Tour de Grand Est - Stage 1 - Day 2

Early to bed, early to rise.

That goes for us and the birds here. 

Another cloudless day started with quiet roads through farmer's fields of wheat and asparagus, with poppies sprinkled in, and cows and horses.

As we have learned, the cows pay attention, watch us go by and literally make us feel noticed, and the horses, well they ignore you. 

The hay is drying in the fields. We have seen the machine making the rolls and a few trucks VERY loaded with bales. Let me warn you, when a truck full of hay goes by, there are at least 20 seconds of holding your breath. Hay and dust consume the air. 😳

Good news! We pre-ordered our first snack of the day and carried the pastries for the first 25 km to help get us through the morning. 

This area is known for the washing huts near the homes. This one looks like a well, but has an old fashioned ringer. 

After the quiet roads we found ourselves on a road that had a higher speed limit and the wind coming right at us.  The road was straight and smooth. A great equation for drafting!  This was my view for several kilometers. I am sure the country side was pretty but I needed help with the wind... Thanks cycling partner. 

We did end up coming down a smooth, long, straight, low traffic hill, allowing for some fast kilometers to make up for the slow ones. Note, Strava recorded max speed of 50.5. whoosh. 

A cute village with a local artist was all dressed up with wooden art lining the road. Quite lovely. 

Back to quiet country roads and a place to stop for our picnic lunch. Love these tiny, two way roads, that are frequented by farm vehicles. 

After lunch in the shade, it was very hot back on the road, and we saw a sign "Etang". Pond!  We followed the dirt road and found a wee pond, with dogs swimming and dog owners wondering what the heck we were up to. 

Shout out to the Milwaukee cooling cap. It is a game changer for me under my helmet on these hot days. We basically cooled off with wet caps and arm covers and carried on happy. 

Good thing we found the Etang, because we had many more hills to climb, and we found we were on gravel much of the time. Hot bumpy climbing. 

At the stop for groceries and we made new friends. Hank and Felicita. From the Netherlands. They have been cycle touring for decades, and are currently doing a three month tour. Super nice, have been to Toronto (and yes they ate at the restaurant at the CN tower 🤣). 

All the gravel and climbing paid off in the end. 

We are at a very lovely campground (Camping Jonquille) run by a Dutch woman.  She offers a beer frig that is an "honest bar", help yourself, write it down and pay on the way out. 

🍻

Cheers to that! 

We have such a lovely pitch tonight, overlooking the countryside (and all the hills we climbed). 

And there is even a little vineyard on the other side of our tent. 

We have one woman from Germany car camping on one side of us (site 13) and one woman from Belgium who is cycle touring on the other side (site 15).  Such a warm and friendly place to relax and enjoy dinner, and plan tomorrow. 

The good thing about hot weather is that all your kit dries.  Even padded cycling shorts dry in this heat, the thermometer is still reading 30 at 7:25 pm. 

Good night