Crossing a new border

I told Steven that as soon as I got that post about the Dordogne written I had lots of ideas for other posts I would write while we were in Sens. Because not long after we arrived back here, just a few days after we received our first vaccine, France went into its third national lockdown. It looked like we would be here for a while.

This lockdown was not unexpected, in fact, it was a longer time coming than we had anticipated. The possibility of a lockdown in France was what prompted us to leave Croatia at the end of January. And now it finally arrived. How lucky were we to be able to slow travel across the south of France and visit the Dordogne while we awaited this announcement? Our timing was perfect.

This time the rules were not as stringent as they were last year during the first lockdown we spent in Sens. This time we are allowed to travel 10 kms from home without filling out that pesky attestation. There was still a 7 p.m. curfew, but I struggle to recall the last time we were out that late, or wanted to be. There was that time in Carcassonne when Steven wanted to photograph the citadel at dusk, just when the lights came on, but curfew dictated otherwise. But that’s about it.

Our biggest concern was being able to travel from Sens on April 20th to get our second vaccine, but it seemed there was an attestation for that. So no worries. In the meantime, we had set up a few appointments for Bijou and for our bikes. For Bijou, we had scheduled an appointment to repair the wheel cover that I scraped up crossing a small bridge in Switzerland. We also asked for the undercarriage to get a rust-prevention treatment. Because we don’t watch TV, we decided to have our satellite dish removed from Bijou’s roof, it weighs a lot for something that is not in use. There were also a few additional minor things we wanted done. We made the appointment more than a month out so that parts could be ordered, etc.. Steven sent info along with photos, but we never got a confirmation, nor would we, in spite of our many emails and texts.

When the day came for repairs very little on our list got done. Apparently our email with photos and information had gone unread. There were no parts ordered, no concern for the items on our list. We are finding this to be fairly typical of this particular establishment, so we settled for the minor repairs and went on our merry way, looking ahead to where we might make an appointment at a proper shop. One item on our list was to fix the back door lock, which was catching and causing the door to be difficult to open. They took a look at it and “fixed” it and now it it can’t be locked or unlocked from the outside. One of us has to lock the back door from the inside and crawl out the driver’s side door when we go out now. Such a pain!

Bijou also went into the Fiat shop for new wheel bearings, which we hoped would lessen her very embarrassing high-pitched squeak. Any time we did a slow roll through a small village, Bijou’s squeak would turn heads. This job was supposed to take three hours, but because they discovered another issue, it took all day. Ugh. But yay, she sounds much better now!

The absolute worst thing about repair days is that we are displaced from our home. When we traveled in Scoopy, at least we had Toadie Hopper and we could drive to visit places, or more typical for us, find a Starbucks and settle in. There is no Starbucks in Sens, in fact, because of the pandemic, no coffee shops are open, period! All we have now are our bikes, and as it turned out, the weather was gorgeous on the two days we had to be out of Bijou. We were so lucky!

On the first day Bijou went into the shop, we decided to leave behind our camp rug, two chairs and the new table we had just purchased at Decathlon (to replace the one that had flown out the bay in Morocco, unbeknownst to us). This way, after we got tired of riding our bikes, we could at least return to our chairs in the shade plus, we didn’t want anyone taking our coveted spot.

We had a wonderful morning out and then lunch in a beautiful park by the river. We headed back to our campsite to spend the final couple of hours until it was time to liberate Bijou. As we rode into the campground, I looked down to our site and saw nothing. As I got closer, still nothing. We rode to our site to find that our rug, chairs and table had been stolen.

As best as we can recall, in six and a half years of fulltime travel this is the first time we have had anything stolen from our campsite. One time, over a few weeks, Steven left his grill outside in hopes that it would be stolen and he could get a new one, but no one took it 🙂 I guess we’ve been lucky until now. Funny, though, the night before when we discussed leaving those items behind, I actually asked if we were prepared to lose them. Of course, I never really expected to, but at least we did recognize the possibility. When we left early that morning to take Bijou to the shop, there were three other rigs in the park. I believe one of them just popped over and grabbed our stuff and took off. Oh, well, lesson learned.

We rode our bikes to the shop, bought two new chairs and returned with Bijou to our spot. The next morning when we took her to Fiat, we packed everything up. I had to laugh a little that they took everything that wasn’t nailed down, except Roman Polanski! They did not get that guy! I would have really been sad if he had been kidnapped! Oh, and I put a voodoo hex on our chairs so that every time the thief sits in them, they are haunted with guilt of their dastardly deed.

Once Bijou was done with her appointments, it was time for our bikes to have a spa day. We had made an appointment online at Decathlon to have them serviced. We had actually anticipated leaving Sens the next day and traveling to Annecy for a couple of weeks by the lake. But then came word of the lockdown and we decided just to stay put. We figured since our vax appointment was two and a half weeks away, there was just no need to be rushing around. Our bikes were in really great shape and the service appointments were free. Go figure!

Over the next couple of weeks, when I thought I would regale you with tales of our lockdown, it occurred to me that I already did that last year. Honestly, there was not a lot going on that didn’t feel a bit like Groundhog Day. Steven has taken up drawing and when he commits to something he does it wholeheartedly. I took an online baking class, but our little oven isn’t really up to the task of a good bake so I didn’t put any theory into practice. More recently I’ve finally started Italian lessons on Duolingo.

When the day came for us to travel back to Chateauneuf for our second vaccine, we were more than ready to roll. We went to the same hospital with the same wonderful staff who made sure we had all our paperwork to tote around with us. This time we were ushered through in about 45 minutes, including the 20 minute observation time following the shot. One by one they took away our papers and in the end all we were left with was our Certificates of Vaccinations. Holy Cow, that was such a great feeling! Once borders begin to open, these certificates open up a world of relatively easier travel for us.

To make sure we are in a good position to begin our travels when borders do open, we decided we needed to get out of France. France is such a hot spot that even with vaccines it is possible some countries would require us to quarantine. We’d like to avoid that if at all possible, so getting out of France was preferable. Plus, traveling with my EU spouse only gives me 90 days in France and we were just a few days away from that limit. So, since we had an attestation to travel for our vaccines, we were going to travel back to Sens anyway. What if we just zigged instead of zagged and ended up in Switzerland? I mean, why not? So that’s what we did. We are currently ensconced at a full-service campground in Le Landeron on the shores of Lake Biel. We plan to stick around here for a couple of weeks until our bodies are “fully vax’d” which is May 4th.

During all this down time, with the knowledge that our vax certificates will allow us to travel, we have been dreaming. And planning. We are currently on Plan K and it is a DOOZY! Stick with us, because that’s coming up next.

And finally, those of you who signed up for The Chouters long ago when we were on Blogger will no longer receive notice of a new post via Feedburner. Feedburner is no more as of July, so if you’d like to continue getting notifications, please consider signing up right here on this page, right up at the top. If you have already done that, thank you, we are happy to have you along for the ride. And if between now and July you get double notices, ugh. Sorry, I don’t know how to stop that. Please don’t hate me.

UP NEXT: Plan K

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