Wednesday
Made it out to the car at 8am. We were off to a rough start because Janja forgot to charge his phone the night before and was in a bad mood. The first leg of our journey was about an hour and a half drive into the mountains. The views were stunning. I was a bit surprised when I realized that the first stop of the day was a winery! We met up with the Bodet family friends there. The mother lived in the States for about fives years, so she spoke great English. While we were at the winery, we got a bit of a tour around the vineyard and had a private wine tasting! The host showed us how the bottle all the wine and how the put the labels on, which was pretty neat.
After our tasting, we set off at breakneck speeds down tiny mountain roads toward a little fromagerie in Epernay. The roads reminded me of driving through California when we were on our way to one of the national parks. I remember them being so windy that Grace got sick- I hoped that I wouldn’t get sick on this trip. Luckily, I made it through. The mountains looked down on us from all sides. The town had a bear theme going on. At the campground where we parked, the sign had bears painted on it. There were posters around town that had a bear themed mystery for kids to solve. Finally, there was a cavern bear museum that you can learn more about here.
After everyone got their fill of cheese, we left to “fait le luge.” When Mme Bodet said we were going to do the luge, I thought we were going to be doing the Olympic sport. I worried and worked myself up all night. I did not know how to do the luge. I was genuinely surprised to learn that it just meant me were going sledding. Whoops! Still, it was incredibly fun. This was definitely the most unique sledding I’ve ever done. Who else can say they’ve been sledding in the middle of the Chartreuse mountains?! We had a lovely mountainside picnic for lunch. After eating, Janja was determined to set up a ramp and get some air on the sled. The snow was melting a bit by then, so it didn’t work super well. He had about two good runs before we got back on the road.
On the road again, we eventually came across a closed down ski resort. Skiing is a really really popular activity in France. I think almost everyone I know here goes several times a year to ski. The French government has closed ski lifts, so the resorts are not functional right now. Instead, people are using some of the smaller slopes for sledding! We stopped to do a few more runs. Unfortuantely, none of us realized that the snow was iced over. I did the first run and wiped out harder than I ever have before. I went FLYING and tumbled past a little girl who looked on in horror thinking she was about to get squished. My entire body HURT the next day. The two little boys in our group got stuck at the bottom of the hill because they couldn’t stand up and a random adult stopped to help them.
It was nearing curfew, so we got back on the road. I stared out the window in amazement as Mme Bodet narrated all the things we passed. I loved seeing the little mountain villages. It absolutely amazed me that we were so close to the edge of a giant cliff.
We arrived home and I went back to my apartment, completely exhausted. I was happy to have a call with my family. I got to see my cat curled up with a bunch of my yarn on my bed.
Mary-Est-En-France 