by John Higham
Just like that our mantra was born: Home is where your stuff is. And with a name like Sandy Balls, how could we pass up the chance to call it home for the night?
• • •
Southern England seemed to be landscaped by committee—the hedges were all trimmed to regulation and the flower beds all had a Photoshop quality to them. As we pressed south, we stayed on the back roads that a century earlier served horse-drawn carriages. Homes with thatched roofs came to the very edge of the narrow lane, and if I closed my eyes I could imagine a hitching post to serve the travelers’ horses passing through. Every village came with a High Street, which back home would be Main Street.
As we made our way from village to village, we would roll in on High Street, park our bikes in the center of the roundabout, and look for lunch. Villages take great pride in the roundabout on High Street, and it would invariably be outfitted with benches, an arbor, and of course the regulation landscaping. Lunch, however, proved maddeningly elusive some days. We had a difficult time remembering the English definition of a village or town. Our definition, however, was easy to remember: A village does not have grocery stores or ATMs. Towns do.
Ten days after we left the suburbs of London we arrived in the port city of Poole, where we could catch a ferry to France. It was a major mental milestone.
John’s Journal, June 21
… that isn’t to say the kids haven’t been getting on my nerves. Yesterday was a good example. We came straight down from Fordingbridge to Christchurch, and then cut over to Poole, which meant leaving the quiet roads for fifteen miles of cycling on two heavily loaded tandems through bustling city traffic. We got lost so many times as we crossed town and every time we stopped to look at a map the kids would start to play this game where each would try to touch the other one, without being touched in return. Aarrgghh! It is difficult enough to have a conversation with September over the roar of traffic, and hold up a tandem all while under the stress of not getting clipped by a bus, but when you add a stupid, silly “touching”game and a spasmodic stoker, it was tough not to scream at the kids. But cycling through a city the way we did today isn’t much fun, especially for the kids, so I didn’t yell at them for playing it. That’s a start, isn’t it?
We decided we needed a P-Day (Preparation Day) to do laundry, write letters, and just do something fun. And no museums or cathedrals allowed.
Starting out meant getting adjusted to our new surroundings, our new routine, and to being together all the time. Things weren’t always as we had imagined—sunshine, smiling faces, and deeply introspective family discussions on just about any topic.
The next morning we got up at 5:00, broke camp, and cycled down to the dock, where we boarded a ferry for a 6:30 sailing across the English Channel. We were going to get French bread!
www.360degreeslongitude.com/concept3d/360degreeslongitude.kmz
Now where did I put that bridge? Being lost and going in circles is frustrating when you are powered by dead dinosaurs, but when you are self-propelled it can put a sane person into a murderous rage. I knew it was time to find my happy spot when I started to consider swimming across the river with the tandems in tow.
3.
Egad! Cowboys and Croissants!
June 22–July 8
France
I’ve never been to Texas. I hear Texans wear cowboy boots and talk funny. My presumption is that if I ever dared enter the People’s Republic of Texas wearing my Birkenstocks I wouldn’t get service at restaurants.
I was apprehensive about entering France for the first time, because I’d heard they dressed and talked funny, just like in Texas. I was already aware of France’s redeeming qualities, such as Euro Disney and really good croissants, but everyone knows the stereotypical Frenchman is someone who has perfected the art of sneering, and can speak good English, but not to you.
Try as we did, we never found this person.
To a family of four pedaling through the countryside on two tandems, the French were warm and kind, often going far out of their way to help us. Never did September’s rusty high school French receive a sneer. However, we found other French quirks to test us. It was in France that I started a mental inventory of the differences between “us” and “them.”
Brittany Ferries dropped us off in Cherbourg, on the Normandy coast of France. After we rolled off of the boat we contemplated our next move. September pointed out, “We only have a couple of apples and ‘English’ bread in our panniers. We should ride into town while we’re here and buy groceries.”
The Normandy coast had been on my list of places to ride for a long time and I was anxious to get moving. Cycling is somewhat of a religion in France and I had been tortured by stories of the great cycling along the Normandy coast for long enough by otherwise good friends. I had also been fascinated by the D-Day invasion since a reading assignment in a high school history class, and Utah and Omaha Beach were just down the road. “Do we really want to do that?” I replied. “We just had breakfast on the boat and we have a little to tide us over.”
Without panniers, my bike was like a Ferrari—fast and nimble. But when packed for self-contained touring, it was more like a Peterbilt. The thought of cycling a couple of miles into town to scout out a grocery store, only to have to re-pedal those same couple of miles back out was not on my top ten list, especially when the open road beckoned.
“Remember what David and Carolyn told us,” September cautioned.
I recalled them saying, “As much as we love France, you will find your number one irritation will be business hours in the French countryside. 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and then 3:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday. Forget this fact, and you go hungry.”
“We’ll be cycling along a main road,” I pointed out. “Surely some entrepreneurial type will want to feed us.”
