6 juin

Ric came by at 9 this morning with bad news. KLM lied to us - no way in hell will our bikes or their luggage be here before noon TOMORROW. Recall that they had sworn to us that the bikes would be here today. This KLM hiccup will require us to drive back to Lyon to get our bikes, and then drive right back to Provence. This trip could be falling apart. We have no bikes, Chris is sick with what he thinks is a bug, and it looks like we will be driving our silly asses right back to where we started this trip with no real assurance that our bikes are even on this continent. I’m sitting in a café drinking a café noir as I write this - and periodically cussing the crack-head in Memphis who processed our luggage. Chris is essentially a walking zombie right now. Spent about an hour trying to track our luggage - no luck, still no confirmation that our bikes made it to Lyon this morning. We decide to assume that our bikes are in Lyon  and begin he drive back. On route, we stopped in Monte Limar and called KLM - this time we were able to confirm that they had our bikes. Hell yes! Our plan is to pick up the bikes and head towards Grenoble and camp for the night. According to Chris’s calculations - the airlines success rate over the past three years in delivering us our luggage in a timely manner is a paltry 50%. We stopped in Grenoble to get supplies - food, beer, and water. We arrived at a campsite south of Grenoble about an hour before dark, set up camp and unpacked our bikes. Then we took our first ride of the trip - to the bar. It turned out to be the same place we stopped last year to catch a stage on our way to Bedoin