The Beat Goes On: X406 has her calf

It was only a couple days ago when X446 had her calf, and wouldn't you know it but the others felt the need to stop waiting to get the show on the road. I did my early morning walk around the pasture, and one of the sure signs that a calve is going to get born is to see the expectant mother off on her own, away from the participating in the normal herd gathering.(There are other signs but I'll spare you)

X406 was all alone, hundreds of yards away from the others, hidden behind the same dog fennels that had so well hid X446's calf. I decided not to approach her; I could hear her thinking "Geez, don't I get a little privacy?". But I suspect humility is not a common emotion amongst cows, after all, it has been many a time when they'll drop their load while looking at me straight in the face.

I returned to the house in anticipation.

That afternoon what I had anticipated came true. On the opposite side of the field X406 had her calf. Maybe she did the cow's equivalent of jumping jacks on the trip over in order to spur this birthing process on. I don't know. The calf was on the ground, getting tongued by her mother as all the other cows watched on. It was T29's turn next.

Have you noticed I haven't given them names? Even though you are told not to give them human names should they eventually be served on your plate, the fact is that I have called them by their tag numbers for so long that it might as well be a name, albeit unconventional. They have their own personalities too, so it is hard not to have some kind of attachment. X446 and X406 are the youngest of the four, having been born back in 2010. I'm guessing that they each weigh 1300 pounds or so. Light in frame relatively speaking. They both tend to be followers and will keep a safe distance away from me. Neither is assertive with the other two cows, and as far as mothering is concerned, they will keep an eye on their calves but they don't have any problem putting real distance between them. The only real reward of having the calf right next to them is that the calves will want to readily relieve the mother of udder pressure. You can tell that weaning these calves is right up there on their priority list.

U204 was born in 2008, and compared to the others she is the buffalo of the crowd, easily at 1600 pounds. Absolutely huge. With that she has some obvious strengths....one of them is to bully everyone else away from the mineral barrel or the pails full of corn I occasionally bring out to the field. Don't ever get head-butted by U204; she'll send you into the next field. One thing strange about her behavior is that she really is the matriarch of the group, putting a watchful eye on the calves even though they aren't hers.She will quickly walk over and block them from me should I get close. And the other thing that is at odds with this behavior is that she is the only one that will let me pat her on the shoulder. Shy of the ever so often smell and tongue lick by the others to see if I, as a human, am good to eat (or maybe to identify me), the rest all stay at a full legs reach.

T29 was born in 2007, the oldest of the clan. When I am around she keeps a very close watch over me. She will never allow me to get too close, and I think she treats the others in the same fashion. Though the herd may shuffle around the pasture during the course of the day, she always is slightly away from the others.

Of the four cows, all were artificially inseminated except U204. U204 needed a "cleanup bull" to do the deed. Hence why she is due to have her calf a full month after the others. Using AI is a preferred method to achieve pregnancy if you are trying to improve specific traits within your herd. As big as U204 is, I am surprised that a bull was found to be big enough to handle her.

Every day I go out into the fields and do a head check. T29 is due and one of these days I expect to see a third calf, or at least signs of one on the way. The sign came one evening when a hunter knocked on my door. It was well after sun down and he was on his way home after an afternoon of sitting in his deer blind waiting for a buck to walk by.

He didn't see a buck, but he did see a huge dark brown animal, bigger than any deer he has seen in this area. Upon readjusting his eyes he realized it was one of my cows, and he was nice enough to let me know I had a cow on the loose.

It was too dark for me to go looking for it, so I postponed my search until morning. Anyway, if I had gone out that night it would have spooked it and I am sure it would have bolted into the next county. When I did my head count in the morning, I found out it was T29, who had torn through the barbed wire fence......destroying it.........to find out if the grass was greener on the other side. The search was on.

And now I have five (cattle that is)

I was driving south from Massachusetts having just gotten back from France the day before and my phone started to ring. I was in New Jersey.

Though I live in a mild state of paranoia, believing there is a State Trooper watching me just to see if I pick up my hand held cell phone, I decided to answer it anyway. It was Anna. She and her daughter Katrin were kind enough to keep my cat alive while I was gone for over a week. They also had the task of counting my cows periodically to see if any had given birth. Three of the four were expecting when I took off to Europe, and while Diane and I were there Anna had emailed us and said X446 had a calf on the last day of our voyage.

But Anna wasn't calling to tell us another calf was born. She cautiously gave me the news that she couldn't find the calf that day. The two of them had walked back and forth across the nine acres, and the cows weren't too helpful in helping her locate the newborn. Even X446 seemed noncommittal. Other than tell her I'd look around when I got down there, and I was on my way, I didn't know what else to say. The next six hours of my drive my brain was racing from "there's nothing I can do until I get there" to thinking a hunter had a nice piece of veal in his cooler, to wondering if a coyote had made off with the carcass. I kept driving. My arrival was well after dark so the search had to resume the next morning.

I didn't get much sleep though I was exhausted from the traveling I had done over the past two days. There wasn't any real food in the house, so once I defrosted an English muffin and smothered it with peanut butter, I woofed it down, poured my coffee, and went out to the Back 9 to start my search. Believe it or not, trying to find four huge red angus cows can be difficult at times. You just can't stand on a high spot and glance around, hoping they are standing against a contrasting backdrop easy to see. They do get down on the ground, or crouch under trees, making them hard to spot. And last night's resting ground may not be the same as the night's before, or the night before that.

So I started to walk first to the latest hangouts. They weren't there. My next approach was to walk the parameter, and by the time I went 3/4 of the way around, there they all were just staring at me wondering (A) it's about time you decided to show up, to (B) what's your problem? Like many a kid's movie where they have dogs and cats talking in perfect "human speak", I hear these cows with human intellect trying to communicate with me telepathically. Only cows have certainly a different perspective than I do as to what is important or annoying.

I walked up to X446 and asked where her baby was. A blank look came on her face. Mine too as a matter of fact. Getting answers wasn't going to be easy here. But the cows were in an odd part of the pasture. There were thousands of tall weeds called dog fennel surrounding them. Cows don't like to eat them and there isn't any real forage under or within them.  Generally not a good hang out spot, but it would provide refuge for a weak and tired calf, so I started walking around the immediate area and it wasn't long before I found the calf, curled up into a ball having rested the night. Mother came over and she and the calf reunited for their all too frequent milking that occurs until the calf learns to graze. Weaning won't happen for another five months.

