Car, Cahors and on the road.

The frustrating thing about this typeface is that it is so small I can hardly read it. But we continue on.

I woke up on Wednesday with a full blown head cold which made the day kind of a waste. So we move on. I will report more on that at a later time perhaps.  Or not.

Thursday morning I woke up feeling equally as crappy but had to leave the flat and get to the Gare de Lyon Part Dieu to rent a car and drive out of town. This sounded like a great idea when I was in California but seemed less and less so as I sat in the train station waiting for the appointed hour to fetch my car.  Finally it was noon, the hour of car rental and so I made my way to the office and said yes to an upgrade and to minimal insurance.  Yes, it doubled the cost of the rental but hey, it was a bigger car, an automatic (which would be easier on my bad knee) and what the hell, it's a vacation after all.  The tricky part came when trying to figure out to get out of the car park and through the streets of Lyon and to the Highway.  French streets and traffic signals and rules of driving are a bit different than in the US but I managed to almost hit only one pedestrian and run only one traffic light before I got to the Autostrade. My phone helped, I was on my way.

A friend of mine, Vanessa, was working at a winery not far from Lyon and our plan was for me to pick her up and we would spend a day or two together, just cruising around in my car. However, from the inception of this plan to the day of my arrival Vanessa quit her job and I was now rescuing her and spiriting her away.  Fine with me.

So here we are now in the lovely town of Cahors for the evening, and we will be here for maybe two nights and then, who knows? It's a journey of the unknown at this point.
But a good journey. I am not sure what I would have done without a navigator, it would have required a different plan, that's for sure. The last time I drove in Europe I had Tom as a navigator and we never got lost, at least not for long. By myself, it's a different story. Having Vanessa along has made it much less daunting.

Which brings me to the topic of taking this vacation by myself, but it's late and I am tired so we will cover that topic tomorrow.

Thank you for reading along. This a photo of Cahors. More to follow.