Motorcycle trip in France - Day 1

Hi everyone !

After these great holidays in Florida with Laurel & Jeremy, I took a plane to Paris in order to see Nico. He lived in Puteaux near the French capital !

This is the view from his living room

He asked me if I wanted to come with him for his motorcycle road trip across the France. I didn’t know the French countrysides and I love motorcycling so I jumped at the chance ! The aim is to have fun with the motorbike on the french Alpes roads and to enjoy the wonderful landscapes.

So, this morning, we geared up and left for an of adventure of 8 days.

That's me trying my helmet

The first part of this trip was to go to Donzy Le Nationale. I can hear you from here ! Where the hell is this ! It’s a small town in Bourgogne (Our first hostel is there).

We started from Puteaux in the Paris’ suburb. The first 100 Km were not so cool. To get out the Paris Region, we had to take highways (straight roads and many people…). But after that, we took only small roads ; winding country roads :) ! And that was great ! About 300 Km of turns in forests and the massif central (french montains).

We took some pauses because motoriding is very exhausting. There are many lakes in Bourgogne and that was nice to rest near by. We profited of a picnic area to eat some sandwiches.

Bourgogne lake

Picnic time !

Me trying Nico’s motorbike :)

After 470 Km, we arrived at our hostel and rest a little. We are about to go to Cluny (a larger city at 15 Km) to find a restaurant and spend the evening. Tomorrow, we’ll go to Thonon les bains and the Lac Léman at the Swiss border !

Mischief at Sea World and Meeting Monkeys at the Zoo

I didn't get to mention this in my last post in detail, but I also adventured out to Sea World and the Brevard Zoo when I was out in Florida.

My visit to Sea World started off helping Jeremy and Laurel feed some stingrays, which was really cool. They would hold fish in their hands and the rays would come to gobble it up. I was scared the rays would eat their fingers, but all fingers survived unscathed. After watching dolphins do tricks and helping my escorts feed bottle-nosed dolphins (I was coaching), I decided that it was time to kick things up a notch and sneak behind the scenes. Before the Shamu show (Shamu the Killer Whale), I was found wandering the staff locker room and they were kind enough to include me in the show. So the picture here is of my incredible experience surfing a killer whale. I may have gotten salt in my mouth, nose, and eyes but it was well worth it. After the shows, I rode the amazing roller coaster Manta where I thought Laurel was going to let me go. All throughout the day I saw amazing fish and creatures I never imagined could exist. Where I come from, lion fish, sea dragons, sharks, dolphins, and sea creatures in general was something I only heard my mom talk about in fairy tales. The day ended anti-climatically with rain, rain, and more rain. At least I surfed a whale.

Towards the end of my visit to Florida, Jeremy and Laurel took me to the little county zoo (Brevard Zoo). I was immediately impressed with how the enclosures were spacious and utilized the natural terrain and plants of Florida. There were even local wild animals to be seen such as a little agile river otter munching a fish he had just caught in a stream running through the zoo. While the zoo itself wasn't big, it did have a decent collection of animals and it offered on-site kayaking through their Africa exhibit to see Giraffes, Lemurs, and Rhinos. They offered two other kayaking options but it was too hot to be paddling in the sun, so we passed on that and fed some lorikeets instead. I got a good laugh seeing Laurel covered in bright red and blue birds as they fought for the nectar she offered them in a little cup. Meanwhile, Jeremy was being chased by a parot for what seemed like five minutes as it tried to bite his sandal until a zookeeper came in to reprimand it. Apparently, it goes crazy over wheelchairs too. Finally, I was getting mighty adventurous (or perhaps mischievous) again so I did something crazy...
I talked with this friendly monkey dude (I can't remember his species...but I'm not one for prejudice) and he was kind enough to smuggle me into his cage and carry me on his back through the trees. It was fun, but I think it was getting a little attached because it tried to prevent me from getting back out. After a brief tug-a-war between the monkey and Jeremy with me as the rope, the monkey let go in search for better prospect children. Other highlights at the zoo included teasing alligators, watching a kid freak out when a lorikeet landed on him, watching another kid feed a giraffe, seeing some cool hawks and eagles, and seeing the largest rodent in the world (capybara). It was resting in the shade, but it looked like a guinea pig the size of small pony. Oh, and there were also red wolves (which are nearly extinct) and a bobcat.

