World Tour

July 3rd Monday We decided to stay another day, to plan and in the afternoon, do some wine tasting with the free admission tickets we had received when we checked in at our campsite. A lot of stores are also closed on Mondays, including the internet places. We need to find a replacement pump for our bikes and went looking for the town bike store. We ended up riding right past it, not seeling the bike display outside. When we did pull up to the front of the shop it looked closed. Jon got off his bike and walked up to the front door. There was an older gentlman nearby who looked like he would fit in with someof the transient in downtown Seattle, maybe it was the teeth. He motioned to me as if to say, "stay put" and walked away leaving his bike behind. Jon joined me and I told him what happened not sure what to make of it. As we contemplated what to do since the store was closed and man came walking our way from across the street. Sure enough, he owned the bike shop and could sell us a pump. The older gentleman was he father and he stood outside with me looking at the bikes with a smile on his face as if admiring the concept of the recumbent. He pointed out a fraying wire on Jon's bike and made sure his son fixed it before we left. It was pretty cute. The post office had one computer whose system no one seemed to quite know how to work. After a little difficulty and no help from the post office staff, we figured it out ourselves and sent off a rough itinerary to Jon's friend, Rory, in England. We stopped by the information building to find out about trains as the plan was to catch a train back to Tours and make our way northeast along the Loire. We also stopped by "our" boulangerie. This time I went for it and got the beignet with strawberry filling, hoping it was as good as the one Jon and I shared a few days ago. So, so, so good. Krispy Kreme's ain't got nothing on this place! Jon went for his favorite: the brownie. It was fudgie, chocolately goodness by the looks of Jon's face. More walking around town. There was a golf course somewhere near town - Jon spotted it on the map our first day there. It was mid afternoon so we got on our bikes and decided to go out to the course so Jon could hit some balls. A few hills later - haven't pedalled up those for a while and we were there. It was pretty quiet, one reason could be that it was so friggin' hot outside. We walked in and Jon asked about the driving range. The man at the front desk spoke pretty good english and asked where we were from. Turns out he had been living in the US for the past 17 years and was a golf pro in West Palm Beach, Florida and had been in Saumur for the last year as his mom has been battling cancer. He told us how home sick he was for the States. What was really kind of freaky was that he looked a lot and I mean a lot like David, Jon's youngest brother. He also had some of the same mannerisms and the timbre of this voice reminder us to David too! Perhaps these are traits common to golf pros, in any case, it was weird. As Jon was hitting balls I chatted with the guy - I never found out his name about where we had been and where we were going. When Jon was done we stayed a while to chitchat. We learned that this summer has been particularly hot for France. Jon was less than impressed with the course as we were riding in but we found out that since it had been so long since the last rain the course was not allowed to water the greens. Let me tell you, a golf course with brown dry grass looks really bad. Well, I was glad to hear that I wasn't the only one who was suffering in the heat. Afterwards we headed back to camp. We set up a game plan for the next night and felt that ice cream was in order after all that effort. We had been sweating in the phone booth talking with my sister, Mary. It was great because she was able to call us back from work so we could talk longer! We rode our bikes to the bar and picked out our ice cream. It wasn't gelato but it would do. As we were walking out an english couple from Leeds who had come to the bar for quiz night. They asked if we were there for quiz night. We said we weren't and then a conversation about the last World Cup game: England vs Portugal started. Before long the camp staff member notified us that quiz night was about to begin. So we found ourselves sitting at a table in the bar with an answer sheet in front of us. Ten questions on wine, ten on football and five questions on films. The staff member spoke pretty good english but we got stuck on the word "allow". The way he was pronouncing it sounded like "hollow". Since the english couple nor Jon and I didn't know a lot about wine, it took us a while to figure out what he was saying. The word "yeast" was also a tough one to figure out. Well, we got some of the answers right and we were all winners as we could either have a drink from the bar or tickets for various activities at chateaus along the Loire. We chose a boat ride on the Loire at the Chateaux we would be visiting the next day - Chenonceau. Cool, ice cream and free tickets for a boat ride. We got on our bikes and pedalled back to our campsite. Lo and behold we passed the donkey guy on our way back to camp. He had already set up camp and his donkey was munching away at the grass. I waved hello and he recognized me but more likely it was the bike. At any rate, it was really cool to see him again. The donkey too. No wine tonight as Jon, Ron, Heather, and Mary had left. We had said our goodbyes in the morning wishing each other well and safe travels.