Bob and Gayle's France Trip

River Disaster Averted

St Remy Provence

Today is our last full day in St Remy the soul of Provence. The old adage, “so little time and so much to do”, certainly hold true for this region. This area is home to the largest collection of Roman ruins, dozens of wineries and tiny olive oil outlets, and a moving walk through history in Les Baux de Provence, Les Baux is a wonderfully preserved medieval chateau literally carved out of the rocks on a hill top. Marty and Pat Miller joined us as we examined fortress siege engines, turrets, the castle keep, and a rocky cave where we had lunch and drank a nice bottle of wine for 3 euros.

Yesterday we took canoe trip down the Gardon River to the Pont du Gare. The Pont du Gare is a roman aqueduct built without cement that reaches 157 feet above the river in three stages in it’s 900’ span. It carried 44 million gallons of water a day to the roman city Nimes. The Romans liked to be clean!

We did have one canoeing accident when Pat and Marty bravely decided to go down a branch of the river and ran into a sunken tree. The boat immediately turned over dumping them both and pinning them to the boat by the swift current. In a stunning act of heroism, Connie and Steve paddled at emergency speed to reach them and assist our wayward couple to shore. I have no doubt that Marty would have made good their escape but having help from a friend makes all the difference. Pat, shaken as you will see on the photos, bounced back. Her clothes dried completely in the next hour and the ladies said, “I don’t know why bother with a hair drier, you look fantastic!”

This has been a real bonding experience with simply the best friends anyone can have! The only regret we have is that we’ve run out of time with each other.

Tomorrow we leave for the Christian Retreat Center near Aix en Provence. While we are there we are going to do community service work like building a shower and doing landscaping.

Picture Set 1
Picture Set 2

posted by Bob and Gayle @ 7:48 PM