I called Anna and let her know the calf was found. She obviously was relieved not really knowing what more she could have done at the time. It was now time to be on calf alert for two more.....X406 and T29 were overdue.

The Tale Comes To An End

It is now Sunday. Our boat needs to be back by 9 a.m. on Monday morning, so with no nearby places to moor, for all practical purposes we need to be at their docks the night before. We have nearly 40 kilometers to cover today, so it'll be another day of just pounding the pavement, so to speak.

Once again we started our engines at 8:30 in the morning, and headed north on another gray and dreary day. Our RPM's were around 1500, which by taking time checks as we went by KM markers came to about 9 km/hour. It's possible to get to our destination at around 2 if all goes well. 

The countryside was nearly the same as what we had seen before. Parks bordering the river with the occasional camper tented with a view of the water. Fishermen....those that were taking it seriously and those that used the activity to just get out of the house. Pastures and cows, more pastures and more cows. We made bets on when we would see the first vessel on the river, discounting dingies, and we were both wrong. It was 10:30 before a recreational boat was passed going in the opposite direction.

It seemed like every 10 kilometers or so there was a good sized city we passed through. From our vantage point they were indistinguishable. But then again we were still frazzled from yesterday's multi-lock day and the distance we covered. At one point we saw a 2-headed cow.....ask Diane about it.....apparently our coffee hadn't kicked in yet.

It began to rain again. What else is new. We did a little steering from inside  but soon came back on top......visibility wasn't that good down below and we had two large locks to go through. I just like to be able to see the goings on in these locks so getting wet was the trade off. Locks on the river are massive, for they have to be large enough to handle the commercial barges and the tankers that go up and back. Being a little tiny boat in one of these locks, and watching all the water change places on our behalf is mind blowing. These locks were manned, so we just had to get inside and hold on for dear life as hundreds of thousands of gallons of water brought us up to a new level.

On the trip we ended up going through a 10 kilometer man-made canal that skirted the city of Lechatulet. It was straight as an arrow; we could have put the boat on auto pilot if it had one. Boring too. It reminded us of the by-passes that we see on expressways that are the alternates to the business route. We didn't much mind at this time since it got us to our destination faster.

We finally got to St. Jean de Losne about when we planned. It was a huge boat marina, and LeBoat had a corner to themselves, seeing that it was a major mooring port for their operation. They easily had over a hundred boats there, and I would say 2/3 of them were bigger and larger than ours. Obviously boating in France is big business. We backed into an empty berth, tying stern in to the dock. Fortunately I had a week of experience to help me control the boat in reverse.......I've learned a lot in a week.

Diane and I put our things in place and decided to go for a walk and see what this town had to offer. It would have been nice to stop by a grocery and pick up just a few things to cap off our final dinner meal on the boat; there was absolutely nothing open in St.Jean de Losne. Pretty town, but empty shy of some young local men standing on a street corner shooting the breeze. We walked over to the beginning of the Canal de Bourgogne that went to Dijon and well beyond. For those that want to do the canal scene there are plenty of offerings.

Our our return to our boat we found that two other boats had backed in adjacent to us. There was a young couple from Israel that spoke fluent English. The wife was going to the U.S. in a week to participate in an international math challenge taking place in Cambridge. It's a small world. Another couple had been given a boat to use for a week from some friends that decided to cut their trip short for some odd reason. They had a place in Dijon and a unique background, the two of them originating from England with the Mr. having a professor's post in a French university. They invited us over to their boat for an evening of drinks and an opportunity to share stories and pick each other's brains. It was a fun time and a great way to unwind from a long day.

Our next day was rapid fire too, as we got our boat checked in, jumped in a taxi to get up to Dijon (about a 45 minute drive) where we grabbed a train that would take us back to Geneva. Diane made plans for us to stay the night there, with our plane taking off Tuesday mid-day. When we arrived in Geneva the hotel was supposed to be within easy walking distance from the train terminal. It was easy if you weren't dragging suitcases and didn't take the wrong turn. It was mid-afternoon when we got there and had "the pleasure" of seeing the red light district in full swing readying for the night's entertainment. The ladies walked a five block area that was just down the block from our hotel. That evening we went out to dinner, one of the few times we really went out to eat, since most of our meals were on the boat. We went to a restaurant with a Swiss theme (duh), with its leprechaun dressed waiters, the bull horn and accordion for musical affects, and its regional wines, none of which topped those we had on our trip.

We returned to our room and ate the chocolates that had been put on our pillows. Our trip was officially over, except for an entire day of using trains, planes, buses, and cars to finally get us back to Massachusetts. The day after I jumped in my truck and drove another 12 hours to Virginia.

It was a great 40th wedding anniversary, even with the rain.

The Tale : Retracing Our Steps

If you look at a map and see the course we've taken, from the Saone up the Central Canal to our target destination of Santenay, you can sort of imagine us being at the top of a roller coaster and now we must retrace our steps, going back down the hill until we meet the Saone once again, where we must head north to reach our final point. We must cover as much distance in two days as we had in our previous four. Whereas we generally cruised only 4 or 5 hours a day, we now are planning on banging out some hard mileage in order to get to where we need to be on Sunday night.

Diane and I decided we needed to be already moving by 8:30 in the morning, and with that being the plan the engines were started right on time. We were however pointed in the wrong direction, so we needed to make a u-turn in the canal to be facing the right way. Not really a problem, I thought. We had made a couple of u-turns before when we were positioning to tie up at one of our daily stops. Not giving it much thought, I increased the throttle just a little to get some forward movement, and then I banged a hard left like I was making a 3-point turn.

The bow hit the side of the canal, almost like how I learned to parallel park when I drove back in New Jersey. I then put it in reverse to hit the stern. My "nudging" of the bank behind us was almost immediate, which meant I may have a major problem. Was the canal actually less wide than I was long ? The boat now was at a 90 degrees blocking the canal; I was in deep do-do. What happened next must have been a sign from God, for as the bow was being pushed against the bank before us, the stern now was squaring off with the bank behind us. The downstream current continued to push our nose in the left direction, and once again I was saved from embarrassment and an international incident. We were on our way.

