Life: Idiotropic

One LONG morning doing the Paris traffic crawl, an hour, may be more until we could drive normally. Played the alphabet game through it with Arianna and Tiara using the rule that while in France, we could use French vocabulary as well as English. That made the letter X a lot easier.

One stop for gas, a 10 minute power nap, and some snacks for the road to get us through. It was needed. After field upon field of bright sunflower fields, we hit the heaviest rain of my life, blinding rain so hard I couldn’t see the lane markings or the guard rails and navigated only by the fog light on Kirk’s truck and the faint shadow of the semi-truck beside me praying we wouldn’t collide. 2 minutes of terror.

That broke into sun, a river, and a lush green canyon of winding roads that reminded us so completely of Oregon then we crossed the mountain to the stark contrast - dry hills, sparse trees - where even the architecture changed dramatically looking more like what I know of Spain and no longer France... like California and not Oregon... that same line of change you see on I5 somewhere around Crater Lake.

One stop at an amazing bridge - the Millau Viaduct - that I’d seen in an email forward last year and never imagined I’d actually drive over it. Walked to the to the top of the hill for photo ops. Let Misha get out and walk in the grass. Found out that the handicapped restroom had a toilet instead of a hole. So thankful that the French don’t expect their handicapped to stand on little foot shapes over a hole. My little ones were horrified and ready to just hold it indefinitely if that was their only option. When we came out, the line was to the door with all the other stalls open. Apparently we aren’t the only ones who prefer to sit.

Arrived in Beziers in the spitting rain with a double rainbow ahead. Found our apartment without too much trouble. It is new - completely new having just opened a couple weeks ago. Even the dishes in our apartment still had the stickers on them from the store. The staff were bend-over backwards friendly, smiling, one speaking near perfect British English. We were starving, but didn’t want to drive. Pizza delivery saved the day - A boy in Bermuda shorts on a Mo-ped with a tiny box tied to the back, bright yellow with the red words, “pizza cool.” Had pasta, pizza, sandwiches for the girls. Cartoons on TV. Air conditioned rooms are nice, but why oh why doesn't our internet work? I'm going through withdrawal.

PHOTOS: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126229&id=674507268&l=5cf91330b9