Tour de Romandie Detour

We were in Lausanne this morning and it was an absolutely beautiful day. The flowers are in full bloom, the grass is all green, and the sky is a deep blue.

On our way back home, we opted for a bus ride vs. the metro and unfortunately the bus stopped short of our connection point due to the Tour de Romandie bike race...today (I have just found out) is the 5th stage of this race and the riders in it include the likes of Jan Ullrich...pretty exciting.

So instead of a smooth connection to our 2nd bus back home, we found ourselves walking home along the lake...it was a nice 45 minute walk...a bit cold but really not too bad... Took lots of pictures along the way which I have posted for your visual pleasure!

Cheers!

Wet-Nap in Disguise

Got caught in a major thunderstorm Monday night.. I was on my ride home from French class and it started to come down hard....

I had left my nylon jacket at home as it is now warmer and no need to haul the extra bulk... However, being the " always prepared guy", I had a brand new unopenned portable poncho in my backpack..I pulled over, retrieved the packet and opened it.

To my surprise, I found not a poncho, but three emergency packs of paper knapkins with wet-nap moist towelettes. Great....

Needless to say I arrive home soaked to the bone, but my glasses were clean!

Cheers, Dave

Searching for Single Track

I took a train ride this morning from Morges to Biere Biere is right at the foot of the Jura mountains and I was told I could find some mountain bike trails there....I rode 26 km from Biere to Montricher...this was a pleasant road ride through open plains and very little traffic...I was occasionally passed by vintage vehicles....seems to be a custom to take them out on nice Sundays...I rode most of this with 3 Americans I met on the train but we went separate ways as I followed my single track quest...I then rode on to Mont-la-Ville (another 25km) where my map showed the first mountain bike trails....I followed my map diligently but seemed to only find jeep roads. ....Not wanting to give up I went on to Juriens (another 25km) and climbed up to some peaks in Vaulion (another 20 km!) with a 300 meter (1000 foot) elevation gain .....I bushwacked, climbed over and under barbed wired and electric shock fences and still no luck....Just logging roads and swarms of flying insects that fed me my dailing protein ration...I hit a dead end at a lone building called 'La Busine - 1165 meters'...no one home and no idea what it is so I decided to can the whole search and just enjoy the beautiful countryside. I pedalled to Romanmotier, a 15th century city with beatiful buildings and then to Bretonnieres
There I ran into some good luck...! I was starting to bonk and thinking of just lying down flat somewhere...anywhere!, when a swiss couple with nice muddy mountain bikes showed up. They invited me to join them and explained that to find the nice single track you must 'avoid' the trails marked 'For Mountain bikes'...go figure...They promised me a nice conclusion to my adventure..I only hoped my my legs would last! We rode back to Romanmontier, down thru Croy and into Eclepens...It was a fun fast ride with a mix of single track and general trails. It as quite nice! We split near Bussigny and I slowly rode back home...Thank goodness for granny gears as at this point my legs were rubber!

Looking at my map, I count about 200km for the loop....(120 miles...) and 8 hours...My legs certainly feel the workout... I must note that the train ride gave me a 2000 foot elevation lift but still quite the epic ride.

Right now I can't imagine looking at let alone climbing on the saddle again but hopefully tomorrow I'll have my strength back. Cheers and happy trails!

Ship Ride Across Lac Leman to Yvoire

Saturday I took a a fun tour to Yvoire with work collegues. What a beautiful city and great way to get there. Unfortunately, Dedi and the girls were unable to go as they are finishing up Spring Break in Colorado but I plan to repeat the trip with them at the soonest opportunity. Yvoire is a medieval city in the Haute Savoie region of France...and right on the lake. They are celebrating its 700th anniversary this year....pretty cool

Tennessee Reunion

Had a great 50th anniversary reunion for Kiki and Nana. Sue and Eric were wonderful hosts and made the whole event a feast to remember. Here are some pictures! More will follow once I get access to our better camera!

Wandering thru Paris

Despite all the news on the trouble in France, we snuck away this weekend to explore Paris...
Getting there is easy...a ~ 3 1/2 hour TGV train from Lausanne to Paris...and accomodations are cheap..the Novotel Hotels offer family weekend get-away specials...couple this with the promise of less than normal tourist crowds and we couldn't resist.

The weather cooperated nicely and fortunately we did not run into any unrest...We arrive d Friday night and walked about 50 meters to our hotel...Saturday morning we walked to the Louvre and checked out the 'La Jaconde' (Mona Lisa). No lines which was nice...it was bigger than I remembered which is interesting as most people are surprised at how small it is...We then browsed thru various european art and sculpture exhibits and ended our visit with a tour thru a wonderful Egyptian showcase...Certainly too much to see in one day let alone a week...so we limited ourselves to this. The next item on our list was a ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower. This was breathtaking...the fast elevator ride to the top was almost more than I could handle...

Sunday we took it slow...we attended Mass at the Notre Dame Cathedral which was quite the experience...a special note was a wonderful visiting choir...from the USA! We had lunch at a nice vegetarian restaurant, then strolled/shopped thru the Pompidou center before checking out of our hotel and catching the 6:00 train back home!

All in all a nice break!