Hot, Hot, Hot!!!

We’re havin’ a heat wave.  Temperatures well over 100 for several days running.  Switching from one side of the canal to the other in search of shade.  All necessary chores completed in the morning so the afternoon can be spent in the river.  We stayed bankside on the canal just before the last lock to the river.  There are trees on both sides so the sun only got to the boat in the middle of the afternoon but there’s really no cooling anything down much when the air is so hot.

Oh, and that beer festival.  We bicycled the 5 k up the canal just before noon to find that the fete didn’t start until 3 pm. We had our 4th dinner to prepare. The woman running the cafe we stopped at to get a beer before the hot trip back to the boat rushed out with a pitcher of water with ice cubes (!) in it when we sat down. Then she brought us the beer. We must have looked pretty bad.

So, 4th of July. In St. Jean is Fournier, a real live butcher shop.  It’s quite big and always very busy. We stopped in on Friday to pick up some hamburger; haché to the French.  They plop a piece of meat in the grinder and prepare it just for you.  We found some hamburger buns, tomato and lettuce in the market, Cathy Jo made some potato salad and, voila, Fourth of July!

By Sunday, though, we decided we should get the boat on the river.  We’ve paid for a year’s mooring with H2O and they have another marina right on the river in Auxonne, about 20 k away.  We shoved off at about 9:30 am, stopped at the H2O boatyard long enough to fill our water tank and then headed up the Saone.  The river locks are much farther apart.  We only had to go through one right before Auxonne.  We can also go much faster in the river.  Oldtimer does 9 k without any strain. We were tied up the the Port Royal Marina about 1 pm.  More swimming!  Monday we tackled the laundry beast and spent the afternoon swimming in the river.

Sunday night one of the other tenants in the marina had some kind of party on their boat.  They had a bunch of food left over so they got in touch with Roy and Carol, the harbormasters, and offered to provide it for a marina get together Monday evening. It was another one of those United Nations moments.  French, German, Swiss, Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, South Africans, (the Russians on the hire boat didn’t show up) and yes, a couple of Americans (we were not the only ones.  There was an American women there with her British boyfriend although she hardly counts as she’s been living in Paris for many years!)

Tuesday morning we were off up the river. The forecast said the heat was supposed to break on Wednesday.  We were hopeful!