Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday April 14-17

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Wednesday morning I met one of the neighboring boat owners, and she gave me the captainare’s local number to call about electric and water. We will stay here until Ken returns from the USA on the 23rd. My plan will be to explore Reims when Ken is gone. For now, we enjoy the nice weather, clean the boat, find internet, diesel and groceries. Captainare’s name is Eric and he made arrangements to meet me in 15 minutes of our call. We settle for one week at 100 Euros that would include water and electric (we would actually be there 10 days total). He wants cash but we are Euro poor at the moment so we make plans to meet when we return from champagne country on Friday at 5:30.
Thursday, our bags are packed for a 2 day journey with rented car to champagne country. Within 30 minutes of Reims, we have too many Champagne houses to choose from. The country side is loaded with grape vines and we can only imagine what it looks like in full season. The new buds for the spring are barely noticeable at this time. We received a list of champagnes from Howard (our wine dealer in Chicago) and so we attempted to locate some of these champagne houses.

Along the way we found via Foders a wonderful hotel, Le Cheval Blanc. Stayed Thursday night and had our first Champagne tasting at 9am Friday morning. The owner and his son were there along with Armelle who spoke very good English. Of course we left with Champagne for the boat and a great referral to Armelle’s restaurant in Le Mesnil sur Oger.

We headed back to Reims on Friday evening and planned to take the car back on Saturday. On Saturday, prior to Ken returning the rental car, he would take several trips to the Gas station in order to fill our diesel tank up utilizing our small 2.5 gal spare portable tank.

Tuesday, April 13

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Locks open at 7am so we headed out after a small tomatoe/egg quiche for breakfast. A farmers yellow lab discovered us in “his” territory and I came up on deck after I decided he was NOT going to stop barking at us. Threw him some bread and after gobbling it up, he pranced on his way down the path…Must be a trick he has learned over the years.

We arrived in Reims around 2pm Tuesday and stopped near city center at their Halt Nautique. It is not officially opened for the season but plenty of space to tie up. We decided we desperately needed Internet and a hot shower so lucky for us, across the street was a Mercur Hotel. We will stay here 2 nights, getting some work done and then some Reims exploration. The Hotel was great and being across the street from the boat made our “logistics” incredibly easy. Ken caught up on some work and I made sure the boat was ready and looking great.

We had a wonderful lunch Le Jardin which was settled in a complex that housed a 5 star Hotel. A beautiful old chateau that was transformed into a beautiful hotel. We stopped at Pommery Champagne House down the road and had our first Champagne tasting. They had an old wooden cage that was used and on exhibition in St. Louis for the Worlds Fair. Hope the picture does it justice.

Monday, April 12

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Left Pinon at 9am and motored through 5 quick locks that brought us up to the summit to the Braye Tunnel. This tunnel was not lit as well as the other two, but very interesting.

After the tunnel and the summit we had 4 quiet locks (going down is much easier in the locks) and head left on the Canal Lateral de l’Aisne . We stopped in Maizy for lunch, walked the 2 blocks to the main street and found one pub open. We think we got there when he was going to close for the afternoon, but instead he fed us a wonderful, filling, hot meal. He was very kind and interested in our journey. We paid up and continued on for our day’s journey.

We discovered that our bilge was not working and so when we arrived in Berry-au-bac (our nights stop) we took it apart, cleaned and checked all the wiring. Ken will order one and bring it back with him on his next journey to USA.

After a bite to eat we took a long walk along the canal path. When you are in a boat, exercise is a difficult task so we took advantage of the early evening’s sun and nice temperatures.

When we reach Reims we will have traveled 452 Kilometers, and 71 locks 2-handed. Didn’t know if we could do it alone, but we have become quiet skilled for sure.