Bobby, Chelsea and Eric Jr. arrived yesterday AM in Barcelona so Eric and I woke up as if starting a watch for an overnight and began the drive at 4AM.
No problemo!
It’s not that far, only a little over 2 hours and about 30 minutes to the Spanish border. We truly are in the south of France where as Jeff Husted would say “the ladies wear no pants.

They were jet lagged so we stayed “home”, ate tapas, drank red wine, and played cards. Deuces Wild was my dad’s boat I raced with my all girl crew back in the 80’s, and our F18 we own now. The logo of the One Ton was Snoopy holding 5 deuces and winking. Last night we played Bullshit with a new deck from the grocery store named Casino. When someone said they put down a deuce, another kid called BS and next thing we knew there were 5 twos in the deck! Hilarious! Maybe you had to be there. 🙂

Today we left the boat for the first time and drove to Toulouse via Carcassonne. Very cool to be going from the Med towards Basque country. and the Atlantic which we are curious to see. Saw the canals that folks love to cruise on, lots of vineyards, castles, and wind turbines. This is a very windy time of year and a storm blew in yesterday. We think about Stephan and his journey south since he had to turn back once already.

Now we are holed up in a beautiful apartment in the middle of Toulouse. Bobby is glued to his phone that is streaming the Chargers playing Kansas, Eric is in the sauna, Chelz passed out from being up since 3AM (jet lag) and dad and I are enjoying more cheese, wine, sausage, and apples. Dinner will be duck!
Recommended by the hostess of the hotel, we said of course! She explained how everyone here loves duck and we love that. El Pato’s name will be removed soon but not before we eat tons of ducks! Oh and we are all very grateful for Eric Jr’s 6 years of French classes! He has saved the day more than once. He knows what the signs say and how to ask questions! Our sign language can only go so far. LOL

Tip of the day – Bad Elf! And not the costume I wore at SDYC; it’s a small device you can put into your phone or iPad to give you GPS when on the road (or on a boat) if you don’t have a good international plan (AT&T). Thanks for sharing that info Rags!
He owns the Maritime School in San Diego where I got my Cpt license and is a good buddy who has sailed across plenty of oceans.

Another good tip is Navionics. You can download it onto your tablet and navigate. Even though we bought one, the chart plotters might be obsolete before too long. Covering our bases for now just to be safe!