Alogny Vacation in Review

[I wrote this post a while back, but neglected to post it until now.]
The New York Century was the least pretentious bike ride I have ever been on – very few little outfits. Most people rode fairly clunky bikes (including me), wore cotton, while making that 100 miles look easy (which it was being flat). We did something like 85.

The whole competitive cycling thing irritates me. I mean, taking anything so seriously that you become gaunt and wear odd clothes is irritating. These people love New York. They love cycling. They don’t get all fussed up about it like the people in California do. Of course, I haven’t done any other east coast rides. So, I don’t have a sample for comparison.

I’m on the train from the country back to Paris for a couple final days… really just a day and a half if you take travel time and sleeping into consideration. I was there a week and a day, but it went by like a flash. I’ll post a photo of Alogny to give you an idea. I didn’t even have time to read. Nine of us + one baby stayed there – friends from grad school at Berkeley and their significant others. So, it was a lot of visiting and drinking wine on the patio. We rented bikes for the week to we could tootle around between castles and see the gorgeous country side. The area is perfect for biking – little roads, not much traffic, beautiful countryside, just enough topography to keep it interesting.

So, yeah, there was visiting, biking, walking (Keturah and I each even did a run), eating and drinking. Probably best illustrated in pictures (posted here).

My mom has 4 pet chickens… or had. Now, she has one. The second to last died the first night we arrived after a few days of illness. They are (or were) back with brown eyes, and they spend their days scratching and moving around higgledy piggledy. We tried to care for the one remaining chicken when my mother was away – but we were an inferior second.

After a few days of her being away, my mother returned and the chicken ran around with more enthusiasm than we’d seen yet. Who knew that chickens can tell people apart and feel fondness for particular ones. Last night, Ryan went out to put the shut the chicken door (she usually puts herself to bed, but the door must be shut to keep the foxes from eating her). Marshall followed, and shortly returned to inform us that the chicken had not put herself to bed. Ryan was poking around in the bushes where she usually hangs out, when I came outside to double check. Well, the end of the story is rather dull – she had put herself to bed, just not where they had thought she would be. We called Ryan back in from the shrubbery before we lost him to the foxes.

It was a vacation in the traditional sense of the word… not that I needed one. (Ryan said he hadn’t taken a real vacation in several years.) I live my life like it’s a vacation… in the sense that I stay relaxed and I don’t let myself get worn out. (I’ve tried the alternative, and it didn’t work for me. I’ll cite health reasons.) Now, I’m actually exhausted.