All in all, it was a fun trip...I wonder what kind of adventures France will bring.

My first trip!

Not long after I was discovered in this pond in Oregon and talked to Laurel (my finder) about my desire to travel the world, I took off to Melbourne, Florida with her to visit her fiance Jeremy. Now, Jeremy lives on the Florida "Space Coast" and gets to surf and see spaceships every once in a while. Melbourne is also not far from Seaworld, or the Brevard Zoo, but I'll talk about that later.

While I was down in Melbourne, some tropical depressions, storms and Hurricane Bill stirred up some good waves and so we took advantage of these waves on several occasions. This is a picture of me getting surf lessons from Jeremy up at Cape Canaveral:

















I forgot to look (I was busy trying not to fall off the surf board), but Jeremy told me that when you're sitting out in the water waiting for a wave you could see the space shuttle!! (NASA was preparing for a shuttle launch you see.)

Now Jeremy has been surfing a few months now, and taught me about where to place myself on the board, how to paddle out through those big waves (ok, ok, so maybe they were only big to me) and how to balance on my board. I never actually got to stand up and surf a wave in because I kept falling off! Good thing that board is attached to your leg so you don't lose it!!

There aren't any pictures, but I did manage to ride in a few waves while laying on the board. Got a lot of sand in unusual places because of it too! I guess that's why surfers hop off their surf boards before running up onto the beach...you don't get sand weird places when you're still in the water. ;)

Anyway, that's it for my surf adventures on this trip. Apart from my few feeble attempts at surfing (at least I didn't lose 2 pairs of sunglasses like Laurel!) I spent most of the time with Laurel watching Jeremy and his friends catch some real waves. Next time maybe I'll be better.


So about that shuttle launch...

As you can see, there are two launch pads to my right. The one closest to me is Launch Pad 1, and the one farthest away (with the space shuttle on it that you could see from the water when we were surfing) is Launch Pad 2. Its hard to tell, but the space shuttle is actually there. You just have to look really closely.

I thought it was pretty cool that we were surfing so close to these shuttles (yes they are still far away but come on! how often do you get to see a real live spaceship?!?!

So anyway, when there's a shuttle on a launch pad, it's a pretty safe bet that there's going to be a launch. So I had Laurel check online (its kind of hard for me to type) and sure enough there was a launch scheduled while I was down! You can't imagine how excited I was...how often do you not only get to see a spaceship like I did but also get to see it take off!?!? SUPER excited. The launch was set for Monday, but because of weather or something or other it didn't happen. Then it was set for Tuesday (at 1:10 am) and we all piled into the car to go see the launch. We stood out on a seawall across the water from the launch and could see all of NASA lit up and blinking.

While we waited for the launch we watched the fish swimming in the water below. You could see them because the water lit up where they swam! Jeremy and Laurel said it was from phosphorescent plankton in the water (tiny creatures that light up when they are disturbed in the water). The coolest thing was two dolphins swimming through the water and making it light up. Even though it was really dark, you could see where the dolphins were even when they were under water!!

Well, it turns out the launch didn't happen that night, there was some problem with a valve or something like that, and so I never got to see the launch. It was rescheduled for today, and then for tomorrow, but I was already off on my next adventure. I hope I get to see another before NASA stops launching stuff up into space!

Anyway, those were some of my adventures while in Florida. Next stop...FRANCE!

Greetings

Hello!!! My name is Henri and I was discovered in a pond in Oregon.

My passion is travel and this blog is the story of my adventures around the world. I love visiting friends and my goal is to spend as much of my time as possible flying around the world and hanging out with friends, please help me on my quest to become the most well-traveled international hippo ever!