On slow time.

We spent one week living in the shipyard in dry dock, kind of like living in the middle of a factory yard, but our survey was great and all of the scheduled work was finished on time. Thumbs up to the hard working crew of Atelier Fluvial!!! The hull was painted with two coats of antifouling paint, and on Friday Randy and I were able to paint the red parts of the hull, 7 hours total from start to finish. I washed everything down with degreaser as Randy came along afterwards with paint. She was a pretty boat before, but she's just gorgeous now with her new coats of paint. On Sunday, we changed out the name boards and the boat officially became "Alouette."

I have to say I was impressed with Randy's job getting us in to the dry dock, but we did have assistance from the guys at Atelier Fluvial, who used warp lines to get us around some of the huge barges in the way. But come Monday morning, it was time to boot us out and get the next boats in, and we were on our own. Randy did a masterful job of backing us out into a small harbor full of huge barges, and he even got a "thumbs up" from some of the Atelier Fluvial guys. I resisted the urge to put my hands over my eyes. We returned to the River Saone for a few days of R & R off the grid at a mooring spot near the campground in St. Jean de Losne.

We are now retracing our route back to our winter port of Roanne, but at a much slower pace. We are taking time to slow down and enjoy seeing the sites. We have little folding bicycles on board and other than our feet, they are our means of transportation. We do have to laugh, we look like Shriners on them, they have little tiny wheels. We just need those fez hats or maybe clown outfits. But they do get us to and from. At the risk of sounding spoiled, I do miss my Bianchi road bike and Fisher mountain bike, both have all those gears. These little clown bikes only have 5 gears, and if you are going up hill, you need to shift your weight forward or the front tire rears up like a bucking bronco. We are back on the Canal du Centre. The old tow path has been converted to a bicycle path, part of an EU plan to link the rivers with the Black Sea. The path is well used every day, from groups of serious cyclists, rollerbladers, moms with strollers, and people on organized walking holidays. We took the path into the city of Chalon-sur-Saone, spent a day seeing a few of the sites, and will go back again since we missed so much.

We recently passed through the vineyards of Burgundy, and the grape harvest has begun. The weather turned perfect, reminding us of those wonderful Indian summer days in Colorado with clear temperate days and cool, dry nights. So for those of you wondering how we know where to go and when and where to stop, there are cruising guides that give you information such as where the locks are, how deep they are, where there are full service stops like the marinas in the U.S. But many of the small towns along the canals have a few bollards along the shore to encourage you to stop and spend a while with them. Some even have water and electricity, but most don't. We are capable of living "off the grid" since we have a generator that we can fire up to charge our batteries. We carry 2300 liters of fresh water, which lasts us about a month, but that's with taking "marine" showers, no running the hot water endlessly. We have a washer and dryer on board, and the boat has hot water radiators fired by a red diesel Kabola boiler. Red diesel is used for heating purposes in Europe and is much cheaper than the white diesel, which is used for fuel, and we have two separate fuel tanks, one red, one for white. We have a full kitchen with refrigerator and freezer, cooktop and full sized oven, two bedrooms, two bathrooms both with showers, a salon (like a living room) in the wheel house, and the kitchen has a large dining area. We have a large back deck with outdoor dining table and chairs under a canopy. It's our favorite spot on the boat. I guess this is a lot like a big motor home on water.

We still haven't set up internet access on the boat so it's hit or miss as far as being in touch via email. Our plan is to arrive in Roanne around October 10^th and we'll be wired up and in touch full time again, and I'll have the ability to upload photos.