September reluctantly agreed and without fanfare we cycled past a column of cars that had recently been disgorged from the ferry, crawling at a snail’s pace. We came to a roundabout and cycled right past the exit for the town of Cherbourg, opting for the open road that would take us to Barfleur. The cycling gods smiled upon us immediately. English rain turned to French sunshine, and we could cycle on the correct side of the road without being reminded by a lorry bearing down on us. Suddenly, everything was brand new once again.
The Normandy coast was everything we had hoped it would be. The traffic was well behaved, and with idyllic green pastures on our right, blue surf on our left, and the wind to our backs, who could ask for anything more? When lunchtime came, we found a small market along the main road.
September peeked in the window. “There’s not a soul in there.”
“Not to worry,” I said. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty more.”
And there were. Every few miles we came to another market or restaurant, all shuttered for the afternoon siesta. “These business hours are highly irritating,” I remarked after striking out three times in a row.
Taking it in stride, September asked, “Who wants an apple sandwich?”
Attempting to rewrite history I replied, “If you would have only listened, we could have picked something up in Cherbourg while we had the chance.”
“Dad can have the apple core,” Katrina suggested.
• • •
The French are dedicated vacationers. We found a campground in virtually every town, no matter how tiny, and the anxiety we’d experienced in England over finding places to camp for the night simply melted away. Yet campgrounds are where we got acquainted with Irritating French Quirk number two: You are expected to carry your own toilet paper and soap into a public restroom. And many public toilets, um, how to put this delicately … do not have seats. You are expected to squat without making physical contact.
September came out of the facilities clearly irked.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“No T.P., no soap, and no toilet seats! Did these people just move out of caves?
” I was somewhat taken aback at September’s indignation; she is usually much more charitable.
It took us a few days to determine that no soap or T.P. and seatless toilets were a bona fide trend. If we wanted to be hygienic in France, we would have to carry our own supplies, and … well, you don’t really want to know. There is such a thing as too much information:
TMI; (noun.) Acronym Too Much Information. 1. The dissemination of information that is unwanted by the recipient; may be intentional or unintentional. Etymology: originated among groups of people living in close quarters, such as tents, for extended periods. Ex.: “I have a severe rash and an itch right where …” “ACK! TMI! I don’t want to know where your itch is!”
Two weeks after leaving David and Carolyn’s, we were finally working into a routine. Our days started with an hour of math every morning before we hit the road. September and I traded off teaching duties with the duties of breaking camp and packing up. On a good day we were pedaling by 11:00 a.m.
As each day progressed, we were sure to find a local Co-Op (a budget grocery store) before it closed for the afternoon. The utilitarian ham sandwich became our dietary staple since ham doesn’t spoil easily. We then spread out our tent footprint in a park or a roundabout and dined on warm ham sandwiches on squished bread that had been fermenting for a day at the bottom of a pannier.
At night we simply reversed the morning procedure; either September or I would set up camp while the other acted as teacher, covering the history of the area we were going through. This usually meant having the kids read a book about the area, and then talking about it. After writing in our journals, it was off to bed.
A few days’ cycling from Cherbourg brought us to the D-Day beaches of Normandy. I recalled the first time I had read about the Allied invasion for a high school history class, feeling as if all the air had been squeezed out of my lungs and struggling to breathe. Since that time I had read many such accounts, and that feeling never changed.
From the commanding heights on top of the cliffs, we had the perspective of the Germans looking out over the water. We had been reading about the 1944 invasion as part of the kids’ homework, but there was a difference between holding a book in your hand and walking in and through the bunkers, foxholes and decrepit equipment. Even though more than six decades had passed, somehow there was an echo of the thundering bombs and a whiff of gunpowder that was palpable in the otherwise serene landscape.
Later, as we explored the American Cemetery, I was astounded that even after multiple generations, there were still personal connections powerful enough to have people travel 5,000 miles to lay flowers at the grave of a loved one. The very existence of a German cemetery came to me as a surprise, since they were the enemy, but there was a beautifully kept cemetery honoring them as well. I was hoping that our experience at the D-Day memorials and battle sites, complete with leftover military equipment and foxholes, would help the kids understand the horrors of war and the human cost of the freedom they enjoyed. However, as is often said, education is wasted on the young.
Jordan’s Journal, June 27
Today we went to Omaha Beach. It is a D-Day beach. I climbed on some wrecked ships. Then we went to a cemetery. Then we went to a place that has lots of holes in the ground. Katrina and I loved to run into them and then play hide-and-seek from Mom and Dad. Then we went to our campsite. I found a Star Wars light saber in my cereal box!
Home base during our stay in the Normandy invasion area was the city of Bayeux, home of the Bayeux Tapestry. (It’s okay, we hadn’t heard of it, either.) Before we left the area, we paid the tapestry a visit. The Bayeux Tapestry is a 76-yard-long embroidered cloth that hangs on a wall of a museum. It tells the story of William, Duke of Normandy, kicking English butt in the year 1066. It seemed ironic that both the English and French revere the guy. The French seem to love to remind the world that Billy the C. was French. The English seem all too happy to overlook the simple fact that their first king was from across the Channel. On the other hand, they also seem happy to overlook the simple fact that their current monarch is German.
