Totally Different Weather Systems

And back to past adventures:

Saturday, September 13, 2008

So, as planned, we packed up from our Fontainebleau campsite on the morning of the 13th. It was chilly. (Nika: I'm sure it was below freezing last night! Nick: Then there would be frost. Nika: I think there was frost! Nick: You don't know what frost is.) However, at least the sun was poking out through the clouds.

About an hour away from Fontainebleau, though, it began to cloud over. I said "uh oh." Nick said that I shouldn't worry, and that Orpierre would be in a totally different weather system than us up in the North. Two hours away from Fontainebleau, it began to sprinkle. Nick reaffirmed that I had nothing to worry about, and that we should have great weather down south. Three hours away, it was raining. We stopped for lunch at a very strange highway rest area that was decorated in a "giant mushroom" theme for no apparent reason.



From there, it was back in the car, and the rain continued in an on-and-off pattern. I started to get excited when I began to see a lot of exposed rock on progressively higher hills. We were apparently getting into the Hautes-Alpes region -- which is actually in reality the foothills of the Alps. However, although it appeared we were getting closer to our destination, the weather really didn't look to be getting much better. Eventually we pulled off the main road for the last 35 miles of our journey, having paid over 40 euros in tolls (about $60) on the péages. Sidenote: I was in charge of the tolls, being on the left-hand side of the car. This stressed me out immensely. Nick added to this by being unable to get close enough to the tollbooths.



Once we got into the windy mountain roads that would take us up to Orpierre, it had pretty much stopped raining, but the thermometer in Nick's car started dropping sharply. Nick said, "Oh, that thing's never accurate" -- but I could tell from the way he said it that it read high. I sat there practicing multiplying-by-nine, dividing-by-five, and adding 32. The mountain driving was standard mountain driving in that it was windy curvy roads. I was sure Nick was about to drive off the edge. Meanwhile, while we were in more of the valley-type areas, we passed a few random aqueduct-type structures. Strange!



We made it into the Orpierre "city centre" which was really just a handful of buildings by about 5 or 6 in the afternoon. Temperature guage read 9, and it was overcast. We found the campsite and succesfully checked in without too much drama -- it was all very close to the climbing. We then cooked dinner, took showers, and went to bed. The showers were in cubicles that were covered by a roof, but still exposed to cold outside air, which didn't thrill me. The water pressure was decent, but the length of the push-button in the shower was literally only about 5 seconds, making showering difficult compared to the practically luxurious 25 second showers at the Fontainebleau campsite. But I survived.