It was an amazingly beautiful drive through the Pyrenees north into France and Bordeaux. Two lane highway, it wound up and up and up in Spain, lots of wide road, no precipitous drops and then I drove through a tunnel into France. Halfway through the several minute drive through the tunnel, I crossed into France. Then the scenery changed. A long descent, hairpin turns, simply a curb to hold you on the road, you'd think that you were in a different country ... oh yes, I was.
In the Haut Pyrenees, signs pointed to noteworthy ski hills and I stopped at one resort simply to eat some food that I had with me, calmly, in a parking lot. It's summer and rafting, hiking etc. have taken over from skiing. Working my way down almost to sea level, leaving the mountains behind, I joined an autoroute and started paying money to drive the road. Relatively soon afterwards, the traffic built until the outskirts of Bordeaux and I stopped ... it was rush hour. I didn't lose a lot of time and soon was heading away from the city to the ride start area and the Ibis hotel. Once inside the hotel, that was it for me. I drank the leftover Spanish beer that I had with me, consumed the meat and cheese and called it a day.
Moving forward, I ate the available breakfast, skimpy as it was, found a laundromat for my socks, underwear and t-shirts. I caught up on RUSA financials as the tax filing for Florida was due as were the June P&L and Asset & Liability statement. With good WiFi, I did some work on the upcoming route, cleared out other emails, did some personal financials and snoozed here and there and also hit the supermarket.
Hamid, Shab and Wolfgang showed up around 6:30 and we went to dinner at 7:30.
Onward !
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