We were fairly comfortable with the boat by now, and were no longer timid about raising the RPM's and our speed. An hour later we passed Chagny and saw other boats parked where we had been just two nights before. Now we had all those locks ahead of us that we had conquered earlier on our trip, but instead of splitting them over two days we were planning on doing them all in one day.

Our voyage now took us down the mountain, and there would be other hard learned rules that took us way too long to grasp. We were fairly lucky that for every one of the locks they were already at our height level for the gates to open. We didn't have to wait for the locks to rebalance their levels as we had on the uphill trip. All we had to do was enter, close the gates using the ropes as before, watch the water level drop, open the gates, and we were off again. What we didn't realize was that, as we held our bow against the side of the locks, we had a rubber bumper attached to the side of the boat that grabbed the side wall of the locks as the water dropped. We found our bow stuck on the side of the canal and our stern rapidly falling! We were like a dolphin jumping out of the water; the boat tilted until the weight of the boat just got to be too much for the bumper to retain us on edge, and then the boat fell loose once again into the lowering waters of the lock. The first time it occurred it scared the living crap out of both of us......when we saw what was happening we tried to push away but the bumper was stuck in position. Hold on tight, it'll be one heck of a ride. Need less to say, we became aware of this predicament and made sure we weren't hugging the sidewall for the other locks we went through. Whew.

After three hours or so we had arrived at Franges, where we stopped for a short while to have some lunch. We had been alone up to now going down through the locks, and during this time we didn't pass any northerly traffic or partnered with anyone going the same way as us. The season was coming to an end when you do not pass any canal tourists on a Saturday. Our trip continued, where the only person we met was the same Lock Keeper with a clipboard at the final lock on the Central Canal. He asked the same questions, and now we gave him our "We came from Santenay and we're going to Gergy" answer, which apparently from his frown didn't satisfy his requirements but he sent us on our way anyway.

We popped out of the mouth of the canal, cranking at a very respectable 9 knots, nose pointed northward on our race up the Saone. The weather was beginning to change with the occasional drizzle to make our driving a little less than pleasant. Many of our clothes still hadn't dried completely, so this was only another reassurance that being dry and warm would remain out of reach. Our desire to get to our next stop was now becoming competitive. Not knowing the services or the number of mooring spots our next port would provide, we made a special effort to pass anyone we saw on the same northerly path so we could get a place to tie up for the evening.

Gergy was one of those nondescript French villages. They had a cute park adjacent to the river, but the hotel was closed down and the restaurant near the mooring was also shuttered. There was a definite "downtown" flavor, and there were homes bordering the two main roads that had the traditional stone walls around each one. Stone houses with metal or tiled roofs was the common practice in France, and in Gergy it was the same. Martha Stewart's color selection for house paints would be narrowed down to beige trim paint and possibly a few other earth tones..

Diane and I walked the town, and it met our minimal requirement of having a Patisserie, which was surprisingly still open at 4 in the afternoon. Some bread and another batch of croissants had become our favored purchase.

When we returned to the docks we were able to help a barge as it slide in behind us. Ropes were tossed and I helped tie up the nose of the barge as its "First Mate" took care of the stern.  It was a barge that had been converted into a houseboat that we had sped by an hour earlier. The Captain and wife were from the U.K. and were spending the summer doing the canals in Belgium along with many others in their own personal water craft, which they had shipped across the English channel so they could start their journey.

By now we were beginning to scrape our food stores down to the final crumbs. It wasn't by accident that we actually had some good well rounded meals planned in order to have nearly nothing left with one more day to go. We cracked open our last bottle of wine, had some cheeses and some meat spread, and prepared dinner as we had many times before. The trip was coming to an end; tomorrow would be another day of full bore motoring up the Saone to St.Jean de Losne.

The Tale: Where New World Meets Old World In Santenay

I started these blog entries about our trip in Santenay, another one of those cute villages buried in the middle of the Burgundy region. It was nothing short of bucolic. One main road passed through the middle of town which was labeled The Grand Crus Route, and at the center another road intersected from the mountains a bit to the northwest. Vineyards crept right up to the buildings on three sides, each being owned by a different prominent wine family that could be traced back for generations.

The private wine tasting that Diane and I shared was with a family that owned a compound right adjacent to the square. Surrounded on all sides by a fieldstone wall, it housed their private home, the wine making building which could be described as a very large barn (for grapes, not livestock), their own fountain and flower garden, and of course their wine cellars and operations building. We were first introduced to the oldest of four generations living on site; an elderly man with a bend in his frame no doubt the result of many years of working in the fields of grapevines. He was 4'10" at best, but still a short man if, "when straightened", he might have come to 5'2". As soon as we started talking he knew that there was a language barrier ( a common theme of these blogs) so he excused himself to retrieve his son, who could at least pretend he knew some English. If you refer to the travel brochures describing these wineries, they have little flags next to each write-up that represent the languages spoken on the premises. The Union Jack was next to  Domaine Louis Nie, which must have been a strategic marketing decision as opposed to one matching actuality.

As mentioned, this was our introduction to truly knowing the region and their specialization in two types of grapes: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. What many do not know is that most Champagne is made from these two major grapes along with Pinot Meunier (the Champagne region is immediately north of Burgundy). Other famous districts within Burgundy specialize in Chablis, located in the northern part of Burgundy with its namesake wine which is also made from the Chardonnay grape, and Beaujolais, located on its southern border that uses the Gamay grape.

Most of us in America, when we go to a wine tasting, get to taste maybe a couple of whites, then a few reds, and possibly finish with a dessert wine.  All of these wines are from different grapes. What one should experience is having a tasting of wines all made from the same grape, but from different plots of land that can all be within a mile of each other. It is an eye-opening experience to be able to actually tell the differences and be able to describe the variances that one can get from the different terriors. Terrior is defined as the unique combination of soils and weather that influence the flavor of the wine. Diane and I had this tasting with an old world winemaker within the dim lighted confines of a centuries old wine cellar.

