the whirlwind day

It is never easy to say goodbye to your kid. I got a bunch of hugs from Trey and a final hug with a few words of support for taking this little adventure. I have a cool kid! He gets it from his mom!

So, airplane to Washington Dulles airport then a flight to Paris CDG airport. The flight left late due to a sudden very heavy storm and it made our landing time almost an hour late but all was good. United has the new Boeing 787-9 aircraft which are for lack of a better word amazing. That may be the quietest airplane I have been on and there were power plugs at all seats. Very nice. I woke up before landing and watched the wings curling up in the heavy cross winds. They actually design them to flex (and im not talking like a normal plane, these literally curl upwards in flight). Pretty neat.

Landing in CDG was efficient but there was a long customs line which took about an hour to get through. Once again pretty easy. The baggage claim already had my bike and bags so I was right out the door into a small van/cab to the train station. 15km drive and it took over an hour. The driver spoke English and even helped me by calling a station attendant he knew to help move the bike box over to the station. Very nice. I actually made the train on time even with a delay from the airport. Nice. I helped 2 ladies with their bags on the train. One was from Charleston sc and the other Camden SC. Small world.

So now the train in rolling at exactly 1005 am and we are going through the outskirts of paris at 100km plus with the plan being in CAEN at noon. I will get some food, get the bike assembled and start my first day of riding.

The day started with a plane trip, I saw night then day within about 6 hours. Quite amazing. I will put in an update later today.....

later today...

The assembly of the bike went fairly smooth except one minor issue. My weight on the bike is more than my checkout rides. I guess throwing in all those last minute items got me a little out of spec from where I wanted to be regarding bike weight. I ended up wearing my backpack for the days ride which was only about 30km. I rode through town and to the chateau that overlooks the city. This thing has a moat! Yes a moat, pretty cool. It is now an art museum, my 20 minute walk through was not very informative but I did see a Monet and a few others I have heard of in school.

My exhaustion from no sleep has been catching up to me so I decided to get a bite to eat. I stopped at a local restaurant called la orchidee (not sure that is the right spelling) but seems like a typical French café. I had some pizza which was very good and a coke. The sugar helped for the thought process of where to go….To the coast (looks like rain tomorrow) or a hotel? Hotel it is. I found one 2 blocks away and checked in and got a hot shower and short nap. I felt like a new person after the shower. No more riding and airplane funk (and train funk).

I will do some planning for tomorrow since rain is in the forecast. I am planning on getting out early so maybe I can beat the rain for the first half of the day and take in a few cool sites like point du hoc, arramanches (mulberry harbor bridge things are still there ) and Utah beach. Well see, this trip does not have a set time schedule so I am using the go with the flow method on the planning.

A few shout outs. Uncle Pat Sullivan. He had surgery while I was on the airplane yesterday. Lots of positive thoughts on your recovery! I have not received an update so I will say no news is good news. Get well soon! Lots of emails coming in from friends and family and I got to talk on the phone with Trey today which was awesome! Miss my boy!

Photos: I shot mainly on the iphone today. I am posting on facebook as I go through the day and trying to transfer to the blog. Luck has not been too good on it but will hopefuly get it fixed and my garmin gps bike computer is not reading European maps for some reason so I am working on getting that fixed so it can track my ride live and in time. Thanks for reading the ramblings, this is from a man with about 3 hours sleep in the past 40 hours. But the adventure has begun!!!!