France Day 1/2

Viva la France!!! We are in Europe now. Tommy is running like a charm and is packed as full as possible and Jill and I have our trucker hats on as we slowly work our way down towards Vigo, Spain. The trip has been eventful straight off the start as we were rushing against the clock trying to pick up some shipments waiting for us at 8am in Shrewsbury and then we booked it down to Dover in time for our 2pm ferry! Quite the drive with UK traffic.

In a rush to make the ferry we didn’t worry too much about our diesel levels. Diesel is cheaper in Europe anyway, right??? BIG MISTAKE! We arrived in Dunkerque on empty and were on the look out for what was soon to become the elusive petrol station. Nothing in Dunkerque, so we hit the highway and pulled off at the next town. After chatting (I use the term loosely) with a few French locals Jill and I remembered just how poor our French is and just how difficult it is to ask for directions in a different language! We managed to find 2 stations in that town…neither of which were open our would take our card. So, off to the next town…this time with the petrol gauge below empty and both of us a bit nervous. The next town was much the same….no petrol stations anywhere! We started getting really nervous about running out so we parked Tommy up and started hiking. 30 min of hiking got us to yet another petrol station….you guessed it….closed!! Thankfully we found a few young local boys who were willing to speak slowly to us (and use lots of hand motions) to give us directions to the only other petrol station in town. We grabbed Tommy and drove there. But the adventure wasn’t over yet!! The diesel pump wouldn’t read my card!!! I asked a few locals to help me out, but all of them just pretended they didn’t hear me and jumped back in their car. After about 15 minutes of balling up the pumps a guy on a bike (lets call him Serge) took pity on us and let us use his card in exchange for cash. Serge was really helpful and I think he was as happy as the other 20 people in line for fuel to see us go.
Now I’m not sure what exactly was going on, but I am not kidding when I say that NOTHING was open. No petrol stations, no stores. Not even ALDI! I think it may have been some sort of National holiday or something? Either way, we made it out of Gravelines and back on the road. We drove for a few more hours until we found ourselves a quaint little town just North of Rouen. We set up camp as the sun was setting and had ourselves a nice meal of pasta and whatever sauce we had left (nothing was open, so no groceries for us), An early night was definitely in order and we both slept perfectly well into the morning. And what a morning it was! Sunny and about 16 degrees by 10am! We had parked ourselves right beside a wicked bike path (Green Way they call it), so we cracked out the road bikes and went for a morning spin. Such a cool path. When the leisurely ride was over we were back to work modifying one of Ellie’s late season training programs. We made use of gas bottles, bike stands, pinic benches and the van itself to get ourselves through the grueling work out. Some strange looks from locals, but we’ve been getting plenty of that anyway in this van! Seriously we have had countless people cheer, wave, shout, beep and give us thumbs up as we pass them by. The French seem to love our van! Even the police gave us a thumbs up. There is a huge graffiti scene here, not to mention an over abundant number of cyclists/cycling fans and they have all been stoked to see us pass.

We are just about at the coast now. Spending the night in La Rochelle. Tomorrow we are hoping to spend some time on the beach and grab the road bikes again to check out the local scenery.

One last note - - - I am super proud of myself for successfully getting us a new fan belt. Tommy has been screaming at us the entire trip so I thought I would try my luck with the local Iveco dealer. After a few minutes of making small circular motions with my finger and blowing at the guy we finally worked out that I needed a belt of some sort. At first he came out with a cam belt, which I almost walked away with since I was just excited to have a belt of any kind but a few more blows and circles, I got myself exactly what I needed! Thanks to all the French locals that have had to put up with our poor French. We are learning ……just slowly.

More from France/Spain when I next find internet…..