Taking Fabrice’s suggestion to heart, I slept in. Because the windows all have a drop-down security barrier, the house remained blissfully dark, and with no sun to wake me, I slept better than I have in a while.
As the local castle didn’t open until 2:00 pm, I spent the morning reviewing the remaining trek across France. I also took the opportunity to make an in-depth check of the ferry to Ireland in Roscoff. The end of the holiday season prompted a change in the ferry schedule, such that the ferry doesn’t run every day. From my perspective, that translates to a ferry on the 11h, 12th, and 18th. Further math shows that I’m about eight days out from Roscoff, so arrive the evening of the 12th. The ferry leaves late afternoon on the 12th, but that assumes a perfect eight days. I also have to consider that all spots on the ferry could be booked. I’ll try to pick up the pace for the next few days, and the train still serves as a speed-enhancement if necessary.
As the castle stood only five kilometers away, I travelled light (so light in fact I left the key to my lock behind!). The area around the castle showed clear signs of the storm from the night before, with high limbs down from the surrounding trees. While the doors to the courtyard stood open, a sign stated that there would be no interior castle tour available – the only tour guide was sick. A small keep, renovated recently, reminding me of the slightly smaller towers scattered across Ireland. In this case, large enough to have a courtyard and building lining the inner walls.
I found my concerns about the battery life and indicator on the camera well-founded; the batteries died today still indicating 100% (fortunately without impacting the SD card). The camera runs on four AA batteries, easy to replace, except stores in France do not sell lithium batteries, so more weight and shorter life from the alkaline batteries I’ll buy at the next opportunity.
Before dinner I had the opportunity to see Fabrice’s arial collection in action. He owns two drones, a helicopter, two jets, and a stunt plane, and is an accomplished pilot. I had the opportunity to fly one of the drones, and the drone survived the tree without significant incident. While I have a lot of time in playing flight simulators, I have trouble reversing my perspective when flying RC planes, so I declined to fly any of the planes, probably to Fabrice’s relief!
Fabrice also has a small fruit garden in back (fresh raspberries!). I also spent a while with Matteo driving his tractor ad we reviewed the garden. Last night Matteo insisted he eat what I did.
After dinner, with the children abed, we spent the evening discussing education, gun policy, and other French and American political issues, with Fabrice serving as partial translator for Stephanie.
A while back my odometer reset, with me unsure as to the mileage. I crossed the 1,000 km mark (again) today, meaning at least 5,000 km. When I get home I will reverse engineer the numbers for another estimate.