May 21-22, 2022

We left Verona on a mission to make it to Chamonix, France before nightfall. While only 250 miles, much of it snakes through small towns and over the Alps on twisty climbs, and I decided that today we would take the smaller roads and avoid the tolls. Which made it even longer of course.

On our way out of Verona, the GPS started adopting new habits. For the first time this trip, she suddenly decided to announce turns over the intercom system. Up until this morning, if Diana and I had the intercoms on, I couldn’t hear the GPS announcements. If I shut the intercoms off, the GPS announcements would come through my headset. Now, in the middle of a conversation, the GPS would cut us off to announce a turn, then there would be a ten second lag before the intercom would come back on. Which was just enough time to require the next turn announcement, so it was nearly impossible to have a conversation.

About this same time, the turn announcements started occurring about a half mile after the actual turn, which rendered the announcements useless.

Before leaving Verona, the GPS suddenly re-booted in the middle of traffic, and came up in portrait mode rather than landscape mode, making the map nearly impossible to read. Shutting it off and re-starting it seemed to solve this problem at least.

Several times during the day, it also would announce that “External Power Has Been Lost”, but at the same time the symbol in the upper right corner indicated that it was indeed still connected to the bike’s power and charging.

One last note on all this: after two days of these antics, it has stopped doing any of that and is now back to normal. I didn’t remove it from its’ dock or change anything, but it definitely seems to have a mind of its’ own. And this is the same GPS that we used for five months last year to Alaska and back, with no issues. I’m thinking Garmin did an online update that somehow went awry.

Okay, back to the ride: a little more than an hour out of Verona, I received a phone call (which scared me, as my phone rang in my headset and the GPS announced that “Jake” was calling. I had never received an announced phone call over my headset AND GPS before. You may recall Jake had stopped at our place in Texas about five weeks ago on his way through from Mexico. He was now back in Europe on a different bike and continuing his European ride. He had been following our route on the blog, and had called to say that it looked like we would be literally crossing paths in another hour or so near Gallarate, Italy. We agreed to meet in Gallarate at a pasta restaurant for a quick lunch. Jake was headed to Varese for the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride the next day. We would have loved to tag along, but we had unfortunately committed to a tight schedule. It was great to catch up over pasta, and with several long days ahead we hit the road again. (This punishment is regrettable, in hindsight. More on that later.)

Not sure when we may see Jake again, but we’ll keep in touch.

On we pushed, skipping the toll roads and riding through the small towns, criss-crossing over the toll road and back multiple times. Eventually we arrived at the first climb into the Alps, crossing into Switzerland and up and over Simplon Pass, with spectacular views of the high mountains.

We dropped back down into the valley on the Swiss side, and continued into France to Chamonix. Our campsite for the night was at the base of Mt. Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps.

Looking up at Mt Blanc from our campsite. This photo was taken about 11pm.

The next morning.

During a clear, star-filled night, several times I heard what sounded like the crack of lightning followed by thunder. It took a while to realize that what I was hearing was an avalanche on the glacier high above us.

The next day would be our longest of the trip, not just so far but ever, as far as I’m concerned, as 400 miles is almost three times the daily average that I adhere to. We were also breaking another of my rules, which is not to ride more than four days a week. All of this effort to ride across Europe in a few days was wearing us out and preventing us from seeing anything. We (I) had made a schedule because we had certain things we wanted to do or see on certain dates, and this was beginning to wear on us. I’ve since concluded that in the future we will not make such solid plans, and not reserve places ahead of time, so that we can slow down and enjoy our surroundings. If this means covering less ground and seeing less of the big tourist sites, then those will have to wait.

Since we had arrived at our campsite in Chamonix rather late by our standards — it was around 8pm, even though it stays light until after 10pm — and the owner of the campground was not around, we stopped on our way out the next morning to pay. She was very surprised to learn that we were even there the night before, and also surprised that we bothered to pay before leaving. Apparently, and sadly, it must be common for campers to just use her facilities and leave without paying. Her English, like my French, was non-existent, but the conversation flowed easily with simple words and gestures.

Leaving Chamonix, we again took the toll road, as we had a lot of ground to cover yet again. We ended up on the E15 motorway, and my exhaustion, combined with the lack of consistency in toll booths, began to frustrate me. In a matter of fifty or so miles, all on the same road, we approached three toll booths. At the first, only cash was accepted; no credit cards. No problem: we had Euros, but I was trying to spare them for places that only took cash, and this was one of those places. At the second, there were four lanes marked for credit cards, and all four were also marked “No Motorcycles”. Eventually we found that the cash-only lanes that allowed motorcycles also took credit cards (I still haven’t figured this out completely. The toll booth somehow recognizes that we are on a motorcycle as we approach, and displays the motorcycle rate. So why can’t it do that in ALL of the lanes? Or do they just recognize that it takes motorcyclists longer to pay a toll because we have to dig in our pockets, and possibly remove a glove, so they keep some lanes open for the supposedly faster-paying cars?). At the third toll booth, you had to take a ticket, which you later inserted in a machine at the next toll booth to pay, and again where some lanes were marked “No Motorcycles” and some were not.

Likewise, we stopped for gas at a gas pump that only took cards. Except it wouldn’t take my cards. When I asked the cashier, I was told that I could use any other pump EXCEPT the one I was at. (Every other gas station since, except one, has not been a problem. We encountered one other station that although all of the pumps looked identical, only pumps 2 through 9 would take my credit card. Weird.

At the end of a very long day, we arrived at the Municipal Campground in Dreux, France, only to find that it is no longer a campground, or open to the public at all. A quick search on the GPS found another campground less than a mile away, which had available space for us.

On the way to the campground we passed what seemed to be a “compound” of almost fantasy proportion, looking like something from a movie set or a theme park attraction.

An odd sight along a city block in Dreux, France. It looked like a movie set, and it turns out that although it wasn’t built to be one, it has been used as one multiple times, in movies like Thunderball and The Pink Panther Strikes Again.

The palace was ordered built in the 1550s by King Henry II for his mistress Diane of Poitiers.

This Byzantine chapel holds the remains of Diane of Poitiers.

The long haul to Dreux, just outside Paris, meant that we would have a shorter day tomorrow to get to our campsite in Normandy.