After our session we returned to the outdoors and walked not even a tenth of a mile before we were in one of the vineyards on the outside of town.  This is where I became my usual nosey self, being very involved in our vineyards down here in Virginia. These vineyards were not fenced off, though some of those being adjacent to buildings had a waist high stone wall around them, no doubt being built when the original winery was established in the 17 or 1800's. The vines were all cropped low, maybe being 40" tall at best. In the States the common height of our trellis systems are about 6' tall. On further research I found that their system had also been around for hundreds of years, and there was no inclination to increase the height, some say due to habit and maintaining the old ways, others say it is to keep the grapes closer to the warm earth to lessen frost damage and increase the growing year by a few weeks. When they harvest their grapes, we were told pickers crawled on their hands and knees from one vine to the next; Americans have a limited capacity to bend over when working, let alone get down on their knees. That could be why our trellis systems are as tall as they are, keeping the fruiting region around waist high.

Peeking inside of their winery building, we saw stainless steel tanks amongst the many barrels, and state of the art pressing equipment where the 3rd generation son was shoveling out all the grape skins from a recent press. Though the winemaker may believe that art is still a major influence in making the wine, there is no doubt that some science, and some new techniques, are making their way into the process.

We ended our day going to one of the local restaurants. As before the meal in the middle of the day was designed to be the larger one. The Meal du Jour was a poached fish.....good thing we both liked it because there were no other choices. We made the cardinal mistake however of ordering Coke with our meal. Six Euros later (per 16 oz. Coke) we realized wine would have been much cheaper instead of paying the equivalent of $8 a bottle for soda. Dumb Americans.  The food was good, so from there  Diane and I walked around,  going to a more retail like tasting at one of the Domains right on the square. From here we meandered our way back to our boat, recognizing that we only had two more days of vacation, and a lot of distance to cover, to get to our final port up in St.Jean de Losne.

A Captains Tale-Locks,Locks,and more Locks

Thursday in Burgundy could be defined by the word: Locks. These were all semi-automatic locks, which meant that the crews of the passing vessels had to initiate the action that would take place, and once the signal was sent the locks would open and close as required. On this day we had nine locks to contend with, and before we were done we were pretty good at the process.

Before I continue it's important to include that at the end of our journey, Diane and I had the pleasure of spending an evening on another boat that was manned by an experienced husband and wife team. We had our wine , of course, and shared stories about our trip with the couple while they inquired about what Americans really believed regarding Europe and the World stage. We walked away with the recognition that all of our mishaps were normal for canal boating, and one has to have a warped sense of adventure, a tough skin, and the patience to crawl through all the problems.

We shoved off early that morning. We had been going to bed early to escape the chilly evenings on the boat, so at the first sign of the sun popping out we dressed quickly, made those instant coffees to get us going, had some pastry , and started the engine. It wasn't long before we reached our first lock.

According to the manual, these types of locks had some kind of radar that sensed our arrival, and once recognized a sequence would occur that altered the water level within the lock to be at our incoming level. Now if we had been lucky someone would have been coming downstream to have set all the water heights in our favor, but leaving as early as we did none of the locks had been pre-set, so we in effect started from scratch at each lock.

The lock gates opened and we slowly crept in, riding along one side until we got to the far end, adjacent to a steel ladder recessed in the wall. Next to this ladder was a pair of ropes: one red and one blue.

We had been told to never, ever, pull the red one. I guess this signals to the world that there is a major catastrophe in the lock and the police, marines, and coast guard would appear instantaneously to save the day. Not wanting to bring in France's equivalent to the National Guard, we did what we were supposed to do, pull the blue rope. More times than not this triggered the correct response. The gates behind us would close, the water would rise raising our boat with it, the upstream gates would open and we would be on our merry way.

Seems simple enough. However there was one time when Diane pulled the blue rope and it did nothing. From my vantage point I could see a problem. All the other times when Diane pulled it I saw the slack removed from the rope with an apparent toggle occurring up at the signal box mounted on a pole at the top edge of the wall. This time there was nothing, as if she hadn't pulled it at all. Diane yanked it again. Still nothing. We decided to switch positions, Diane at the helm while I went down on deck near the bow to try my hand at the rope. That didn't work either. It was now time for a different approach, so I started climbing up the algae laced ladder, only to find that halfway up the side the ladder it was missing a rung. OK, all I had to do was skip the gap and move on. Unfortunately, these rungs had been placed a bit farther apart than usual, so without one I had to literally pull on my knee while I held on tightly with my other one hand holding a slippery rung. This allowed me to be able to get the distance between my feet so as to advance up the ladder.

As they say I lived to tell the tale. I reached the top and looked at the signal box and ropes to find that the rope guide for the blue rope had somehow gotten crimped, hence why it didn't pull as required. I reached up to the box and grabbed the blue rope and pulled....Bingo ! I decided I was not going to go back down to the boat, but wait for it to rise and come up to me. Good decision.

Other locks were not as eventful, though on one occasion the boat hook that we were using to pull ourselves closer to the ladder got caught and was pulled out of our hands just when the boat lurched. The hook fell into the water and the good thing was that it floated. The bad thing was that in order to reach it in the water I had to lie flat on mid-deck, grab a bumper and super extend myself down in order to grab the hook. If the boat had swung towards the wall or if I had lost my grip Diane would have needed to pull that red rope.

With all the locks that day, sometimes we were able to cruise for ten minutes or so before we came to the next one. Other times we no sooner went through a lock only to see another one just a few hundred yards ahead. My feeling is that as soon as a couple doesn't need to say anything to get through a set of locks working as a team, you've finally gotten them figured out. I can say Diane and I arrived at that level on our return trip, after navigating through 24 locks.

Thursday night we moored in Chagney (pronounced Cha-knee) and took a walk into town. It was a sizable town with its center square, cross streets full of stores and restaurants and side streets with sandstone faced row homes. Though it was next to the wine country it was not made of wall to wall wineries as we will see in our next stop over. Once again we searched for the local Tourist Bureau for some visitor hints and their WiFi.

Where we stayed we had our water and power. Eight euros for the hookups for that evening. Because we were at a barge depot for a competing service, we had to leave the next morning to make room for their incoming vessels. It turned out to be a positive, for Friday morning we headed just 5 kilometers further up the canal to Santenay, located dead center in the Burgundy wine country. Here we tied up at a casual mooring with no services, but that was fine with us because we had topped off our water and had a fully charged battery to work with from the previous night's stay. Friday turned out to be our finest day of exploring.

