Entry 1: pre-France

Dear diary,
It has been a long time since our last entry, but life has been splendid on and off the road. Upon leaving Barley, England, we were delighted to cycle roughly 53 km and to have the opportunity to spend the night camping at St. Albans Abby in the dean's garden. It was an interesting experience to awake in the presence of a historic cathedral after a lovely night out on the town. The next day, we cycled about 118 km to New Arlesford where we had our first experience with difficulty finding a place to sleep. We wandered the village for a few hours and ended up camped out in the back garden of a small bed 'n breakfast. We then had a nice short backroad ride to Southampton! We were home! The trip was over, hahaha. In contrast, Southampton, England was a rather large, bustling city and we much prefer our home. After lunch, we continued on to Portsmouth, England where we hopped on a ferry to Cherbourg, France. It was then that we were hit with the reality of entering a new country with little knowedge of the language. Still unsure of a definite place to spend the night, we wandered the dark streets of Cherbourg. After being waved away from our first choice hotel we ended up staying in a comfortable hotel in the central port area of the city. With internet at our fingertips, we researched the availability of camping in the area along our potential route, only to realize that about 9 out of 10 campsites were closed for the season. After much discussion about options and resolution to this significant debacle, we spent most of our first day in France weighing out our options and coming up with alternative solutions. Cycling and staying in hotels and bnbs would have cost significantly more than we had planned for camping, so we turned toward alternate forms of transportation to get us further south faster, where we hoped to have more camping options. We discussed ferries to Spain, which would have still cost more than we were willing to spend and we would miss out seeing northern France. A train also would not allow us the freedom to explore the landscape as we would have enjoyed. Afrer research and discussion at the ferry port, we we struck with a brilliant idea which we never would have anticipated and had even previously joked about... rent a car! This would allow us to avoid hotels by getting to open campsites, yet still be able to explore and visit sites not accessible wih our bicycles. From the ferry port, we coordinated for an appropriate timing and mileage for a rental car, but upon arriving at the office, we were stopped in our tracks as reality dictates that we must drive a manual car as they did not rent any automatics. Emma was the only one of us old enough to rent the car, and it was up to her as to whether we could pull this off. She agreed, only with the promise of much practice around the supermarket parking lot. We piled our gear into what we later named the car, "the jerk," and we were off, around and around and around the lot. Braking and accelerating were difficult at first, and we were a car full of laughter, but eventually, she felt confident enough to get out on the road.

Post two too come.. On the road south!