Prologue

PROLOGUE 

[Note: the title of the blog in English is The French Bucket.]

Le Bleu, Blanc et Rouge and the Red, White & Blue at Utah Beach

As I neared retirement 10 1/2 years ago and realized my wife and I were not immediately bound for the poorhouse, I began to assemble a bucket list of places I absolutely had to visit before exiting stage right. From the beginning at the top of my list was Normandy.  I've long been fascinated by military history, especially that of the Civil War and WWII. As one who was born just 3 years after WWII ended, I grew up with WWII as the focus of movies, TV shows (once we bought a TV), comic books, the occasional "real" book, toys, model airplanes, and the pretend games little boys played. In fact, I still have most of my collection of WWII model airplanes that I built as a kid, and I very reluctantly gave up my plastic soldiers and artillery to younger kids. The only child of educators, I loved nonfiction books, and one of the first books I remember reading was from the We Were There series, historical fiction about kids who were involved with major historical events. The first of these that I read was We Were There at the Normandy Invasion. I was hooked and have wanted to visit Normandy ever since.

A 1956 classic

My wife, Susan, retired 2 years after I did, and she too worked up a bucket list. Our lists were generally, but not entirely, mutually inclusive. After over 40 years of marriage at that time, we had learned that it really was okay if all of our interests weren't entirely the same. There were places I really wanted to go that she didn't, and vice versa. Nevertheless, we usually planned travels that were important to both of us.  

Initially when we took long trips outside the US, it was to Australia to visit our friends from my graduate school days at the University of Florida in the early 1970's. We had remained close friends since that time. We took the kids to visit them and tour Australia in late 1988, then we and they visited each other a number of times during the 1990's and early 2000's. They actually lived in Starkville and worked at Mississippi State, where I worked, for a few years on 2 or 3 occasions. Our daughter did a study abroad semester at Keith's university her sophomore year of college and lived with them. So they are like family, but it's a major undertaking when we visit each other.  The bottom line is that Susan and I occasionally chose to use our time and money to visit Keith and Di in Australia.  In fact, we were at their house in a beautiful little coastal village in NSW on what was officially my last day of work in 2014. 

Nambucca Heads, NSW, Australia

We returned to visit them and to stop in New Zealand, another of my bucket list destinations, in 2018.

After COVID turned the world upside down and made travel unappealing if not impossible for a couple of years, we began pondering when we could and should get busy and take our top bucket list trips, which for me meant Normandy. With the COVID threat subsiding, in the fall of 2022 I decided to ease back into traveling by taking one of my bucket list trips to a closer destination, the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Susan had little interest in that one, so I went with an old high school buddy.  

Bay of Fundy, NB, Canada

Then we looked ahead to 2023, which was the year of both our 50th anniversary and my 75th birthday.  Since my dad had died at age 74, I felt some pressure to "git while the gittin's good."  Just one problem:  Susan and I had different preferences for our big anniversary trip.  Her preferred destination was Paris; mine was Greece.  As one might guess, in addition to natural beauty, her interest is primarily in cultural experiences; mine is history. We debated, researched, and chose to compromise on Italy, which ended up being quite a positive choice for both of us.  We spent about 10 days with a Tauck tour group on the Amalfi Coast, on the Isle of Capri, and in Rome. Both of us were immensely pleased with the trip and the beauty and history of Italy.

Positano, Italy

But the clock still ticked, and I had promised myself I'd see Normandy by the time I was 75.  I would be 75 until late November of 2024. So we got busy. There were just two problems:  1) During the spring and summer Susan was experiencing back problems which made sitting in particular very uncomfortable for her. It's kinda hard to travel to Europe without doing a fair amount of sitting. 2) Susan is not fascinated by WWII history, as I am. I began exploring a trip focusing on WWII sights with some of my college fraternity brothers who was also interested in military history, but all of them had already been to Normandy. Then I learned that the WWII Museum in New Orleans has tours of Normandy that I could join as a solo traveler.  It wasn't ideal, but I knew I'd get knowledgeable experts thoroughly taking me through Normandy. I could do a quick dash to England on my own, take the ferry across the Channel from Portsmouth, and meet up with the WWII Museum group in Bayeux, and go from there. The cost would be manageable compared to most other options.

Then ... things changed.  Susan's back started feeling better, and she talked to some others who had been to Normandy, who told her about the beauty and how relaxing it could be for her while I was at the landing beaches.  She decided she could manage Normandy after all, then we could do Paris.  We reached out to our travel agent who we had used for the Italy trip and asked her about the cost and feasibility of doing Normandy and Paris on our own.  She put together the proverbial offer we couldn't refuse, complete with air, train, and hotel reservations and a few half day tours in and around Paris. All of this would happen in late fall after the smoke had cleared from the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the Paris Olympics and Paralympics. We jumped on it!  

The plan was as follows: 

• Drive to Atlanta and fly direct to Paris on Air France. Susan would fly Business Class so she could recline on the 8 hour flight, and I'd fly their new intermediate Premium Economy class, which offered bigger, roomier seats that were considerably less than Business Class.
• Train from Paris to Caen, where we'd stay 1 night, rent a car, and drive to Bayeux, where we'd stay 2 nights. Then drive back to Caen, turn in the car, spend another night, and take a morning train back to Paris.
• I arranged 2 days with a tour guide who my fraternity big brother, a retired USAF colonel and student of military history, had used and was pleased with. The guide was also recommended in Rick Steves's books. Susan would have the car those 2 days. Then the third day she and I would drive to the American cemetery and some museums before returning to Caen.
• We'd then spend 4 days in Paris with 3-4 hour guided tours of the Louvre, a "panoramic" overview of Paris, Monet's home and gardens in Giverny, and a dinner cruise on the Seine. We also arranged our own trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower, the Palace of Versailles, and some museums and cathedrals.
• Then we'd fly back direct to Atlanta, drive to Birmingham AL, and spend the night with our daughter and family before driving home.

The bucket was at last full!