Entering the Wine Country - The Slow Way

On the previous day I left off telling our tale back in Tournus. Tournus is an idyllic town, one you wouldn't mind staying a few days in. Sitting on the shores of the Saone, its western side gradually rises up a slope with the Abbey of Saint Philibert at its pinnacle. With its fortress like facade, it can be seen from almost any part of the city. Diane and I walked around again, now venturing into sunlit streets that were only shadows the evening before. As in many of our future quests, we were in search of the Tourist Bureau, primarily to use their WiFi. which was located just across the street from the Abbey.

These small centers, set up to promote the attractions in the immediate area, were generally operated by young outgoing types who were multilingual.  Unfortunately on this day those "manning the booth" didn't have English as one of the choices. But they did know WiFi and pointed us to the website, which Diane and I accessed as we sat on a wet outside bench trying to find out about the Red Sox, the Government shutdown, and the status of my 4 pregnant cows that I had left back home. I think Diane had other priorities, but these were mine.

From here we wandered throughout the city amongst its snaking array of streets. Small boutique stores were on the commercial strip, and looking at the men's clothes they were promoting I am glad that KLM found my bag of apparel ! There were plenty of restaurants that I wish we had time to visit, and many other historic sites hidden in back streets. We did however have a schedule to meet, and that meant going further north on the Saone before we took a sharp left to enter the Canal du Centre, our pathway to the middle of Burgundy.

It was much easier to exit our berth than it was to enter it; going forward is always so much easier especially since we had parked the boat with our bow facing up river. And so for several hours we sped on at 8 or 9 knots looking at the countryside as only this part of France had to offer. The pastures of the farmlands came right down to the river, with flat fields of late season corn or cream colored Charolais cattle coming down to water to drink (I have this thing for cows). The grasses were  plenty green and the leaves were still on the trees, though the air was crisp and a partly cloudy day hung overhead. Diane and I were on the top deck catching as many warm rays as we could; our wet clothes and towels draped over the deck chairs in hopes the sun, and the breeze, would somehow dry them. They never really did get dry during the entire trip.

Chalon-Sur-Saone was the big city on the Saone which was turning point to enter the canal. It was the first town that we had seen that was industrial, with its stacks emitting hot gases and piles of raw materials adjacent to the river, having either a place for their being shipped or being dropped off for processing. By now we had figured out the river signage system, and were getting good at identifying the various buoys that lined the deeper water passageways. Caution was always the key here, so as we entered the mouth of the canal we approached slowly just making sure we weren't entering some restricted zone. Our speed dropped to 3 knots or so as we went past even more factories, discarded steel skeletons of barges from ancient past, and remnants of old dock systems. We "sort of knew" we were in the right spot when way ahead we could see a huge set of iron doors, our entrance to the first lock on the canal. They were gargantuan......ten times larger than anything we had seen before. This was our second set of manned locks but it had few of the features of the locks that we had seen before. Here we were, crawling forward wondering if anyone, or anything, would identify our presence and open the gates that would allow us to start climbing the mountain in front of us.

Our questions were answered when we saw water burst from the base of the gates. This is one sign that we are going uphill from the perspective of a canal. The lock was letting the water out that had been at the height of the canal beyond. Once the inside level came down to our height, the gates would slowly opening inviting us into the "dungeon". If you were claustrophobic in any way, this was not the place for you.Once inside the gates closed in behind us, and we were a good thirty feet below the upper edge of the lock. The inside was dank, the walls slimey. Easily 50% of the sun was shut out due to how far down we were from the outside world. Our boat was so tiny by comparison that we could only hope that it wouldn't be jostled around when the waters were allowed to enter in order to raise us up to the next level.

Once again our fears were unwarranted. The boat gradually rose and the incoming waters had only a minimal current.To see the sun again was one of those "Hello" moments as we readied ourselves to exit and continue our trip. Before we were on our way we were greeted  (now there is a stretch) by the Lock Keeper, who had an obligation to find out where we came from and where we were going. I think it was something the officials felt they should have him do to keep busy, since his day probably consisted on pushing a couple of buttons several times a day. He hadn't brushed up on his English in his spare time, and we hadn't improved on our French skills, so when he asked the question we immediately became brain dead on answering any questions without our map to refer to. We stumbled through it and I suspect he put down any old thing in order to fill out the blank on the form he had attached to his clipboard.

We exited the lock and slowly moved on. The canal was straight as a bullet, with green grass lining the banks a couple of feet up on either side of us. On one side there was a bike path for the occasional runner or biker. The trees that enveloped the canals were tall but let in a filtered light as we silently motored on. At one spot there was a restaurant that went over the top of the canal; interesting but far short of our destination for that day, a small village named Franges. We had been on the water for nearly fours hours by now, and we wanted to get tied up and be able to think about dinner. We had a dozen locks to go through, most of them tomorrow, so to get tied up while there was plenty of light and some dry weather would be a nice change.

We came upon Franges with little fan fare. There were plenty of other boats and barges tied up along the northern shoreline and all the prime spots were taken. We can't imagine how there could be any places to tie up if one were doing this in the middle of the tourist season; there was only one more week after our stay in France when they would rent these pleasure boats. Diane took her place on the bow as I tried to maneuver the nose toward shore somewhere near a stanchion so we could tie up. We got close and Diane jumped, rope in hand, only to find the ground beneath her was sloped and slippery. It was not a great moment, as she fell sideways with her legs collapsing beneath her. There wasn't much I could do for her; I was at the helm keeping the boat nose in to the shore. She did get up, both shaken and sore by the experience. Her legs never felt the same throughout the trip though she was a trooper in that regard as we tried to see as much as we could during each of these stops on the trip. She hobbled as best she could, and with movement the warmth of her muscles helped, but she never fully recovered until she got home. It also meant a crew change, as she became better at the controls while I worked the bow and the ropes.

Franges was another one of these little towns along the way that felt a great pride being on the canal and having tourism as a means of welcoming the outside world. It was after the tourism season here though, and the Tourism Center was closed. Franges did provide a new custom for us as Diane went into the Patisserie to get some croissants and French bread for our dinner and our next day's breakfast. The French really know how to do their pastries.

