StanleyWheeler

There's something about sitting beneath the ramparts of an elegant yet imposing stone fortress, eating ice cream with your wife on a sunny day. It's as if... First let me clarify, I wasn't with "your wife"...I may not even know your wife, and I've probably never eaten ice cream with her, and certainly not on a beautiful day below the parapet, or any other pets; we were just enjoying ice cream--that's not a euphemism. I was with my wife; we were eating ice cream... It was as if we were one with the universe, and the universe was one with us. I don't think it's possible to have a terrible time while eating ice cream on a sunny day, even without a magnificent stone pile for a companion--meaning the chateau figuratively, not my actual, literal companion...my wife...not yours. Eating under the protection of the castle made us completely impervious to any negative waves.  As the French might say, C'etait formidable !  I had chocolate chip mint. She...

Sylvie dropped us off in Pierrefonds near the chateau. She gave me her cellphone and home phone numbers so that we could call her to come and pick us up when we were done. I told her that we could take the bus back; she said to call and she would come and get us.  A seafood restaurant, a boulangerie, and a few other establishments lined one side of the square below the chateau.  We chose the boulangerie after looking at the seafood prices. We didn't feel like seafood, anyway; or rather, we didn't feel like eating seafood. I wanted my wife to experience France the way that I had years ago...eating at little shops instead of McDonalds. A cute girl ran the boulangerie; she had short blonde hair and green or blue eyes...I'm pretty sure it was one or the other, rather than one of each. We looked around while a couple other people in the small shop, which was completely open on one side, got their orders and left.  We decided to split a ham and cheese panini which cam...

The good news was that we got new train tickets for Compiegne. The bad news was that the train wouldn't leave for another two hours. A bright guy would have taken that time to explore the environs outside of the gare...apparently, I'm not that guy--my wife will confirm that. We found a place near a reader board to stand and observe while we watched the board for information about our train...and sent an email to the friend who was supposed to meet us at the train station in Compiegne to let her know we would be two hours late. Every half hour, two women would come by begging for money; dusky skinned with dark manes largely concealed by scarves, they wore layered outer clothing and long skirts...long as in nearly to the floor. They first asked in French and I told them no; they immediately asked in English and I ignored them. After that they ignored us, holding out their hands, asking only the people around us for money each time they came by. I did exchange a text with our fe...

We had just missed our train from Gare du Nord to Compiegne. The boy in the information booth told us that we would have to go exchange our tickets some for a later train, and pointed us in the general direction. We went in the general direction. We asked at another booth. We were directed toward some machines. The machines did nothing for us; they gave us neither directions nor exchanged our tickets. They were for purchasing tickets; we hoped to avoid that option. My wife and I wandered, like the Israelites in the desert, a desert made of concrete and filled with people; we wandered for another ten or twenty meters, before we found our Mount Sinai; we were prepared to receive the stone tablets.  Surprisingly, there was a line. When we got to the head of the line, I made conversation with the short, sturdy woman whose blue uniform seemed too large, and her cap was slightly askew, as if she had been in a scuffle and had not yet straightened the chapeau; her job seemed to be...

The wind from the arriving train blew my sweetheart's hair, but it stayed on her head--mine didn't have a chance. That wind carried an odor of diesel and burnt rubber, or it could've been the cheap cologne the guy next to us was wearing. Passengers spilled onto the platform like blood from a head wound. Fortunately, they didn't hang around to stain our shoes. We boarded the train with the rest of the cattle. The doors closed behind us with an ominous clack that resembled that made by the release of a firing bolt in an automatic weapon.  It was a short ride to Gare Montparnasse, the last stop on the line, the end of the line, the terminal. There might be other words for it, but terminal fit for us. We didn't know it when we rolled into that station, but our carefully scripted plan was about to die, to die like a young child's happiness when he finds out that the circus is in town, and all his friends are going, but he, instead, has to go to a funeral for a grea...

