June 13, 2025
Yet another travel day is upon us! These two night stops are manageable since we don’t really unpack but we looking forward to Corsica where we will be staying put for a week in one house.
We packed up what was taken out of our bags as the boys did some iPad learning games. We had done a load of laundry when we arrived and as it was air drying we realized it all smelled like vomit! Those got put into a garbage bag to be rewashed at our next stop.
Lenny got in trouble for guessing at things he did not understand instead of asking for help with his learning game and was sent to his room. This put him in a foul mood but he enjoyed timeout more than normal because he got to mess around on the bunk bed. He has started to try to bargain when he is in trouble, saying things like “I will only listen If you give me my iPad.” Obviously this does not go well for him…but he continues to try.
We got everything down the stairs and loaded in the car with a proper barrier set up between the boys in the back. The drive to Vernon is just under 3 hours but we planned to stop at Normandy beach along the way which will add another hour and a half.
We stopped at a bakery on the way out of town. Kayleen and Ollie went in to grab food for everyone and somehow the language barrier got Lenny and I a slice of pizza instead of ham and cheese on a baguette. Ollie opted for another pastry which he happily ate as Lenny watched, though he did share a bite with him.
We eventually made it to Normandy beach but it felt like it took forever as there were a lot of winding roads through farms and small towns for the last 45 minutes of the drive. The destination we had set was not anything too specific so we ended up at a section of the beach that was not very touristy. There were a few people laying on the beach and playing soccer.
We were at Gold Beach which was one of the landing points for the British on D-Day. There were a few small monuments thanking the Americans, British, and Canadians for liberating France and a lot of the houses in the area were also still flying flags from all those countries.
Out in the water there were what looked like massive concrete blocks all along the coast. We eventually figure out that during/after D-Day Gold Beach was the site of Mulberry B harbor. Mulberry A harbor was used by the Americans at Omaha Beach and Mulberry B by the British at Gold Beach.
The Mulberry harbours were two temporary portable harbours developed by the British Admiralty and War Office during the Second World War to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. They were designed in 1942 then built in under a year in great secrecy; within hours of the Allies creating beachheads after D-Day, sections of the two prefabricated harbours were towed across the English Channel from southern England and placed in position off Omaha Beach (Mulberry "A") and Gold Beach (Mulberry "B"), along with old ships to be sunk as breakwaters.
We walked on the beach in hopes of finding a snack before starting our drive again. The boys played with stick and shells. Ollie was not interested in carrying his sandals and offered Lenny one of his points if he would carry them. Lenny gladly accepted and when done reminded me to transfer the point until he saw me actually do it on my phone. He cares less about getting 50 points for an iPad game and more about having more points than Ollie.
Ollie tried to climb one of the rock walls as we exited the beach, versus taking the steps or ramp, and slid down and scraped his wrist and stomach. Sadly the restaurant was closed when we arrived so we headed back to the car.
We stopped at a grocery store on the way out of town to get some snacks and breakfast items for the next morning. Lenny quickly fell asleep as we turned Harry Potter back on, still 6 hours to go in book number four.
We arrived at our apartment after a few tight roads and K turns. We unloaded the car to another third floor apartment, though with much less stairs than the last one. Then I had to go park the car in a spot a few blocks away. At first I failed as my phone stopped working for anything but calls for a few hours. This has happened to both Kayleen and I at different time over the last week or two. Praying it never happens at the same time! With Kayleen’s phone we were able to find the spot and then headed to a park along the river.
The boys did some ninja course challenges at the park and we checked for Pokemon before we headed to dinner. PokemonGo gave us warnings about the weather when we opened it, but all sunny and not forecast to rain until after midnight so we thought nothing of it….
We had to stop at a convenience store to get laundry detergent to start our laundry ASAP as it all has to air dry. Praying for no more vomit smell!
Then made our way to Bistro des Fleurs by our house– Michelin Guide listed restaurant. Casual but proper French food. Menu was hand written on a sign and gave our google translate app a challenge, but the waiter was wonderful and helped us a bit. Boys had their first ever steak frites! Steak cooked well done and mountains of frites. There was an amazing strawberry pavlova for dessert for Kayleen, Len, and I while Ollie ordered the cheesecake. Lenny called it “Paploga!!” On seeing our pavlova, Ollie goes, “Oh MAN! I am regretting my choice!” But he happily devoured his entire cheesecake slice while periodically asking for nibbles of our pavlovas, too.
The boys were ansty while we finished our meal and took to sitting just outside the restaurant watching the lighting in the sky. We thought it was just heat lightning at first but then heard thunder as well. We tried to teach them the trick of counting the seconds after lightning until they hear the thunder to gauge how far away the storm was. They then took to leaving and entering the restaurant via the ceiling to floor windows. The waiter and other patrons giggled and waved it off, Kayleen and I definitely more annoyed than anyone else.
As soon as it started to rain, Kayleen and the boys sprinted home (just 2 blocks) as we had left all the windows open to cool down our top level apartment. They made it home, soaked and having tripped over curbs and slippery stairs. Some water did make it into the apartment and the wind knocked over a plant and made a mess with some dirt and moss from the roof. ~5 towels worth of water to clean up but grateful our meal was nearby our apartment. The boys were “frightened” I was in trouble as I stayed behind to pay the bill as they sprinted home in the rain. Ollie then shared he was actually worried I was going to get murdered! More likely I would have gotten hit by lighting in the flooded streets. The boys did not get to bed till 11PM.
