Car Trip Spring 2009

This time we found a bench for our mid-day picnic. The wall behind us is part of the medieval ramparts that still enclose the small city of Langres. We followed them all the way around, looking down over the lovely Champagne countryside that sentinels on these walls in the Middle Ages scanned for attackers.

The sole open-to-the-public computer in all of Langres is squeezed between a wall and a pinball machine. John was attempting to write a story to the accompaniment of bongs and pings from the game and the shouts of a soccer team at the crowded bar.

One of the delights of back-road travel is stumbling upon delightful Bed-and-Breakfasts. This one was on a family farm dating back to the 1400s. At breakfast in every B&B we stayed at, coffee and hot milk came in outsized cups - a coffee lover's dream!

Today in the Ardennes, scene of the ferocious "Battle of the Bulge" in World War II, are welcoming roadside tables. Two cars passed us in the hour we spent here: both drivers honked and shouted approval of "le picnique".

As Easter approached, these little foil-wrapped chocolate eggs always came with coffee.

We left the rural roads to be in Rheims for Easter Sunday. This great cathedral where the kings of France were crowned was badly bombed by the Germans in WW I. Today it is a center of reconciliation between the people of the two countries.

The early service on Easter was held in the apse, looking past the high altar to the glorious rose- window. The chanting of the ancient Latin liturgy was so moving, and the sermon so joy-filled that we felt several feet above the ground as we left.

Which was good because sad news was waiting. As usual we bought bread, then made the daily call with a pay-phone card to our home answering machine. The message on the voice-mail that Easter morning was that John's sister, his only sibling, had died on Saturday. Mary had been ailing and frail, but nothing prepares you for such a loss. How grateful we were for the season which proclaims that death is not the end!

The last stage of every trip: while I carried a pile of clothes to the washing machine in the basement, John was on the side porch going through travel documents, records, receipts - both of us wishing we were picnicking by some nameless little stream...

No buyer appeared for our house while we were overseas and few even came to look at it. It's the slow housing market, of course, that's also affecting so many of our friends, known and unknown.