Nearing the end of the (lunch) line

DATELINE: Begun Tuesday, Oct. 24, in Vaison. May continue until Thursday, Oct. 26, in California (if all goes well).

Lovely day, but sun very hot until Brit at left
coaxed waiters to roll down awning over patio. Applause.

Summary of Tuesday, so far. Worked on laundry and preliminary packing most of morning, then off to Vaison's center for a good lunch at the usual brasserie. Back home to continue getting ready to fly. And to do a little more blog work.

We've kept up pretty well so far, putting most of these posts online within a day of the events described. It's been fun: looking, talking, meeting, writing, and mostly eating. But travel is looming, and it makes almost all other activities impossible. So here's why NOT to expect much new blog work from us for a few days.

We fly out of Marseille airport this Thursday before dawn local time. To be there for our early flight, we're leaving Vaison tomorrow (Wednesday) after lunch. We'll return the rental car and stay in an airport hotel before we take the hotel's earliest shuttle bus to the main terminal.

A short-haul jet from there should take a little over an hour to reach Paris's CDG airport. Our transcontinental jumbo jet lifts off around 1:10PM. After flying against the earth's rotation for 11 or so hours, Air France 084 is scheduled to land about 12:35PM local time at San Francisco.

A Napa-based shuttle bus is supposed to cruise the airport around 2:00PM, and the ride back to Napa is around 90 minutes if the traffic is only as bad as usual. Final lap: a taxi or a helpful neighbor to deposit us and all our luggage back at 918 Marina Drive. Home before dark.

With all that going on, plus an absence of internet service most of that time, it's unlikely much new blog posting will occur. Can't honestly say whether it will resume once we're home, or if this is the closing chapter. We'll have to see.

It's been fun, though. Glad you came along.

NEW DATELINE: Resumed writing about 7:00PM on Tues., Oct. 24, in Vaison

Nothing like an unexpected crisis to knock the fun out of life. We just had a lulu!

About 4:30 this afternoon, we walked to the cathedral. We'd parked our car in the church's lot last night to keep clear of the big market this morning. Roz and I locked the house, walked a quarter mile to where the car was, and drove it to a slot in the Post Office lot. Then we walked to the town place for ice cream sundaes. Contented, we strolled back to the house and I fished in my pocket for the key....

Yep, lost the house key. Big problems loomed, but we started out bravely. Back to where we had just parked the car to see if the key was in it or around it. Nope. Back to the ice cream shop to see if it fell on the floor while we were eating. Uh-uh. Walked all the way back to the cathedral and looked where the car had been parked. No avail -- and it was getting dark.

Panic rising. If we couldn't get back in soon, we'd have to find a place to sleep tonight. Tomorrow, we'd probably start getting penalized for not returning the car by the appointed time. Of course, we could  also miss our flights to Paris, then to SFO on Thursday. And on it goes.

All we had with us was wallets (cash and credit cards) and iPhones. We did know two people in Vaison who the owner of our rental trusted for cleaning and repairs. Met them both earlier this trip. But did we have their phone numbers with us? Would they be home? Did they have spare keys?

Roz's phone already had the number for Michele, the cleaner. But no answer, so she had to leave a message. Things looked more grim for a little while. Then Roz remembered that Allan, the owner, had sent us an online summary of what to do and who to call via email a year or so ago. Roz was pretty sure she could download the document to her phone from the internet. We sat in the car (I still had that key) to keep her phone plugged in and charging. Using her web wiles, she found that she'd put the whole thing in the Dropbox online storage service. Downloaded it to her phone and searched to find... Ta Dah!!! The handyman's cell number. 

His first name is Alain (same as the owner's, but with French spelling) and he met us back at the house about ten minutes after Roz finished explaining. Let us in and gave us a spare key. I wouldn't have minded if she kissed him (heck, I almost did myself), but instead we thanked him with an unopened bottle each of hard cider and good French fizzy wine.

Wrung out by the whole thing, we collapsed at our computers with aperitifs and I started writing this chapter of our "going home" adventure.

Roz’s photos of the more pleasant part of the day (as always, mostly food-based) start here:  Day 21