We continued to relax and recoup in the beautiful Vallée Verte by setting out and exploring by foot from our home base, soaking in the endless connected footpaths, trails, and rural roads of France. Our goal yesterday was Mont Forchant, a 1500m peak at the head of the valley known for steep approaches and rewarding views.
Headed up valley
We could have driven to a trailhead and and made an easy two hour peak bag, but what fun is that? So we walked about 10 miles up into the wooded paths with over 2,000 feet of climbing! By walking, we got to stroll through two small villages and lots of rural pleasantness.
Roads plenty quiet to walkThe final push to the summit
So we were hopeful of promised views on Mont Blanc in the distance, but alas, the clouds were still thick on this typical summer day. But it at least cleared enough to see down the valley, and the the clouds made for cooler hiking.
Gazpacho and sándwiches on Mont Forchant
And this being France in August, there was plenty of company at the summit, all enjoying their leisurely picnic lunches. We relished the background buzz of French around us, as it seems this was a locals only place today, along with two very happy Americans.
So the last week had been intense, with so many goodbyes and experiences in our great little neighborhood of Broderick Street in the heart of San Francisco. But the primary focus on has been getting our final items to storage, clearing out every last thing out of the flat…and oh yeah, packing for a (hopefully) long international adventure!
The staging room – ready to pack!Magic – it all fit!
The last day had one more trip to storage, a trip to drop our luggage at friends in Redwood City, and finally putting the last items out on the curb and closing our door to our beloved flat for the last time 🥲.
So emptyGoodbye Ladybugs
But then off to Redwood City by bike and train 😀 it felt so appropriate for our lives in SF
Feeling Free riding out of SF!Former Caltrain Board member ready to rollCelebratory Beers on Caltrain tasted SO good!!
So it’s all hard to believe that all the prep of the past 18 months finally starting to pay off and we are actually on our way to Europe! We’re at SFO now and ready to board our flights to Geneva via Lisbon! The haze of the pandemic still doesn’t make this feel real. Will Europe still be there? Can we enjoy the high points of travel during a pandemic? This has not been easy my friends, but we are doing it: and we’re glad that we can share it all with our great friends….some even in person.
Next Time – the logistics – getting by with a lot of help from our friends!
So one of the first questions everyone asks us about embarking on on vagabond life is “So what’s your plan?” Well, if the past 18 months have taught us anything, it’s that making “plans” is a fools errand in the ongoing pandemic world. So we don’t really have plans, but we’ve done a lot of research on places we’d like to go, but know that most of them are not possible right now, or may not be possible in two weeks….or tomorrow!
So we’ve taken a playbook from the Architects and have a “kit of parts” or travel widgets if you will. Individual ideas that can be implemented based on COVID, floods, fires, locusts, or whatever our unstable planet throws at us. And of course, one scenario is certainly coming back to USA as needed, anytime.
Scenario? The Basque Coast and Camino Del Norte
For example, one scenario is to walk the Camino Del Norte in Northern Spain. I had done some pretty detailed planning for this from pre-COVID “plans”, but now is not the time to go to Spain (hot weather + COVID)…so maybe in October or November…or maybe this waits until Spring 2022.
But we do want to get out there and start supporting the businesses that depend on travel and tourism now, so we are determined to move forward with a viable scenario. Currently, a strong scenario for the start of our travels is to cycle tour from our base in eastern France across Switzerland via one of the many national and local bike routes..maybe continuing to Germany, Czech republic, and Austria. (Currently low COVID) And yes, Switzerland has an amazing national and local bike network with interactive maps . (By the way, you may have already figured out that I LOVE MAPS, especially interactive maps 😊)
National Route 1 – A very pleasant starting scenario
Another driver of our scenarios are the fact that our Schengen “Visa” allows us to be in the 26 country Schengen zone only 90 days out of any 180 day period, so we need to get out of dodge for awhile as the late fall approaches….possible scenarios…..Morocco/Tunisia, UK/Ireland, Balkans, Romania/Bulgaria, Turkey, and hopefully in 2022, more places in Asia and Africa will be safe enough for responsible travel. For now, we have to watch people suffer through Delta prior to widespread vaccine availability in much of the world, and hope that great organizations that we support such as Medecins Sans Frontieres can help reduce the suffering.
Mumbai in 2006 – Northern India was unforgettable, but the South India scenario awaits
So go forth all into the world with your passion and travel scenarios ready! Just don’t make any plans.
After 3 weeks working flat out getting our condo ready to show and sell we’re now waiting. Most of our stuff is in the storage unit, the condo is as clean and tidy and minimalist as it can be, and we wait for someone to fall in love and buy it.
The upside is that we can go back to doing what we love to do in this city, walking, eating, and seeing friends. Our walk along the Batteries to Bluff trail was enhanced with flocks of California brown pelicans flying by above, below, and at eye level. They are migrating from the breeding grounds on the Channel Islands to British Columbia, apparently, even those these pelicans seem to be going south, or south west.
Batteries to Bluffs trail.
California brown pelicans were listed as endangered by the federal government in 1970, but their rebound has been robust and they were removed from the list in 2009. It’s very impressive to see so many flying along the SF coast. I remember as a child in SoCal in the 70s when these big birds were a remarkable and fairly rare sighting.
Sunny day for hiking.
This is the month locals call Fogust, and SF lived up to its name this year with cool grey days that make us the coldest place in the US, but we got a sunny day for our coast walk.
SF looking almost … tropical?
And now, back to waiting and hoping our condo will sell quickly and our flights to Europe will not be canceled.
The posters at our storage facility are giving us advice as we move the first load in to our new space.
Elevator selfie.Master of the dolly.
Selling and moving is a lot of work. It’s exhausting and exhilarating, and in an hour moods can range between joy and snappish cranky. We are doing what we can to make our lives easy, not much cooking since our kitchen is in a state of disarray for cabinet painting.
The auxiliary kitchen. Everything from the lower cabinets is in the bike room.
We keep reminding ourselves how good it is to cull your stuff – so much to GoodWill already! We’ve been in our lovely flat ten years. That’s a good long time to accumulate stuff. So now, we cull, save what we love, send the rest out for others to use.
Making room for awesome. As advised.
The signage game at this storage facility is strong.
July 3, 2021 If you catch a glimpse of us this week, the slightly panicked looks on our faces is because we’ve decided to sell our flat before we leave to go traveling. And we are just now remembering how much work it is to sell. Lots to get done but we’re up to the challenge.
Colorado
We fly to Europe on August 13th. (Hopefully.) All our stuff, minus that we purge, will be in storage, and when we come back to SF we’ll plan on finding a rental. We love this City but the world is calling and we must go…
Like many people, the pandemic made us reconsider our lives. Pre-pandemic we were ready to rent out our SF flat and travel, knowing we would have a place in San Francisco to eventually come home to. Now, we have decided to sell our flat and be unemcumbered as we travel. We did this in 2006, so it’s familiar to us. The packing, the purging, the considering every object’s worth and emotional weight.
We spent a month traveling in Colorado with a rental car and camping gear. That helped us realize how much we love traveling lite, and traveling without a car.
Less Car, More Life 