Took a walk after breakfast up the hill towards Les Saisies (the summit of this climb) but it’s a bit further than I thought – probably more like 3 or 4 km instead of 2.  

Spent some time scouting out the best place to watch from, then settled in on chairs right in front of the campervan.  The racers will round the corner just below us and likely be on our side of the road. I set my camera case out in front of my chair with its Cdn flag proudly displayed.

The race started early today so it would be over before the final of the French Open starts.  Some motos and a bunch of team cars came by, but no busses. We could hear and see the heli, and then the motos started coming more steadily – Colin asked one of them how long until the racers arrive – 5 minutes?  He was told – no, 1 minute.

The climb we’re on is pretty long, and is the 2nd or 3rd or the day but the racers still came pretty fast.  There was a break-a-way of about 6, then about 2 minutes later a huge peloton led by the Sky-train.

They straggled up after that singly or in small groups, with the last racer about 25 minutes behind the first.

It’s the same here in France as it was in Italy – almost anyone will wave back if I smile and wave to them – even the moto-cops.  It’s quite funny, and I even got a couple of whistles.

We took a little time taking down the flags and setting off down the road back to Beaufort, where we turned west/southwest to Albertville.  

Leaving the big mountains behind we got on the motorway southwest, then northwest to Chambery, then west to several km before La Tour-du-Pin.  

Got passed by another small group of ferraris – white, red, red, red, yellow – it seems they travel in packs.

Exiting the motorway we got into a campground that Colin has been at before – it also has a very good restaurant.  I tried to setup the tent again, using the jubilee clips that Colin had gotten for me but it just wasn’t working.

We were both hot and sweaty – it’s 30 above here – and badly in need of showers after being on mountains for the last few days, but we ended up spending a bit of time with our neighbours first.  Colin had taken Mo out for a little walk and lo-and-behold the campers in the next site had two little jack russells and some friends of theirs had a very small yorkie. Luckily Mo and the others got along really well – no growlies from any of them, although the little yorkie, being male, was interested in her!

We sat down and had a drink with the 4 – all from the Netherlands, and they had only met each other earlier in the day at the campground.  After about an hour’s visit we left to get our showers – there is one tap that you push for the water, and twist one way or the other for hot or cold.  The water only stays on for about 5 seconds so you have to keep pushing it the entire time, and the difference on the dial between scalding hot and freezing cold was very minute, but despite that it was really nice to be clean and fresh again.

Had a nice glass of wine outside the campervan, then went down to the restaurant for dinner – the Dutch folks had saved seats at their outside table for us so we happily joined them.  The menus they had for us were in dutch – apparently they get lots of visitors from the Netherlands so even have menus for them. We exchanged ours for english ones and had a look at the offerings.  I ended up getting a baked dish with potatoes, cheese and bacon – my three favourite foods all in one dish! It came with a green salad, and 3 kinds of cold meat – ham, prosecco and salami, all of which were delicious.  

Colin had one of the specials that included appetizer, main course (veal in tomato sauce) and dessert, one of the dutch ladies (Anna Marie) had frogs legs (which apparently they eat a lot in this area) and one of the men, Tom, had a special that had 5 or 6 courses.  I was totally stuffed with my one-dish meal I don’t know how he put it all away, but he did, and he’s not even fat. One of the dutch couples had their little yorkie in a small backpack on an empty chair – I didn’t even know the little guy was there until he poked his head up at some point to have a look around.

One of the waitresses inside helped me get connected to the wi-fi so I quickly face-timed Dominic for the first time in many days.  As I was saying good-bye I walked back to the table to show the dutch folks that, yes, I really did have a husband back home. He didn’t want them to see him because he hadn’t shaved or combed his hair, but they heard his voice.  It’s funny that, no matter what we say, hardly anyone will believe that Colin and I are just friends. We’ve even quit telling most people since they don’t believe us anyway – they just nod and smile (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, say no more….)..

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