Driving Mr. Daisy

We visited ww1 & ww2 battle sites this past week..really sad to stand were thousands had their lives snuffed out in horrific ways. The 10,000 white crosses at d day American cemetery near Omaha beach was another silent reminder of their silence....
Then off to Mont st Michel unbelievable castle on a rock!
We turned east and began our drive across the beautiful countryside of France 350 miles of it, to the alps
Rolling hills of wheat, and other crops. Cows of  every black, brown and white combination you can imagine. Narrow village streets with ancient buildings. Hedge rows that grew tall and thick and sometimes appeared to be almost as thick as stonewalls.
We pulled into a small town to gas up the $1.75 liter!! guzzling beast.....
While refueling I walked over to another guy refueling and as has been continually happening asked parlez- vous  englais? The usual answer is "very little".
But this fellow had been to the states last year on holiday....
We asked about camping, well 15 minutes later after much laughter trying to understand each other . He found a campground on the internet which was were we wanted to head. He then said follow me for about 35 kilometers,  which we did. We gave him a Heineken from our cooler for his efforts which brought out a huge smile! He told us if we needed interpretation help call him.....
We drove on past his goodbye wave.
And stopped in a small town, we searched out the tourist office, which was located in the town center in an old castle. Of course it was closed, Friday nite at 7pm. We parked in their lot.  We visited the main street with it's typical hundreds of years old buildings and had drinks at an outdoor cafe/ bar on the. Cobblestone street. A light snack also of grilled cheese sandwich , which was incredible! And salad, iceberg lettuce with sauce.....
Then off to set up the van, for free parking lot sleep.
The next day we received a text from the gas station friend aski ng if we had had good sleep?
I awoke at 6am and sleepy eyed crawled into the drivers seat to begin a 12 hour drive...
We needed to avoid " le mans" which was happening this weekend. The 24 hr car  race around the city. We learned of this earlier in the week. When on the "motorway" from Paris we pulled in to gas up right behind a sparkling New Ferrari with gb plates ( great Britain). We asked the older chap if he Knew how to say " ice " in french. No luck. But he said he was heading to le mans for the race....to watch.
Well Liam was now drooling...
With a watchful eye we managed to see a few more Lamborghini,  Porsche,  Ferrari, Peugeot   etc on the road.
So the ice thing.....we and everyone else have plug in coolers, no ice!!!
One plugs them into the cigarette lighter while driving and into an outlet at the campground.
They work great to keep things warm, oops I mean slightly semi a tiny bit cool....
No ice
No ice anywhere...
Nothing better than warm beer....
Or warm soda pop....
The journey continues....