Le Pont du Gard (1989)

It was October in 1989 and Walt and I were starting a road trip from Grenoble to Toulouse and then north to Paris via Saint-Aignan and Chartres. (Little did we know that one day we'd end up living in Saint-Aignan, a place we had never even heard of back then. But that's another story.)

One of our first stops was the pont du Gard, an enormous Roman aqueduct about 30 minutes by west of Avignon by car. Not only did we see it from afar, but we climbed stairs up to the bridge's top level and walked the length of it. It was impressive and it felt more than slightly dangerous because there was nothing to prevent you from tripping and falling from up there into the river or onto the rocks 50 meters (164 ft.) below.

Walt took these pictures of the Pont du Gard. I'm not even sure that I traveled with, or even owned, a camera in those days. I found Walt's 1989 photos on my hard disk yesterday morning. Neither of us is in any of the pictures.

Notre maison en France

This a photo of the west-facing side of our house, which overlooks the back yard. I took it yesterday morning.
We bought the house in the spring of 2003 and have been living here since June of that year.

Clouds over the vineyard

Just a picture today.

Entering our hamlet from the west

We've been on a weather roller coaster for the past two or three weeks. High temperatures were at or even above 95 degrees Fahrenheit during the month of May. We experienced an unprecedented heat wave, considering it's not even summer yet. Now it's June and it's chilly outside and in the house too — almost cold is how it feels, because it's also very windy. Much of of France is getting rained on. I'm getting weather whiplash. We're under a thunderstorm watch today as well.