Forgive me family and friends for I have not blogged.  It has been 6 days since my last blog.  I will now do 2 blogs and post 50 new pictures as my penance…

Here I am with our rental car.  Its an Opel .. not sure which model but its a 5 speed manual.  The driving has been pretty easy up until Annecy.  This city is rather big and busy.  It reminds me of driving in Amsterdam.  There are pedestrians and bicycles everywhere.  its one thing to hit another car .. its another thing to hit a pedestrian.  So we drove 6 hours from Beynac to Annecy and parked at the pay lot down the street from our apartment.  Later that day we moved the car to the free parking lot a 10 minute walk away from the apartment.  During that drive I found myself following Garmin into a construction zone which I had no options as to where to go.  I had a bus zone ahead and construction cones on my left.  Those were my choices.  The funny thing was that I had 12 cars behind me.  All of these drivers had followed me into this street which was essentially a dead end.  I was able to back up past the car behind me and sneak thru a small access in a parking lot to get out of the situation.  The really funny part was that there were still cars going into that street.  There must have been 20 cars going into that dead end.  We finally found the free parking lot and got back to our apartment after a long day of driving.

Many of the roads around Beynac were essentially one lane roads on which at any point in time you could meet another car or even truck coming the opposite way.  We found our selves on these roads which didnt even look like roads.  but our Garmin was telling us that was the way to go, and we always do what our Garmin tells us to do…  Also the speed limit on most of these roads is 56 miles an hour.  I would just pull over whenever I got a local behind me because they would tailgate and push me to go faster.

The one thing about driving around the French countryside is the fall colors.  They talk alot about the NE USA fall colors, but we have been driving trough some wonderful countryside fall colors.  They should advertise driving around France for the fall colors … like they need more tourists.

The internet at the places we have stayed have been GREAT.  I am currently streaming 2 college football games and have had no problems with the internet services.  We did lose our internet services for the last 2 days at Beynac.  There really is no free internet services while you are out roaming the cities.  They say they are free and then they want a log in and the intructions are in french, so thats no help.

Its been almost 3 weeks since I have talked with anyone except Bunny in English.  We were in the grocery store today and there was a mother and daughter behind me talking in American English.  I turn around to talk and they had disappeared into the next aisle.  I wanted to track them down just to talk with them.  I miss English.

There is a HUGE difference between a 3 week vacation in France and a 4 week vacation in France.  It doesnt seem like it would be that much of a difference, but there are many things that happen in that 4 th week that you dont realize would happen.  First off is that you have to do wash for the 3rd time.  Before yesterday I had worn the same underwear for 3 days.  You probably didnt need to know that.  Then you start to run out of those essential personal cleaning items, such as soap, shampoo, deordorant, and your finger nails need clipping.  Just some of the things that happen in that 4 th week that you dont think about.

Its 11 pm on Halloween night.  The 4th game of the world series comes on at 1 AM.  Not sure if I am going to make it through the whole game.  I watched the whole Oregon Ducks football game yesterday morniing.  The game started at 3:30 am.  Bunny watched the end of the game when she got up at 7:00 am….What a GREAT game….

Be sure to click on our photo album and answer the question to view ALL our  pictures.