Ready! Set! Go!

Here it is 1:00 PM on Wednesday May the 28 and I am ready to go, with just a matter of hours before the plane takes off. There is probably a bunch of stuff which isn't done. However I have no idea what it could possibly be. I have packed and repacked the bags so many times I have no idea what I have any more. I think that the most important things have been taken care of. The most important thing being the training. I have ridden over 1600 kms this spring, done over 100 spin classes, run 20 kms every week for the past 16 weeks, and lifted weights twice a week with Lynne, my trainer. So I think that part is done. In fact it is better than just done I am in excellent shape. The bike is in a box and was packed professionally. So not to belittle the talents of the baggage gorillas it should be OK. The rest of the gear well who knows there is probably some things I should have packed, and some thing I should have remembered but there it is. What is there is there. Maps have been printed and are ready to go. Euros have been obtained and boarding passes printed.





Yesterday there was a major panic. I was printing off the various reservation slips and confirmations and while I was doing that I checked the hotel room reservation. The online page had a check your reservation button so I hit it. To my horror the hotel room in Paris was CANCELED in big red letters. Panic phone calls to my travel agent and after agonizing hours she straightened it out. Penny at Cruises of Excellence is way better than a plaster garden gnome every time.





Chris, my training partner, and good friend came up with a great thing yesterday. It is a small electronic devise which you type the message into and it gives you translations in to any of 12 different languages. Plus it has a lot of standard phrases and other useful stuff. This should prove very useful for myself as I am extremely bad at that sort of thing. I can only speak red neck and that isn't going to make it in a lot of the world.






Sadly my big dog is very sick and I am going to have to leave him in Agnes' capable hands. Last year he had a large tumor on his leg and we had it removed. It was cancerous and looked very bad. This year he had a small lump on his side just behind his rib cage. So we thought we should have it removed. It turned out to be just a cyst and totally harmless. However he has never really recovered from the operation. Whether it was being sedated or maybe it is just coincidence, but he has been losing weight and refusing to eat. The last few days he has vomited everything back up and today he has refused even his favorite treats. A few months ago his sister was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was euthanized. Phantom is 10.5 and that is about as long a bouviers des flanders live. Agnes and the vet are both very sensible people and if worse comes to worse I know that he will not suffer needlessly. I only hope the same good sense is used when my time comes.





Our hotel is only a few blocks from the Louvre and some of the other famous land marks. I am looking forward to having a run down the Seine.




Thank you so much for your comments. They are great to read.


See you in Paris!





Terry