Settling Into French Life

So France is wonderful. The Pyrenees are pretty spectacular and offer the ability to ski one day and climb the next, all depending on weather and elevation of course.

But don't let these photos fool you! In between each adventure is plenty of work for both Camille and I. Thankfully our schedules are flexible enough to allow us to sneak out occasionally for mini-adventures (especially since my current client is in a timezone 8 hours behind us).

Starting with a small hike in Spain (the border is only 30 minutes away).

Decent views!

Decent goats too!!

Camille works at a hostel at a ski resort. I don't get the free lift tickets like she does, but I do get free rentals. And the lift tickets are half the price of the resorts in New England and the powder is 10 times as good.

It was my first time snowboarding in 15 years. Luckily it's something that stays with you and I was able to get back into it very quickly.

And we went just after a snow storm and had several feet of fresh powder! Something I've never experienced before but now I understand the appeal.

More hiking nearby, this time in France 15 minutes from Camille's apartment.

And eventually some climbing. We met up with Camille's friends Josselin and Cha, whom she met 2 years ago while working in the chasm in Padirac.

Of course there's limestone all over the Pyrenees and it's quite nice.

And some more snowboarding on a bluebird day. Camille decided to try snowboarding for the first and second time. After 2 days she went from falling often and being very discouraged to being able to carve left and right and ride down the trails quite quickly. Super proud of her!

There are a couple of weekly markets nearby to get fresh food from local producers. 

Unrelated, but I forced her to pose for this very french photo of a girl and her baguette.

We also did a little snowshoeing at the resort. Again, the views aren't too shabby.

In our hunt for the best bakery around, we found this little place tucked away off of the main road. No frills or fancy display cases. Just good quality bread.

Another hike, another view.

Some more climbing with Josselin while Camille was working (she was more than a little jealous).

Another hike. This time with a small picnic.

So yeah, France is good!

Homesteadin'

Tiny house life is good.

Before winter reared its ugly head, we decided a proper firewood shed would make life much easier. I say "we" but Christian did most of the work as you can see here.

And here is Camille doing most of the work preparing the tiny firewood for our tiny stove.

And we had a tiny bonfire to share tiny drinks and tiny stories. Jude tried his first s'mores. Of course he loved it.

Then we built a tiny loft in the living room for additional storage.

Camille makes beautiful art. This project spanned many months and visits but it's finally done! And now it's hanging above my door. The best part is having plants that I can't kill...

Of course we paid a visit to Tree House.

This was Camille's first Halloween. We went to Patrick's house in Monson where they get over 500 kids in just a few hours.

Here's Camille the mime, Chloe the unicorn and Jude the fireman. Apparently unicorns like lollipops.

It was also her first time carving pumpkins! We went with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme (although I had never watched it... we watched it a week or 2 later).

Camille made this beautiful glass hanger for the kitchen out of some old barn board.

We had another successful Friendsgiving.

Big sunset for a tiny house.

Tried a new method for quickly cutting the firewood in half in order for it to fit in the tiny stove. Turned out to be too much effort, despite it being safer than hacking away at loose piles.

Christian and I also finally got around to building the kitchen drawers (spoiler alert: they're still not done. But they're also pretty unnecessary).

Then we went camping at the cabin in Northfield. With this cart full of stuff you would think we were moving into the cabin permanently. It was just for one night, but we like to be comfortable.

Stump stump stump stump.

Thanksgiving at my Dad's was also very nice. Camille, Jude and I took Kobe for a stroll. Camille was obviously in charge of both of them.

Thank you Camille for the family photo.

Jude loved his first leaf pile. He also learned not to throw his sister into the leaf pile.

A couple days later, Camille flew home to start her new job as a receptionist at a hostel at a ski resort. The goodbye was slightly easier this time as I would be flying to her in just under a month.

Then we got a lot of snow....

Justin and Alie came over for a tiny game night.

Solstice party bonfire.

As a Christmas gift, I took Jude climbing at the gym in Hadley. Given that he climbs on everything, I thought he would be a natural. Turns out he's afraid of heights and never made it higher than 5 feet... Maybe we'll try again in 2020.

Then we burned the Christmas tree. A good excuse for a beer with friends.

And just before leaving, Koti and Faith came over for dinner. I risked it by making some Indian dishes I had never made before. Thankfully they were tasty!

And just as Kobe was adjusting to the tiny house, I packed my things for my trip to France.

Alors, now I'm in France with Camille in the Pyrenees. More to come on that!

The Long Journey Home

I've run out of work for the year. I guess I have no excuse to ignore this blog any longer. 

Where were we? Sacramento? Ah yes!

Alors, Camille and I dropped Tim off at the airport and made our way to San Francisco.  As a serious film buff of all decades, she was very excited to explore this city and see all of the familiar sights from the big screen.

The plan was to first see the Golden Gate Bridge from outside of the city and camp somewhere for the night but I missed the exit and we were forced to drive over the bridge. Woops... It's also very expensive to cross the bridge so we decided to find a place to sleep in the city.

