I figure it would be a good time to let all who read this what I've been up to.
A couple of days ago now I was motivated to get out and see the country side on bike, so i grabbed some food a map and headed off. I had only a vague idea of where I would be going so I just started to head in the direction of where Dylan's Dad had said was nice. I was about a mile way when all of a sudden the peddle almost came off the bike, so after using my handy dandy leather man fixed the bike, made sure the peddles were tight and continued on my marry way. I went through about 4 or 5 little villages before I decided to have a snack and stopped at one of the little town halls where i was able to find a bench to sit on for a while. After my snack, and letting my t-shirt dry out a little I headed off once again. Around the 7th village there was a small climb to the top of a hill where on the other side was a great little curvy road to ride down, luckily since the roads I was on hardly ever get traffic of more then a car and hour I was able to take full advantage of the road and have a good old time. After a while longer I finally ended up in the little town of Labastide-d'Armagnac where i tried to find some water since i had run out about 10 km ago but with towns shutting down at around 2pm i had no luck and was forced to take a slightly more popular road back towards Villeneuve-de-Marsan, where I had been before and knew there was a market where I could get a better snack and some water. After a little late lunch brake I got onto a bike path that went back to Mont-de-Marsan and headed back.
The next day Dylan had looked into going snowboarding and decided that we would go Tuesday night stay over night in the van and head to the slopes Wednesday and Thursday to do some snowboarding. We drove up Tuesday night and found a parking lot to sleep in for the night in Bareges. We tried out my camping stove for the first time and made some ravioli, cleaned up and went to sleep. The next day we got up went to rent my snowboard and boots and headed straight up to the mountain to start our day.
We started off on some slopes heading to a part of the mountain that Dylan said had some of the best views on the mountain. We came up to a t-bar lift, which I had never used before since they hardly have any back in the states. and after the 3rd attempt I was able to get going. I decided that I didn't like the t-bar lift because it was probably more work going up then going down, so after getting back to the bottom we headed to the opposite part of the mountain. We found a great run were there was tons of fresh powder for us to carve up and we did 3-4 runs down that before seeing what the other side of the mountain had to offer. We headed over there and did a run where I made the decision to go back since there wasn't any sun on that side which made it imposable to see the terrain. We went back to the powder we had found before and did that until we took a break for lunch. After lunch we went down the powder one more time and found that it had started to warm up to the point where the snow started to get slushy on the one side of the mountain so we made one more attempt at the other side to see if the snow was any better. We took a gondola to the top of the other side and I gave in and headed back to the car while Dylan did a few more runs and we diced to call it a trip since the snow wasn't going to get any better.
I had gone from touring the french country side to snowboarding the Pyrenees mountains. After that I think I can now safely leave saying I had a good time in Mont-de-Marsan and maybe head to Spain where I will soon meet up with my sister for a 2 week trip to Morocco. I think I will have to work my way to some beach to make the trip completely perfect from country to snow to beach, I think that would be the perfect trip.
Well its a nice day here in Southwest France once again so I will see about getting out one last time before leaving tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to find a place to go when I coincide with my travel agent.
With 3 months of travel under my belt I'm starting to get the urge to go back home for a while to regroup and plan my next adventure. A bike tour around the State for starters and then maybe Australia? Who knows that for the world to decide and me to find out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You are such the adventurer! Sounds like fun in the country side and on the mountain. I hope you find a good beach and can sleep on it under the stars. But watch out for the tide! Have fun in Spain and Morocco and I hope you get to see at least part of Portugal. Did you know your Grandpa Jack and Grandma Marlane took a trip to Portugal when they were about my age? I think I still have a cork box they brought me back.
ReplyDelete