I'm skipping over a day, the best day of the trip, one of the best days ever; that day alone would have made the trip more than worth every effort and euro expended...even though we got pounded with rain. It was Mother's Day. For her present, my wife got to walk over a mile in her flats, and to be liberally laved in the lavish lacrimal offerings of the French heavens.  So moving right along... Monday, we decamped to another location. Fortunately, our bags had plenty of room for all of our decamping equipment. Our time at Versailles had come to an end; sadly, we departed. Perhaps we were sad because we had to leave early in the morning, before anyone else at the hotel was even up, or so it seemed. We were to depart from Versailles-Chantiers, which, you may recall, was where we had arrived...near, but not exactly at the planned point of arrival in Versailles. Another benefit of that earlier faux pas (which expression always make me think that someone is referring to a fake fat...

In a nutshell, there were fountains. Actually, there was no nutshell, but there were fountains. There were also hedges and pathways and statues and tourists and...the CHoPs.  *** This is the way it happened, see. Me and my dame had a chat with the gatekeeper to the garden. He informed me that there was an entry fee that had to be payed. I informed him that I had the Paris Museum Pass; I would not pay as admission to the gardens was without charge anyway. He informed me that the pass was no good during certain events. One of those events being the water and music program which was taking place in the gardens on that very day, and for which there was in fact a charge. Whereupon, I doubled up my fist and delivered to his visage a terrible look of displeasure. Of course, this conversation took place in the French language. I hadn't had a lot experience in delivering devastating scowls in that language, but I wanted him to know that this was serious. He understood my meaning.....

By the look of the crowd, it might almost have been  October 5, 1789 . However, there were no casualties, and no one suggested that we eat cake. The only armed individuals were three men clad in olive green with berets who walked through the courtyard; they carried guns that looked like M16s, but could have been HK416s, or FAMAS F1s, or something else; I didn't look closely enough--I suspected that not being too curious, and not asking suspicious questions would make my visit more enjoyable than could be made up for with some period of intense interrogation...as exciting as that might be. The picture above shows the passage upon which we walked, approaching the palace from the side entrance. During the previous mile of our walk, we walked on sidewalks along asphalt streets. The paving stone way began our transition to the splendor of the Palace of Versailles.  Of course, the searching of my wife's bag was the first order of business. As we passed through the side gate, ...

There's something terribly satisfying about the way a sharp knife slices through a banana. Maybe all knives seem sharp when pitted against that firm yellow skin and soft white flesh. There's no doubt about who wins the clash of steel versus banana, but a nice clean cut evokes a sense of satisfaction not to be found in attacking the fruit with a less keen instrument such as a spoon or a shoe. So when I assisted some other gentlemen in preparing an Independence Day breakfast for the community, I did not mind putting several bunches of bananas, as well as a multitude of muffins to the knife. Later, we attended the Fourth of July parade; it's actually the Veteran's Parade. Weiser is a small town. The big parade happened a couple weeks ago during the annual Fiddle Festival. The parade for the Fourth of July would be laughable in comparison, if it were not so serious. The local veterans gather at one end of State Street near the train depot. The spectators line both sides o...

Having already walked a couple miles at the Parly 2, we changed our clothes to a jacket with a tie, and a dress (the former for me while my wife chose the latter) before going to the temple open house. It was about 3/4 of a mile from our hotel. I had used Google Earth Street View several times prior to our arrival in France to learn the route. Of course, the route looked nothing like the route that I had learned on the computer. Actually, it was quite similar; the difference was in my memory. I used my phone to plot a route, and we followed it...except for when I thought I could see a shortcut that coincided with the route of my memory. Long story short: cuts are like bobs--like Rachel from the airport's hair (is that even correct? Does airport get the possessive when it's Rachel's hair we're talking about? Maybe it should be: like Rachel's hair from the airport; but that makes it sound like she got her hair from the airport, which although improbable, could be true...