St. Jean de Losne to Auxonne, July 5-8

But first….

When we’re in Dijon we try to take advantage of the many fine restaurants there. Cathy Jo came across information on “So”, a traditional French restaurant owned by a Japanese chef, So Takahashi, and run with his family. With only 22-24 covers we felt lucky to get a reservation and it was worth it. Moderately expensive and with an amazing wine list, the food was delicious.

 Friday by noon we were tied up in our usual shopping spot at the end of the Canal du Bourgogne just before the basin that leads to the last lock. There’s easy access to a supermarket and bricolage across the field and the canal is shaded by trees on both sides. We had one more day of the heat wave to endure.

Friday afternoon we paid a visit to the pharmacy in town. I had ben suffering from a very sore swollen throat for several days and I thought maybe some throat drops would help. They had some but what marketing genius thought a throat lozenge should be called “Drill”?

 Friday evening it was still pretty hot so we wandered over to the waterfront for a couple of beers. When we passed through here last year we were on the Dragon Boat Race weekend. Last years post is here.   Guess what was happening this weekend? We didn’t want to be front and center this time so we decided we’d just leave the boat where we were and cycle into town when we wanted. Besides, the Finals of the Dragon Boat Races was at the same time that a certain US soccer team was paying it’s World Cup Final. One of the bars in town had a big tv so we told them to expect us for the match.

Dragon boats last year.

We tackled the grocery stores Saturday morning and figured to visit the chandleries, H2O and Blanquart’s, in the afternoon. Of course we needed to compare prices for the things we needed. Unfortunately, H2O is only open Saturday morning so we’d have to wait for the boat bits until Monday.

That left a little socializing to do in the afternoon. We had emailed our friend Sue Parker earlier in the week, warning her we were on our way but when we went to call to see if she was on Aryani, the number we had wouldn’t work (It turned out to be her home phone in England. She’ll have messages when she returns.). We just headed down to the boat anyway and luckily she was there. We had a nice visit, catching up on some of her world travels. 

Saturday night the heat wave finally broke. We had an epic thunderstorm with very high winds and constant lightning and thunder for a couple of hours. Unfortunately not nearly enough rain fell to help with the water shortages but at least it would be a little cooler.

Sunday shortly after lunch we were on the boat resting; neither of us feeling very good (Not from lunch; we'd both caught some kind of illness.) when we heard a shout from the canal, “Oldtimer! Don! Cathy!” Up we jumped. It was Carmen and Roger on Beauregard whom we met last year on the Nivernais. Well, we met Carmen. We met Roger later when we drove down to Ganay to see them. We had a chance to catch up and they said they would join us at the bar for the soccer match. We’d also texted Sue and she said she would join us as well.

When we got to the bar the races were just concluding but that meant everybody else was outside and we had the bar to ourselves. Well, us and a couple rooting for the Netherlands team. They would come away disappointed as the US women dominated the match and became World Cup champions for the second time in a row.

Monday morning we did our chandlery shopping and made a reservation for the last lock on the canal for 1 pm. It took 15 minutes to clear the lock and into the Saone. After lightening our bank account with a stop at the fuel dock we headed up the river. By about 4:30 we were tied up on Auxonne on the city pontoons.