The Bayeux Tapestry marked the beginning of a long learning curve for us, when we realized that not only could we not see and do everything, but more importantly, we didn’t want to see and do everything.
“What did you guys learn?” I asked as we left the museum.
Katrina screwed up her face. “The French weren’t very nice, and the arrow through that one guy’s eye was gory.”
Jordan was more succinct. “There’s an amusement park nearby.” Grasped in his stubby little fingers was a brochure for Festyland in Caen, our next destination. I sighed in defeat. The kid had a radar that I was sure some government agency would like to duplicate. He could find any high-adrenaline entertainment within 50 miles.
Cycling out of Bayeux the following day, Jordan heard the word “Caen” used in the same sentence as “next destination.”
“Isn’t that where Festyland is?” he asked.
“Yes, Jordan. Festyland is in Caen.” I could immediately feel Jordan’s pace quicken, as the pedals on a tandem are linked together.
Folks in those quaint English villages (towns?) would look at us oddly as we passed through on our bikes; the French, in contrast, would roll down their car windows, and give us a huge thumbs-up and shouts of encouragement. Of course, for all I knew, they could have been swearing at us for slowing down traffic, but I didn’t think so.
By the time we got to the heart of Caen, it was the peak of the afternoon and very hot. We’d been following hot and smoky buses through traffic that was jack rabbit fast sometimes and turtle slow at others, only to find ourselves gazing at half-completed apartment buildings where the Caen campground had once been.
“It’s time to splurge,” September declared. “Let’s find a hostel.”
France being the way it is, by the time we were settled in our hostel all of the stores were closed. Dinner became leftovers from lunch, and breakfast held all the promise of the vending machines in the lobby. But the hostel held a reward.
Unless you have been cycling all day, it is hard to understand the lure of a nice shower. Long before we got to Caen we began rating campgrounds solely by the quality of this three-minute experience. There is the drippy shower, more of a leaky faucet than a proper shower. There is also the one-size-fits-all shower, which has a non adjustable water temperature. Last, but not least, is the dreaded timed shower, operating off a token whose timing is unpredictable. These three types can be combined, but the nadir shower experience is the insult-to-injury shower: a combination of all three where you get to pay for a token, and get no water pressure or heat in return, only to have what water flow there is cut off while you have shampoo in your hair.
Our hostel in Caen had showers in which we could actually adjust the temperature to whatever we liked. Is that a novel concept, or what? To top it off, we could let the water run as long as we wanted. To clinch the experience, the hostel had chairs right there in our room. Sheer decadence.
• • •
I thought the French were all beside themselves with disgust at the thought of a theme park with mouse ears. As we entered Festyland we saw that its theme was William the Conqueror and the events of the year 1066!
“What’s with the Viking war ships and weapons?” I asked September. “I thought the French were pacifists.”
“And I thought the theme of the park was the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Last time I checked, there weren’t any Vikings there.”
The gears in my brain jammed at that comment; I would need to consult Wikipedia to drink from the fountain of knowledge.
Later that night at an Internet café I learned there is a Viking connection with the year 1066. My spin on it is that Festyland was purposely built by the French to torment the English. One of the most brutal chapters in English history came to a close on September 25, 1066, when a king of one of the many disparate fiefdoms in England defeated the occupying Vikings once and for
all at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Exactly nineteen days later was the Battle of Hastings when William the Conqueror (who was French, remember) defeated the English and became what modern Britons call their first king.
So, just about the time the picnics were winding down in celebration of the end of centuries of tyranny and Viking oppression, the French showed up and one of them declared himself king. A thousand years later, they still haven’t left. Festyland, with its half-Viking, half-William the Conqueror theme, is France’s way of reminding the world that the British have had only nineteen days of sovereignty in the last millennium.
John’s Journal, June 29
Jordan and Katrina have become the very best of friends. They were close before we left, but now that they have no one else they have become very tight.
Anyway, the old saying is that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I guess that applies to relationships, too. All this togetherness could tear us apart, but so far, it hasn’t. That can only be a good thing, right?
Speaking of family togetherness, one of the problems with all this quality time is that there are no opportunities to get away from each other. This was, of course, known beforehand. But it becomes more “personal” when there really isn’t an opportunity for two consenting adults, to, well, consent. Before we embarked on this endeavor, September and I talked about this very problem, and didn’t come up with a satisfying solution. We hoped something, or some opportunity, would present itself. It hasn’t. The best idea we have come up with so far is to send the kids to the shower to get ready for bed and then quickly move the tent before they get back. We haven’t resorted to that—yet. But it is starting to look like our best option.
Most people go to Paris to see the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, or to people watch at trendy streetside cafes. We were off to Paris to pick up our mail; the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower were mere perks.
In the months prior to leaving California, using our general route as a guide, September researched the places we were going to visit and had amassed a mound of books about two feet high and three feet in diameter. These books were age-appropriate reading material about the places we were to visit, and formed part of the kids’ homeschool plan. September’s mother agreed to send us a package of books and fresh math homework every month so long as we supplied an address. We took care of the first shipment ourselves. The day before we left California, we had placed our first installment into the U.S. mail bound for Paris and now we were going to pick it up.