Franges was also the point when we realized that the heater in the boat no longer worked. It did so well the days before, and now it had completely crapped out. We pondered whether we should call LeBoat and describe to them our problem, and we decided that LeBoat no doubt would send out a technician to fix it, albeit it would most likely kill a day in our travel plans waiting for him to show up. As they say in legal jargon, "Time is of the essence", so we decided to hunker under the quilts at night in order to get some time up in vineyard country where we would be on Thursday.

The Tale Continues - Up the Saone

Diane and I both woke up cold. No real surprise there, after all it is Fall in France just as it is here. Fall in the Burgundy region brings a lot of rain, and before this trip is over we will be able to testify that this is true. But this morning we were cold because our boat's heater had to be turned off before we went to bed. The Manual said we could run the heater while the engine was running, and then up to three hours after we shut the engine down. Neither of us was going to awaken after three hours to turn it off, not with our cold turkey method of handling the time zone change.

The good news was that here in Cuisery we had full mooring privileges, with a water hook-up and a 220v line to the boat. That meant our water heater was fully charged so we could take showers. And when you consider that I still had the same clothes to wear as when I started this trip maybe 60 hours ago, a shower was a welcome gift.

Once we had our coffee, always the first thing we did when we woke up, we took a short stroll around the town marina. We didn't go far, since we had a big day in front of us. To be honest, we didn't know what to expect. We knew that we would be going through some locks, two of which were manual (i.e we had to run them). We knew that we would be entering the Saone River.....how big was it? How fast was the current? How much traffic would there be? Would we be able to find our destination? Can we even understand the signs on the riverbanks or floating in the waters that are to direct us along the way? All very serious questions for a new Captain, and Diane for some reason had full faith in our ability to get through it (or at least she never let on any doubts).

At about 8:30 we decided to cast off. Next stop was La Truchere, a small village just a little further . down the small tributary we were on. However we had to manipulate two manual locks along the way using the matter of fact instructions we were given. Locks are about logic....once you get the basic drift of how they work it is then a matter of using common sense as you turn the wheels, ratchet up by-pass doors, and making sure you let water in (if you're going upstream) or let water out (if you're going downstream).  The shear weight of water is going to prevent you from doing anything too stupid, so as long as the mechanics seem to be operating effortlessly, you're probably doing the right things in the right order.

We managed to get past both of these obstacles, and feeling pretty proud of our ability to read hazard signs (like, "Don't Go That Way" or you'll go over the falls) and operate the locks we were now at "Level 2" on the "I'm Hot Stuff" scale. It was now time to start teaching my First Mate how to operate the craft, so I handed over the steering wheel to Diane. After all, how much trouble can you get in going only in one direction on a canal at 4 or 5 knots? ANSWER: Enough to loose a rating on the scale.

You see, Diane didn't have years of canoeing experience to know that river banks that gradually enter the water means that the water is fairly shallow towards these. Diane , I think, was driving the boat like a race car, cutting corners sharply to take the most direct route. So only minutes after she took the controls, we had driven ourselves into the shallow bottom and came to a complete halt. Bummer.
Again grasping the fact that you would be unable to bull forward unless you were an icebreaker, I pulled the throttle into reverse and begged Mother Nature to please let us get out of this without too much trouble. At first there was just a lot of noise and no action. The stream's current seemed to be equitable to the reverse force of the propeller. But with a little more power, and a little more praying, the boat backed up and got us out of this mess. I don't know if Diane thought I was a genius or just lucky. I never asked. She never offered.

We proceeded down the river without incident and made it to La Truchere, tieing up at the public boat dock. The town was very quaint. Buildings that had been there for hundreds of years. An insignificant number of public buildings......2 restaurants and a church, that was all. Maybe another twenty or so homes.  We took our "mandatory walk" which was really quite relaxing, and we walked our way back to the only restaurant that was open. During this time LeBoat at Branges called and said they had been delivered my bag that had been lost. KLM had FedEx'd it to them. They said they would meet us in about an hour where we were at. This timed very well with our lunch plans, so we made a deal.

I don't know if it is particular about France, or maybe it's due to being off season, but when we were sat at a table in the restaurant we had very, very limited choices, and these were "heavy meal" oriented. Forget a simple soup and sandwich. You must decide that this will be your big meal of the day, at noontime. OK, I can get used to this.....just plan on a nap after lunchtime. We stared at the simple menu and , like before there were no familiar English subscripts, no words with any common link. But there was one: BOEUF !! Of course we know what this is: BEEF.

Sure was. We ordered it thinking we would get a hamburger. Instead we got a tasty New York strip, with steak frites. Add to this a soup and an amazing dessert and it was one heck of a meal. I suppose it could have been snails, fried brains, or boiled bugs, but it wasn't. We were pleasantly surprised.

My bag showed up as scheduled, and with that we pushed off to go through one more lock before we entered the Saone River. It began to rain, which gave us a bit of discomfort. Trying to drive a boat from inside, with a wiper attempting to clear the windshield of downward splatter, is nothing short of steering half blind. The two of us stayed up on top as we made our way through the final lock of the day. This one was manned by a Lock Keeper, so our responsibility was just keeping the boat still as the water dropped. The procedure went smoothly, and we were shortly on our way with only minutes to our entering the Saone.

The rain was coming down hard now. Our better senses said to move down below and try to see out the windshield. The river was wide enough such that we thought we could give oncoming traffic plenty of space. And so we went northward in the pouring rain, trying to read all the river signs, our river guide, buoys, and landmarks as we went kilometer after kilometer. Fortunately as we approached our next destination the rain began to subside and Tournus (pronounced Tour-no) became clearer in the distance. The town dock was a nice size, but we weren't alone in using it on this day. We found a spot on the inside of the aluminum docks, closer to the man made riverbank. We had to back in, and this is when we recognized that in a boat this size, unless you have a split rudder, there is virtually no directional control going in reverse. So after three or four false starts trying to get dockside, we finally were able to jockey into position and tie up and have full connections for water and power.

The one thing you can't worry about is if you're being watched. Sure you are ! You are THE SHOW for the locals, The good thing to recognize is that any boatsman can remember when they too went through these embarassing moments, and silently they are rooting you on.

