Day 10

Monday, May 8
Pontgibaud
0km (Rest Day)

Much needed rest day today. 

With a private room, I was free to wash all of my clothes in the sink and leave them hung around the room all day to dry.  I left the heater on full, and occasionally rotated items to make sure that everything will be dry for tomorrow morning.

On the Tour du Canada, I learned to use rest days for rest, rather than exploring cities by foot and ending up less rested than I was to start with.  This is a lesson that I ignored today.

I got up at 8:15am, had a very minimalist french breakfast (four pieces of bread with butter and jam) and walked 1km into the nearby town, where some of the other riders are staying. 

Keving was taking John to a bike shop to replace his broken spoke, so he dropped Steve, Charlie, Tara and I off at the base of La Pue de Dome.  (Poor John couldn't find a spoke for sale...or even a new rear wheel, so he ended up buying a new front and rear wheel set for about 100 Euros.)

The four of us hiked up La Pue de Dome, which is the largest of the extinct volcanos in the region, and the main tourist attraction.  It was a steep ascent, with wonderful views for about the first 3/4 of the way, at which point we entered the low clouds and saw nothing but white.  It was definitely cold at the top,  but we were down to short sleeves on the way up because of the effort it took to walk up the steep dirt pathway.  When we reached the summit it started to rain heavily and then hail, so we quickly made our way back down again.  By the end we were 100% soaked to the bone.

Kevin picked us up and took us to a resteraunt for lunch.  Then we came back to the hotel, where I moved some drying clothes around and had a nap until dinner.

Interesting dinner to night.  Authentic dishes from the area.  Starter was a plate of shrimps, beans, and fish.  I liked it...nice to get some veggies.  Main was a huge portin of cured ham with something that looked like mashed potato and tasted like it had some cheese and other stuff in it.  It had a stringy, almost doughey consistency which remined me too much of the food in Ghana that made me sick...so I only ate about half a plate. 

Cheese today was great.  The highlight of the meal.  Huge wedges were passed around and we had as much as we wanted. All of the cheeses were from local towns.  The first two were from towns on our route over the next two days.  (They said that if we hit the home of the blue cheese, then we had gone too far.).

Desert was a cold blueberry "soup" with lemon sorbet.  We also had birthday cake for Sarah (who turned 50 today) and a magnum (i.e. Very big bottle) of real champaigne. I tried each of the cakes, but turned down seconds on the grounds that a fourth desert is almost always a mistake.

One the walk back to our hotel after dinner, Harold was skipping playfully along the side of the road.  I certainly hope that I can skip along a French road once night when I am 78.

Back on the bikes for five more days or riding tomorrow.  Weather is supposed to be around 16 degrees with a chance of light showers.  More climbing to come.