Europe 2013: Marking Time

September 13, 2013

It's kind of a terrible thing to be in Europe, riding a motorcycle, theoretically having the time of my life, and really just wanting to get on the plane and go home. But, really, I'm pretty much done.

The remaining highlight of the trip was to have been seeing Paris with Nicola. Obviously that's not going to happen, and all I had left after that was maybe visiting La Ferte-Mace (which I will definitely do now). Then I was planning on getting on the ferry to Ireland, sleeping uncomfortably in the "reclining lounge chair" I've reserved, and doing the last-minute scramble to get to the airport and on my way. Now that there are, practically, no events left to look forward to, I find myself just marking time as I get through France.

I rode over 450 km today, through some country that even through my weary eye was pretty awesome looking. But I couldn't really be bothered to stop and take pictures for the most part. I did stop a couple times, and I did take a few, but my heart wasn't really in it.

I'm camped now at a campground on a decent sized lake called Lac de Vassiviere, in a little town called Vauveix (which makes me think of Asterix, the Gaul). It's a pretty enough spot, although the one thing I was hoping they'd have, a clothes washing machine, is not in evidence. There are sinks for washing, but even more important than washing is drying -- we're under pretty constant threat of rain, and there's no possible way anything would be dry by tomorrow morning without a dryer being involved. No way am I rolling damp socks up into my absolutely water-tight bag to mildew all day tomorrow. Hopefully I can find laundry machines tomorrow, or I'll be raiding the dirty clothes bag for my next pair of socks.

Since I have nothing exciting to report, perhaps this is my opportunity to mention some of the little things I keep forgetting to talk about. For instance, after repeatedly dropping my helmet (a no-no, but the little falls I was having pose no threat to the integrity of the helmet), I grabbed a small caribeener (however you spell that word) I had attached to one of my organizing bags, and made that my helmet-holding clip. There's a proper helmet lock, but it's usually sitting under 50 lbs of stuff strapped to the passenger seat, so that's a no-go when getting gas. Anyway, this little caribeener lives on the mirror stalk, and when I'm going fast enough, usually above about 100 km/h (freeway speed), it starts to float up the stalk from wind pressure. If I go fast enough, I suspect (it's never happened purely due to speed), it overcomes some event horizon of energy, and gets up onto the more horizontal section of the stalk, waggling vigorously, like the tail of an over-excited dog. Usually, it gets up there from some gust, or side-wind, frequently from a passing semi. I find it amusing.

I mentioned the speed cameras and displays and such in a previous message. The update for France is that France is in the middle of the spectrum between Germany (all laws, no cameras) and the UK (all camera signs, but comparatively little thought into how the laws are arrayed). There are speed displays, but not as frequently as in the UK. There are speed cameras, but there are actually more cameras than signs, which is the direct inverse of the UK, where there are signs *everywhere* but relatively few actual cameras to be found. One interesting thing I saw on the way down to Toulon (my massive freeway day) was one of those big reader-boards over the road, which said, "BJ 2345 JJ, TROP VITES" or something like that. A moment later, a Peugeot with that very license plate passed me, slowing down rapidly.

The vast majority of speed cameras I see are oriented to pick up the front of the vehicle. That's great for cars, but makes them useless on motorcycles: we only have a license plate on the back, and facial recognition has nothing to go on with a chinbar in the way of the lower half of my face. I'm pretty much going the speed limit in any case, so I'm not worried about it, I just find it interesting. (There's currently a dog barking sporadically a little ways off -- several seconds after it barks, I hear the echo return from across the lake. I wonder if the dog is hearing the echo too.)

This part of France is fantastic for picking up bugs on the faceshield, although then when it rains, that washes them all off. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. When I parked for gas today, I was surprised to see a wasp working industriously on my headlight: removing one of the larger insect corpses that met its end on my headlight lens. Tasty snack, I'm sure.

The weather today was interesting. In the morning, pretty much a clear sky, with a few wispy clouds. Then as the day went on, I got to the stage where there were lots of individual cumulonimbus clouds marching happily across the sky. Then, around 3, I suddenly realized that all thos happy little clouds had merged together into one solid layer of cloud, which looked considerably less happy. By 4, it was raining lightly, and the temperature had dropped by 7 or 8 degrees C. By 4:30, I had to stop and put on more layers, it was so cold. Now, the temperature has moderated, and at sunset the sky was back to broken clouds. Hopefully we won't get any rain tonight.

France is not working out terribly well for me. My first moments were cold, wet and miserable. My second day I discovered my friend had been grieviously wounded, and did a marathon day to visit her in the hospital. After the visit (which was that stressful combination of wonderful-you're-alive and oh-god-you-look-awful reactions duking back and forth), it was traffic and headwinds. Getting to my spot tonight, it was headwinds and rain and of course my first choice campground was closed for the season. The roads are meh, the drivers also meh. The language gap is terribly frustrating. Only a small proportion, in terms of the impact on me, can be blamed on France itself. I have a feeling I'd be perfectly content with the country had things gone according to the original plan.

I guess for the morning, it's just making more distance towards La Ferte-Mace (which, very conveniently, is almost directly in a line between Toulon and Cherbourg where I catch the ferry). Today was a surprisingly productive day, mileage-wise, so perhaps I can do another one of those tomorrow, and be in the neighborhood of Mace tomorrow or Sunday. Well, I'd better be in the neighborhood by Sunday: the boat is on Monday, and I absolutely can't miss it, or I miss all my connections.

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Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.