Rest Day In Le Pouliguen and Le Pouliguen

July 20, 2014

Rest Day In Le Pouliguen and Le Pouliguen > Nantes 95km

[Originally posted Jul 20, 2014]

Ahh. Rest Day #3 was divine. Much needed. In the last 19 days we have slept in 17 different places - so it was a real treat to make Le Pouliguen (the home of Sandrine and Pascal) our “home base” for the next 36 hours. Our nomadic life is rather enjoyable, but it is also nice to be able to sit still (at least for just a moment).

Sandrine Montant is awesome. She probably knows me better than I know her. She was born in Casablance, Morocco so when we did not eat cheese at dinner she could easily pass it off as “but it’s okay, cause I’m not French”. When I was 3 or 4 Sandrine came to Utah and lived with our family for a year (hence the part about she knowing me very well, but not necessarily the other way around). Spending the last two days with her was great. Time on the beach swimming and playing volleyball, dinner in the garden, and sharing memories of a long time ago. She lives with Pascal (who I had previously not met) who works as an interior design/builder who is also great. He spent the time behind the barbecue cooking our sardines, petite crevettes and steak. It was all delicious. He also has an interest in going fast (hence the time he spent each morning working on the motorcycle and the Porsche in the garage). On the way home from the beach last night he said I’m going to make you remember what is a Porsche. As we wound our way home along the beach, we took the long way off onto some rather small two lane (but not enough room for a white or yellow line) road that wound around ponds used for harvesting salt. And then we had a ride we won’t forget. He’d hit the gas, we’d stick to the back of our seats and we would go from 60 to 160 km/hr in a couple seconds - just to immediately slam on the brakes cause the road was never straight for more than 50 meters, all the time winding around tight corners, passing cars as if they were standing still. Once we really got into amusement park mode Sandrine couldn’t take it much more “oh shit, oh shit, oh shit”. (It’s more amusing to hear the French curse than Americans). We continued our insane drive - instant acceleration, tight corners, swerving around cyclists until we flew past a lady on a bike motioning with her hand to slow down (we were probably doing 150 km/hr and were a foot or two away from her). At this point Sandrine shouted “Merci Madame, Merci”. It was a ride we will remember.

The comment of the day was when Sandrine (while telling us about the castles on the Loire) said, the thing that is not so good about this place is all the Chinese people here with their cameras and pictures, I hate this. (And that is when I realized we had more in common than I thought).

At dinner we sat down to a lovely meal and Isabelle and Elizabeth (Sandrine’s cousin and aunt) joined us. It was great talking to Isabelle. An interesting thing happens when two people of different languages have a conversation with each other. Typically people speak a foreign language better than they can understand it (at least this is the case for me, I was never taught how to hear French, only how to speak it). The same was true for Isabelle. She could speak English okay, but had a hard time understanding us when we spoke. These circumstances set the stage for a nice long conversation where Katy and I would say something in English (but Isabelle would have a hard time understanding) so I would try and say it in French. And then she would respond in French (at which point we wouldn’t understand) and so she would repeat herself in English. i suppose this has been going on ever since the Tower of Babel.

This morning we woke up to a downpour, and thought we’d have to cancel our day’s ride. But but by noon the sun had come out and we were on the road. As we departed Sandrine had a tear or two - gonna miss staying with them. Nice ride along the Atlantic in the towns of Le Pouliguen, La Baule, Pornichet and St. Nazaire with a tailwind the whole time. Around 3pm large thick dark clouds began to appear behind us and threatened a return of the morning’s downpour. Luck was not on our side and just 10km out of Nantes (our day’s destination) the rain hit us (and hard). We were just about soaked when we found an overpass in a somewhat remote area to take refuge under. To cheer up the moment I plugged my iPhone into our small GoalZero speaker and turned on The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It In The Road (which I thought appropriate for our circumstance - no one will be watching us). Katy thought it might be a little inappropriate, so instead I got out the remains of our food (a mostly finished jar of peanut butter) and went to town (we had not eaten in 7 hours because every shop in the last 3 or 4 towns was closed - I guess Sunday afternoon things really shut down in France). Anyways, I enjoyed every bite of that peanut butter. Then I got to the end, where that OCD personality trait kicks in and I try to get every last bite out of the jar. The same is true when I eat Yoplait. It’s great fun having yogurt (a delicious and nutritious snack all around) but what i really enjoy is the meticulous way in which I attempt to remove every last speck of deliciousness from that single serving container before I toss it into the recycle.