Day 5

Wednesday, May 3
Anet to Chateaudun
114km

My Blackberry appears to be working again.  However, it appears to be a bit flakey over here.  So if I suddenly stop posting, please assume that the Blackberry problem has returned.

Last night we ate together at a nice french resteraunt.  I'm getting a bit tired of French dinners.  They are usually pretty small portions and consist mostly of a piece of meat covered in a sauce, a few token vegetables (literally one baby carrot, one bean and one baby potato) lots of bread, cheese plate and/or dessert and, of course, wine.  Its very nice, but there is not much variety.  Same stuff every night.  And its not really "cycling food".  I'd love a nice big plate of pasta!

Lovely weather today.  Hot and sunny all day.  The terrain was flat again, with only one or two gentle climbs.  There was a bit of a headwind, but nothing to terrible.  The large, flat yellow and green fields were interrupted every 25km or so with a tiny little custer of farmhouses.  Most had old stone walls and many had a little river or pond.  Charming.  We even saw an aqueduct early on in the day.

I rode with John and Roger again today.  Right outside the hotel, Roger got a flat tire.

About half way through, we met up. With Steve, Charlie and Tara.  They were at the side of the road with a flat tire and a broken pump...we arrived just in time to save the day.  The typical setup was John and I up front (breaking the wind) with Charlie and Roger providing directions.  It worked quite well.

Having not had any fruit or vegetable in days, we stopped at a fruit stand today and loaded up.  (We also got a few things from the bakery across the street - apple turnover and chocolate crossant.)

For dinner just now we found a little Italian resteraunt that really went over well.  Pasta, pizza and salade doesn't sound as good as french cuisine, but it was exaclty what we were looking for.