died and gone to heaven. Maria made an awesome cheese fondue so we got to eat real fondue in Switzerland. It doesn’t get any more authentic than that. Again, still not helping my waistline though.

Franco’s daughter Marie had a harp recital so Alex and Zac went with their family and Maria and Memo to watch her play while Becky and I used the time to pack the car as we’re leaving for France tonight. Once they returned we had a pasta dinner and we hit the road. It was kind of hard to leave because we’ve had such a good time. It’s been like home so now the real adventures of traveling begin.

We had about an eight-hour drive in order to cross all of France and get to the Normandy coast. The plan was that I would drive until about midnight and get a hotel room about half way in order to break up the trip. When Becky and I came eleven years ago, the hotel chain we used had an automated check-in for late-night arrivals. When we got there however, this one had a night person on duty, and she wouldn’t let us all stay in the same room because we exceeded the maximum occupancy. Not wanting to pay for two rooms, I continued on as I had another hotel in mind about an hour up the road. By the time we got there though, we had less than hour to go to get to Paris. At that point I figured that it would be better to press ahead so that we could pass through the capital at night instead of during the morning rush hour.

We made it through Paris without any traffic, and by the time I stopped driving it was five in the morning. Becky and the kids had slept a good part of the drive, and then we all slept for about three hours in the car at a rest area. Becky was not thrilled that we slept in the car, but we did have less than a two-hour drive the next day. It’s all part of the adventure, right?