My last post to this blog was on March 10, the eve of our departure from Atlantic Beach. We returned two days later, and it seems that there has been little time to spare since then. Our long list of things to do upon return included such things as pruning and fertilizing and spraying the apple trees, working in the yard, appointments with doctors, and visits with friends and relatives. We had a good overnight visit with Martha’s aunt in Clemson, had lunch with her brother, and had a nice lunch with our old friends Skip and MaryAnn in Brevard.
Less enjoyable tasks awaited us as well, such as filing our Income Tax return and paying a visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a Drivers License. I had discovered while in Atlantic Beach that mine had expired in February – I had not received a reminder – and the DMV office out there was by all reports the worst in the State (“Do they beat their employees in the back room or something?” one reviewer on Google said. “Is it a requirement to work for the DMV that you have to be unhappy?”) Thankfully, that was not the case at the Franklin office – the problem was that there was only one over-worked yet cheerful woman issuing Drivers Licenses for the entire county. I arrived just after lunch to find the tiny office filled to capacity (five seats), the door locked, and two people already in line. That line grew to more than a dozen (most of them to be sent away disappointed), while from time to time the Examiner came out to release a person from within and admit a new candidate. After an hour I was admitted to the inner sanctum, where I could at least sit in a chair, and finally into the Examiner’s chamber itself, the Holy of Holies, where after a brief examination a very unflattering photograph of me was taken, which shall be my identity for the next five years.
Spring arrived tentatively, along with Daylight “Savings”
Time (what is really “saved,” I wonder?), which is not welcomed by morning
runners who face darker, colder mornings. Still, we have both been running when weather permits, and I even
encountered an old friend on Monday – Big Bearpen Mountain, which I have not
climbed since last April. Climbing to the summit without stopping is
always a test of will power as well as leg strength, but the reward of those views
at the top are worth the effort. Justin
Kinsland, owner of Highlands Excursions, passed me halfway up, driving a
small family of sightseers to the top, and he was parked at the Whiteside
overlook at the top. “Do you need a
ride?” he asked as I ran by. I suppose
he was joking. Or did I look that
wobbly? A young boy in the back gawked at me in wonder as I passed.
April is always a month of surprises in Highlands,
though, beginning with April Fools Day.
Yesterday afternoon I drove up to the Post Office and the grocery store,
and when I reached the Eastern Continental Divide on the Walhalla Road, the few spatters of light
rain on the windshield turned into snow, and by the time I reached the parking
lot it was coming down in earnest, the first real snow we have seen. This
morning, I went out on the deck early for my Tai Chi and discovered a pretty
good dusting of overnight snow. With
uncharacteristic good sense, I decided to postpone my Saturday morning long
run. It was 26 degrees in Highlands, road conditions were questionable, and I have
fallen once this year and do not want to fall again.
One of the things that has kept us busy is ironing out the details of a planned trip overseas this year, a New Adventure on the Horizon, which I do not think I have yet mentioned in this blog. Our original plan was to visit Scotland last year – ultimately cancelled due to Covid – and participate in something called the Scottish Highlands Tour, organized by a small group of Mini Cooper enthusiasts on a ten-day trip through the most picturesque parts of Scotland.
Since air fare is one of the most expensive components of a
trip to Scotland,
we decided to spend a little time in the area while we are there. As we looked at all of the possibilities,
including river and canal cruises and other tours in the UK, our plans evolved into a tour in France. So we are planning to take the Eurostar train,
which travels at over 200 miles per hour, through the Channel Tunnel (the “Chunnel”)
to Paris, a
trip that takes just a little over two hours and avoids baggage and airport transfers. The Eurostar takes us directly from London's St. Pancras station to Gare du Nord in the heart of Paris.
In Paris, we will spend five days at the Hotel Mercure, taking walking tours of the city, visiting the Eiffel Tour and the Louvre, and even having a luncheon cruise on the Seine – all of these thanks to Martha’s good sense and ability to identify and make reservations. (In fact, it was she who first found out about the Scottish Highlands Tour.) After our time in Paris, we will begin a two-week Trafalgar tour that will take us on a route throughout France to see destinations we have longed dreamed of visiting, including Van Gogh’s Arles, Monet’s Giverny, Monaco, the Riviera, Lourdes, Bordeaux, and the beaches of Normandy.
We
have spent a lot of time working out the details of this trip, which will begin
on June 30 and end on July 29. That's a month, and we will let our vegetable gardens and apple trees fend for themselves.
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Our surprised
passports were retrieved from the Safety Deposit Box where they have been sleeping
for three years, and we are working on the day-to-day itinerary - what train is best to take from London to Birmingham, where our Scottish Highlands Tour friends will pick us up? What size luggage can we carry on the Eurostar? (85cm long at its widest point). How long is 85cm?
We will say farewell to ordinary things for nearly a month as we embark on an extraordinary journey. In a matter of only two or three months, this blog will take its followers on new adventures - from the “hairy coos” of the Scottish Highlands to La Ville des Lumieres – the City of Lights.
Who knows what will happen before then? Covid is surging in many parts of the world, including the UK, but we are vaccinated and boosted and will have a second booster before we leave. A war is raging in Europe every bit as horrifying as World War II, with more than four million Ukrainians fleeing to Poland and other parts of Europe, some of them to France. We pray that the violence will come to an end before this summer, but we just don't know. Part of me could feel guilty that we will be stopping in Bordeaux to taste wine and gaze at the sun setting on a vineyard, while so many will be suffering so close to us. But in the same way that we live our lives here in Highlands, striving to find peace in our hearts in the midst of it all, we must go and see and do what we can while we are still young enough to travel. If not now, when? The City of Lights beckons to us from across the ocean.
And now I find that beautiful song by Judy Collins going through my mind, the one she wrote about the same time I was learning French from Miss Satterlee:
My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance
I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
As it sets in my father's eyes again
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