Cocoraque Butte

We took Dickie and Susan hiking at Cocoraque Butte on Tuesday.  We took wooden mallets to “play the rocks.”  They really did sing!  Dickie and I hiked up the mounds of rocks to find petroglyphs.  Papa and Dickie found nice pottery shards.  We had a good time!

Hiking with Cousins

While still in Paris, I had a middle of the night text from my cousin Dickie.  He and his wife, Susan, were in Arizona for a couple of weeks.  Their trip was winding down and they were curious about when we would be back in Tucson.  We invited them to come stay with us, Monday-Wednesday.  They arrived yesterday in time for lunch.  The weather was perfect so we ate on the back patio.  We went for a hike on the Pontatoc Ridge Trail.  It was a perfect day for a hike!

Back to Tucson

We flew most of Saturday, from Paris to DFW to Tucson.  We arrived at home just before midnight.  Along the way, we reflected on our trip to France.  

We drove 5850 km = 3635 miles.

We walked 303.24 miles over 10 weeks.

We stayed in four different properties over 10 weeks, two B&B’s, a castle, a house, and an apartment.

We looked at dozens of properties in our search for a house.

We found a house!  We have made a 10% deposit and are waiting for closing instructions.  We’re preparing for the adventure of renovation and furnishing the house, and living in France for part of the year.

Our trip was extraordinary in myriad ways.  We made friends along the way, had interesting conversations, revisited several favorite places, ate some amazing meals, learned historic facts we were not aware of, and much more.  We’re always learning!

We came home to Tucson and woke up to our view here.  We love our life!  All good!

 

Bateau Tour

We took a bateau tour on the Seine this afternoon.  We enjoyed every minute!  Paris has 37 bridges.  We passed the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, Notre Dame Cathedral - in the midst of a major reconstruction, the Conciergerie, Musée d’Orsay, and so much more.  The weather was beautiful.  

We went on a long walk after the bateau tour, to the Rodin Gardens, arriving just 10 minutes before closing, so I took a photo of The Thinker through the fence.  We walked through thé Tuileries and the Louvre, just after the sun set.  Everyone in Paris was out and about.  It felt festive and happy.  For us, Paris is the Capital of the World.  We’ve had a wonderful week!

11/11 in Paris

We went to the Arc de Triomphe this morning, and watched as the ceremony unfolded, with military parading up the Champs-Élysée in wave after wave, on horseback, motorcycles, cars, and tanks.  One of the tanks carried the flag draped coffin of the last surviving member of the Companion of the Order of Liberation, an honor awarded to French WWII heroes, who died on October 12.  President Macron made remarks, with a big Jumbotron just to the side of the Arc de Triomphe, broadcasting just feet from where he was actually standing.  US Vice President Kamala Harris was there and scores of dignitaries.  

We took the metro from the Arc de Triomphe to Suresnes American Cemetery, on Mont Valérian.  Mont Valérian is 161m at it’s peak and was the site of religious pilgrimages for several centuries, overlooking the city of Paris.  A military fortress was built there in the mid 1800’s, to protect the capital.  From 1941 to 1944, more than 1000 hostages, Jews, communists,  and resistance fighters were executed during the German occupation.  In 1960, General de Gaulle, inaugurated the Memorial to Combatant France on Mont Valérian.  Suresnes American Cemetery was designed in 1922, on the edge of Mont Valérian, and contains the remains of 1541 Americans who died in WWI plus 24 unknown dead of WWII.  

Just after lunch, at the entrance to Mont Valérian, the military entourage carrying the coffin of the last surviving member of the Companion of the Order of Liberation, came down the street on top of a French tank, for burial at Mont Valérian.  We walked through Suresnes American Cemetery and memorial chapel.  It was humbling to think about the 116,516 Americans that lost their lives in WWI.  It was more humbling to think about the 1,927,000 French soldiers that died in WWI, of the French population of 39,000,000 at the time.  WWI left many French villages, drained of their active male population.  When traveling in France, we make an effort to stop at WWI memorials in villages, and it is obvious why many of those villages were much larger in the early 1900’s than they are today.  Their loss of lives was never recovered.