Getting back on the road, it didn’t take long to get out of the mountains and into the rolling hills of France. Progress most of the day was quite good although there were a couple of bottlenecks. Betty behaved quite well until right near the end. The fuel gauge is a bit suspect in this vehicle as it goes down when I head up hill, up when I go down, but there are other times where it seems to move regardless of the angle I’m at (or lack of). I watch the number of miles since I last filled up but since I’ve ranged from 425-600 miles on a tank, that’s not terribly reliable. I was just over 400 miles on this tank, running at her top speed of 130 km/hr on the autoroute so I thought I might be getting low (by the way, it’s like I have cruise control on the highway as I put the pedal to the metal and forget about it!). I pulled into a gas station and sure enough, after filling up she wouldn’t start. I begrudgingly ended up using the magic spray and off we went.
I arrived at a toll station and I chose to take the automatic credit card line as I had done at least 8 times in the past 24 hours. The toll was 40.90 Euros. Wow, lots, but I had driven for 4-5 hours on the highway since the last booth. I put my card in...rejected. I tried again, nope...hmm, qu’est ce qui se passe? I tried the call button but it just rang and rang and no one answered. A car with a caravan had pulled up behind me but thankfully that was all. I motioned at the driver that my card wasn’t working and I needed to try a lane with an actual person at the booth. He kindly reversed, slightly jackknifing his caravan, and entered another lane. I arrived at the booth with a young man who had seen me denied on the machine so he tried my credit card...denied again! Very strange, I have $8-9000 of credit and surely with all the recent activity, Visa should know that I’m in Europe and it’s not someone fraudulently charging away. The toll worker asked if I had any money. I thought I only had about 30 Euros but lo and behold I had 40 in bills and another couple in change! Yippee...I have escaped a life trapped at a toll booth on the highway in the middle of nowhere!
I decided not to press my luck with the next toll booth so when it was the last exit before having to pay again (just past the city of Tours), I took it. Okay, 30 kilometers to go to the place that Gem and Charles are staying at. I had some GPS coordinates for it and judging by the countryside, I figured I was going to need them. Now, my biggest worry turned to the SatNav...will it stay on for another 20 minutes? Occasionally, and it did it just two days ago with Kathleen in the van, it just turns off. I think the voltage from the cigarette lighter gets too low and it runs on battery until it’s dead but I get no warning. “Please stay on, please stay on” kept running through my head.
A tiny road that Miss SatNav took me on...I think I'm getting close...
Thankfully it did and it led me right to their front gate, amazing. And there’s no way I would have found it otherwise. I was greeted at the gate by Jim, the owner, who was in the process of cutting his large lawn with a ride-on mower. Gem then ran out to see me, followed by Charles. Also there was Charles’ Uncle Steve with his son Tom, daughter Kate with her daughter Mia and Charles’ sister Kate, all of whom I’d met at Charles and Gemma’s wedding back in April. It was great to see everyone again.
Jim and his wife Elaine’s place was gorgeous. Two separate, old yet refurbished buildings (still some work left to be done on their house) that formed an L to partially frame the large, slightly undulating yard with some massive deciduous trees near the front gate. It wasn’t long after arriving that I was enlisted for “a mano a mano a mano a mano” game of Boules (similar to Bocce). Surprisingly after a slow start I pulled off a win and retained the title I had received upon arrival of being the “Canadian Champion”. Technically, being the only Canadian, there’s no way I could have lost it right?
Enjoying the outside:
Uncle Steve cooked up a big barbeque feast after which we played some Rummy, Cribbage and eventually we introduced the always fun “Presidency” (also known as A-hole) but tonight we called it “Peon”. It took a little bit for the newbies to get a handle of the rules but once it was under way, it was mayhem. Gemma suggested that we use her large straw sunhat as the “insta-peon” designator and that was a fantastic idea. We began with the rules of not touching the cards in the middle (unless you were the peon) and not being able to say the word “pass”. We also altered the usual rules to make it so that every round the president made a new rule. There were two that really got the straw hat moving around and they were not being able to say someone’s name and not being able to point, these really got the hat changing ownership quickly. I think many of us had sore stomachs the next day from laughing so hard!
The hilarious game of Peon:
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