We were both soaked at this time, so we found it to be the opportune time to take a hot shower and put on a fresh change of clothes. It was about time, at least for me.  Afterwards we took a walk around the town, a really good sized town, and did a bit of food shopping while we were out. When we returned, we sat around the dining table, sipping good wine and snacking on some fresh bread loaf and cheese. After all, we had our big meal at lunchtime. We then crawled under the quilts and called it a day.

Our Journey Begins....Life of a Canal Captain

As I write this entry I am sipping a very very cheap Pinot Grigio. The bottle label says it has hints of pear and apple and a nice finish. Well, Poland Spring water has a nice finish too....it just doesn't provide the buzz. And it has to be great stuff when they suggest it goes well with rotisserie chicken........you know, the dried chicken that you can pick up at the corner grocery store when you're too tired to cook. No doubt a good combination.

Our trip began in Boston, preparing to get on a Delta flight to Amsterdam. I am always a bit jittery getting on a plane. I just don't like having to undress and put my belongings in 3 plastic bins. There is always something I forget to take off....I  end up being searched no matter what. This time wasn't any different. I had taken off my belt (my pants didn't fall down), I took off my shoes (no holes in my socks), I removed my watch and my wallet and put them in the bin where they wouldn't fall out mid-conveyor. I clenched my passport and my boarding pass as I stepped into the body scanner, raised my arms over my head as this machine did a 360 around me.

But I hadn't removed my camera from my bag, and of course my body density didn't match some profile. I had to go through a body scan. "Would you mind if we did a scan of your body, sir?" To say no meant I had to figure out how to cross the Atlantic without the help of a plane. "Just do it." I thought.........get this over with. Need less to say, I passed the exam and was then put into another stress situation having to get redressed out of my bins as bins started to pile up behind me full of other passenger's goods that didn't require special screening. Geez.

I can say that Delta has it figured out. They have you absolutely captive on a plane for 8+ hours, and they do everything they can to keep you busy (i.e. bother you) so the time will pass by. Snacks, head phones, meals, drinks, more snacks, breakfast, etc. etc. Only during the final 2 hours did they allow you to get a full nights sleep without interruption. Understand, by Boston time it was the middle of the night; by Europe's time it was close to 6 a.m. If you knew what was happening, this was a time to catch a movie, or a couple of Z's. I tried the movie thing but the earphones were designed for someone with a different shaped ear; my socket wasn't a nice round one that the earphones were designed for. Obviously a hereditary flaw. If I do any more traveling a nice Bose set will be on my Christmas list.

Diane and I landed in Amsterdam without a hitch, but unlike other travel spots the airport didn't have all the signs in English, French, or Whatever. But like all other arrogant Americans, we tried making sense of all the signs by figuring out how they may have been derived from English. After feeling like complete linguistic failures, we decided to go with the flow and see where it landed us, and fortunately it got us to  Customs.

The lines were long, and after our extensive experience dealing with toll booths in the States, we opted to ride out the line we were in rather than jockey into what appeared to be a faster moving line. If you can measure success by our ability to once again convince their TBA clerk we weren't a danger to society, we passed. However, when you hear your names announced over the loudspeaker because you are the last people to board the KLM flight to Geneva, you know you're late and the cause of excessive burning of jet fuel and global warming. The flight was fully booked, except for our two seats, so we knew exactly where to sit and try to ward off stares from everyone else on board who were made up of a wide array of nationalities, languages, and experiences.

It didn't matter at this time that we were really really tired. The KLM flight was only an hour. They too managed to provide drinks and something to munch on as we obtained altitude and the pilot said we were now in approach. Diane looked at me and you could read her face that the hard part was over. Little did we know.

We landed and once again I reviewed the way people get off the plane in absolutely the most inefficient manner. Why not tell everyone in the aisles just to get off....NOW! Then the next wave of passengers exiting could occur. No, we had to wait for everyone to leave in a nice organized manner. If you yelled fire the plane would empty in 10.8 seconds. Why can't we have an equivalent word for GET OFF? Who knows....this stupid procedure is ingrained in people and it'll never change, must be like ignoring the stewardess when she(he) shows you how to put on a seat belt.

We went to baggage claim which was not unlike all the others that we have seen. Bags are propelled up onto a revolving belt, and you try to differentiate your black bag from everyone else's black bag. There are those veteran travelers that have found interesting ways to make their bag stand out, but if you go to Europe once every 20 years why bother? The bags went round and round. Then fewer bags went round and round. An airport attendant came up to me and said that that was it from our flight. When Diane came back from the ladies room I had to give her the bad news....they had lost our bags when our stayover in Amsterdam wasn't long enough to get our bags on the flight. Life sucks.

It was apparent this occurs all the time, especially to Americans. We went into a nicely equipped room with two men who were trained to relieve passengers of their stress by being overly friendly and having the latest in technical gadgets to try to trace lost bags. Why I know alot of Americans loose their bags is because they both spoke perfect English (as if there was such a thing!). While we were there Diane's bag appeared....her I.D. tag had been ripped off which is why she couldn't identify it on the carousel. However mine was still gone and we proceeded to go through the process of filling out all the forms so they could eventually get it to me. No easy task knowing we were going to be on a boat in a few short hours. Nothing beats hitting a moving target on some water in another country. At that point we knew we were at a disadvantage.

In Geneva (oh, by the way that's where we landed) we were supposed to meet up with a taxi driver to take us to Brange , France. We didn't have his name, his taxi service, his phone number, the number or address of our location in France. I felt so unprepared for this to all happen. We frantically went through all of our travel paperwork looking for anything that could identify where we were going or how to get hold of us. Only after Diane scanned down though her emails on her phone did she find a number we could call to get all the info. the clerk needed. We had been hoping the taxi driver would show up and give them all the information but he was no where to be found. Well, the clerk's job was done. He put a trace for the bag. put into the system all of our contact info, and now we were on our own. "Have a pleasant stay"....his departing words.

So just like what we have seen many times on TV travel logs, we went out into the lobby and looked for someone, any one, with a SHELDON placard, or one the said LeBOAT. No one. We circled again. No one. Now it was time to talk to anyone who spoke English for some divine guidance.
We found an attentive ear in Information, and just as we decided that breaking down and crying might get us something, our taxi driver appeared with a LeBoat sign which looked like it was made seconds before from a disposed shoe box and a lipstick marker. He was one hour late.