We found a quiet dark road with no signage indicating we couldn't park there overnight and decided to call it home for the night. Unfortunately we were woken up by a police officer at 6 in the morning telling us it was illegal to park there overnight because it was within national park boundaries. We had no idea, but thankfully he was very nice about it and just asked us to leave before the next shift of officers started. Being one of the most expensive cities to live in, you can imagine there's a lot of people living in their vehicles and finding legal places to sleep overnight is a challenge.

Silver lining of the ordeal was that we had time to drive to the beach and watch the sunrise strike the silly orange bridge. T'was nice!

Then we had a very long day of touristy things! We visited the most popular bakery in the city, waited in line and upon seeing the insane prices, I had to restrain Camille from murdering someone. But I still got a couple things. They weren't that good. Hype is hype.

We ran into some big gay festival in the gayborhood. Mostly just tents lining the streets and people trying to sell things.

Then of course we rode the trolly. That was pretty cool.

Lombard Street.

And there happened to be a free bluegrass festival going on all weekend. Unfortunately we got so caught up in other things that we missed almost all of it. But we were able to see the last few songs of the Punch Brothers set which was pretty awesome.

Then we wiggled our way down the California coast. We preferred the more natural and wild coastlines of Oregon and Washington, but it still beats the Atlantic coastline any day!

Along the way we made a stop in San Louis Obispo to visit some friend of mine, Corey and Suzanne. It was a brief visit, but it was nice to catch up. 

After the craziness of San Fransisco, we decided we could only tolerate a day trip into LA. Film enthusiast Camille really wanted to see one of the studios. There have been a lot of things I've avoided in the past because they were too "touristy" that I then ended up seeing or doing per Camille's interest that proved to be really worth it (Mount Rushmore, for example). So by now I've learned my lesson and was excited to do the studio tour.

And it was fascinating. We got to see various sets, indoors and outdoors. It was impressive to see the level of detail that goes into these things as well as the reusability of some of the larger sets.

And we saw lots of props.

After the tour we drove up to the Griffith Observatory for a view of the city. It's a really really big city...

And then we got out of there as fast as we could!

Next stop was Joshua Tree National Park.

We got a lovely campsite in the boulders.

And we did some climbing. Unfortunately the first route we tried was an offwidth. Basically a crack that is too big to climb with your hands and feet but too small to fit your entire body into. This was Camille's first offwidth and she hated every second of it... as do most people. I guess it was a poor choice.

But then we climbed another route that was much more enjoyable, albeit still quite difficult. 

And that was good enough for us!

Next stop was Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. A place I've driven by before but have never visited.

The park is home to many Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings, spanning many centuries. Driving around the park, we were treated to a sort of timeline of exhibits demonstrating the progression of these dwellings and explanations as to how these tribes lived and protected themselves. 

Apparently tarantulas like pistachios?

The cliff dwellings were insanely fascinating and historians only have hypothesis as to why these places were abandoned. Unfortunately all of the tours were booked up so we couldn't see them up close, but it was still worth the visit.

Then we made our way through colorful Colorado.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park!

It's a lovely canyon.

We hiked to the bottom, as I did last time I was here. Although this time, each of us had a bad knee that gave us trouble the entire trek down and out of the canyon. I guess that's what it means to be 30. 

Then we stopped to visit my friend Aaron outside of Colorado Springs.  Camille had actually met Aaron previously as we ran into him last year climbing in Portrero Chico, Mexico. We headed to Garden of the Gods for a quick run up a very fun 3 pitch climb. 

The view at the top was worthy of a selfie.

The "hike" down was just as exciting as the climb up!

The next day we said our goodbyes and drove straight east. There were lots of people I wanted to visit in the Denver area but I was feeling pretty worn out and wanted to get home. But we decided on one more stop... The Red River Gorge in Kentucky. Home to some of the finest sport climbing on the east coast.

I mean, look at those features!

We debated climbing a second day, but once again my desire to be home outweighed the awesomeness of the Red.

A few hours into our drive home from Kentucky, Saturn Jr. lost the will to live and threw a connecting rod, effectively destroying the engine. As such, we were stranded in the middle of nowhere West Virginia. Not cool...

We had the tow truck driver drop us and Jr off at a hotel so we could come up with a plan. 

Here's a comical photo of us trying to catch all of the oil that was spilling out the engine.

So our options were to rent a one-way car back home and go from there or to buy a car in West Virginia and drive that home. I was more interested in just getting a new car down there. Unfortunately all of the dealerships were closed for the night and closed the next day, Sunday. So we had 2 days to kill... in a hotel... in West Virginia... At least it gave me plenty of time to do car research.

On Monday we reserved a rental car and walked to the office to pick it up. Well they didn't have any cars available. So we walked to the dealerships. I was keen on either a Honda or a Toyota, per my brother's recommendations. The first 2 dealerships were a wash. On the long walk to the 3rd one, we were picked up by a kind gentleman who saved us at least a half hour of walking.

After a few test drives and hours of bargaining, we drove back to the hotel with a 2016 Honda CRV. It's my first non-Saturn and my first vehicle that isn't already 11 years old. Feeling like a real adult!

Then we coordinated the pickup of Saturn Jr. by a junkyard and quickly transferred our things to the new car (who has yet to be named...). Everything barely fit.

Then we hauled ass home! Home sweet tiny home.

And without skipping a beat, Camille and I got to work getting the house ready for winter. 

She looks good with that brush hog!