We were relieved though. He escorted us to his car, threw Diane's bag in the rear and we all jumped in (these are such tiny cars), and we raced out of the parking lot. There was no compass in the car, just a GPS which had Branges on it. It gave us some warm comfort to know we were headed southwest to our destination; he wasn't some underworld crook kidnapping us for ransom. He raced on, weaving through the Geneva traffic, getting on their expressway, and much to our surprise passing right through Customs without stopping. OMG, now we were fugitives in a foreign land.  Our driver didn't speak English (this is a sign) and we had thought we had broken a law.

Ninety minutes later we were in the tiny town of Branges. Two hundred Euros lighter but where we were supposed to be. Those in the boating center were nice. All spoke English. One was really from Great Britain while the clerk behind the desk had spent years in California doing whatever. They gave us our welcome package (wine, cheese, and crackers), a day's worth of provisions so we didn't have to worry about food until tomorrow, a Captain's Information booklet, some maps, and pointed to our boat.

It wasn't a big boat. It was in fact a small houseboat that slept 2+2 (i.e 2 more if you wanted to sleep on the dining table), It didn't need to be too big, after all it was just Diane and me. The Welshman walked us through the boat, showed us where everything was, how to start/stop the boat, where the life preservers were etc. I signed the legal document preventing us from suing him if we crashed or sunk. At this time it was around 1 p.m. France time.....we really hadn't slept or had normal food, but he was ready to give us a five minute test drive on the boat under his guidance of course, so we would consider ourselves to be experienced enough to be on our own.

The three of us headed upstream; I cautiously steered the boat in the narrow canal adjacent to ten or twelve other boats that were moored. We maybe went 1/10th of a mile, did a u-turn and headed back. I commented to our instructor that it just didn't feel right. I could just read his mind.....stupid ass American.....landlubber........inept boatsman.....clueless. But I said it again so he took over the controls. Further down the canal we went, passing all the other boats as he turned around now facing upstream into the current. He looked at me and asked me to take over the controls as he went to the stern of the boat to take a look. Hmmmmmmm......no turbulence in the water. The boat had lost its propeller !

The headmaster sent a boat down to tow us back to port, at which time he offered to have the clerk take us into town to try to get some food in us while he prepped another boat. It took us about an hour or so to drive into town and realize no restaurants were open on Monday, and by now the kitchens were closed in the bars.  We did however pick up some food for our trip.

When we returned to the boats we were told that the boat they were going to give us had major electrical problems, so they upgraded us to a Continental, a 42' yacht! It had 3 staterooms with 3 bathrooms, full galley with 2 refrigerators and a microwave, a color TV, inside and outside controls and a full top deck. Wow, what a boat. The staff moved all of our stuff from one boat to this one, we were given another lesson on the boat, and sent on our merry way. Point of note, every time the staff gave us bad news they gave us another bottle of wine. During the entire trip we bought only one bottle, and that one we brought home with us. Every night we had another adventure in French wine tasting......though they all tasted good, I am sure they were from obscure wineries that fell short of French standards..........hey what do these Americans know.

It was now 4 p.m. and we were slowly getting used to the boat, traveling maybe 4 knots going with the current. It was getting dark, fast. We turned on our navigational light located on the bow. We had no clue where we were on the map; our destination was Cuisery on the Seille River. The river banks were now all blending together with the water's edge, and we depended on reflections to tell us we weren't going to crash. We slowed, but we kept going. What were we to do ? We were tired. We were hungry. We had no idea what we would find or what we were looking for, how to handle the boat when we got to whereever we were going. Only later did we find that we disobeyed the law by operating the boat at night. Six more days of adventures.

Our Trip To Burgundy - October 2013

Diane and I had the opportunity to travel to France this Fall, arriving on the scene just as harvest was being completed on October 19th.  We spent most of our time in Santenay, the last major village in the southern part of Cote d'Or.

The village, like many others in the Burgundy area, had a traditional square in the center of town with its fountain and sidewalk seating for people to relax in and just get intoxicated by the views. Mountains in the background surrounded the village that dated back centuries.  Around the square were old stone buildings, many being owned by the larger Domains in the area. Unlike the States where you need to go winery hopping in your car, here these Domains had their own tasting rooms where you could easily visit 4 or 5 all within a hundred yards of each other. There were many many more  outside of town and a quick bicycle ride would get you to those.

The wineries in Burgundy take great pride in their not being like Bordeaux, their neighbor to the west. Bordeaux has succumbed to the global market, changing the labels on the bottles to meet international demands, but Burgundy has held back and kept the Village Name as being the dominant identification on the label with no mention of the grape variety.

We were invited to a private tasting in one of the town's wineries. The winemaker led us down to the cellar on steps and doorways intended for much shorter people. The cellar was really 2 floors underground, lined with bottles covered by dust that was years' old. He gave us each a glass that resembled a brandy sniffer, and poured a small amount of white wine for us to do our swirling and tasting. We asked what it was and he replied Santenay. He poured us another sample, and once again he said it was Santenay, but it tasted different. For a third time we went through the process, and for a third time we were told it was a Santenay.  This is when we were awakened by what was happening in regards to the identification. You see, in Burgundy there are predominantly only 2 types of grapes grown.....Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. So all of the white wine we had just tasted was Chardonnay, and we "should have known this". But the wines were from different parts of the vineyard, and different years. He repeated the process for the red wine, which of course was all Pinot Noir. And of course, we left with a bottle of his delicious wine.

Whenever we visited a village, we made it a point to check out the visitor's bureau. These seemed to be the only places that had WiFi so we could catch up on the doings back home....the Government shutdown was of particular interest because they were holding up our Winery License, the Red Sox were in the playoffs, and I was expecting my cows to start having calves. Also, regardless of what you've heard, once you get in these back villages there were very few people who could speak English, so finding someone who could explain the layout of the land was welcoming.

There is a lot more about the trip that I'll cover in another blog, because on this trip we celebrated our 40th anniversary in a boat while cruising the canals north of Lyon and south of Dijon.