An acquaintance has arranged a trip to France. Everything is completely digitally pre-processed and arranged. Until the coffee stops. No wine is drunk at lunch. Smoking is prohibited in the hotel rooms.
We do it differently
We just do something. Inland, that was thirty kilometers off the map. Maps are useful. You have more overview than with GPSserij and the batteries never break. So we drove at a leisurely pace through the forest. Heading for the sun. The trails were clear. The day was beautiful. A fat man with a gun over his shoulder and a young lanky stepped in our path. In France you take men with guns seriously. “What we did?” “We have found a short route to 'X'”, we smiled innocently. The ranger looked at our engines. Foreign off-roads, they could be shot at. But two weathered touring bikes, one with a boulemic sidecar, were not subject to the local hunting ordinance. “C'est d'accord. Continuez votre route”, the fat one smiled.
On a tame wild boar hunt
We asked if he was also working on a shorter route or was doing something else. Ah! That was indeed the case! "Allons, nous cherchons Drouff". “Drouff avec double 'f'“ explained the thin one, who turned out to be a forester in training. Drouff with the double 'f' turned out to be the forester's tame wild house hog. The beast sometimes ran away. Off the yard. Into the woods. A brief explanation of the wild boar location followed. In the afternoon they sit in the valleys, on the eastern side of the dampest slopes. "And he loves white chocolate," added the skinny, taking a bite of a white chocolate bar. We asked if we could help with the silly boar hunt and were given white bars of chocolate.
Drouff was found and happily grunting on a leash
The thin and the boar went into the sidecar. The boar had no problem with that at all. Because the beast did not have to walk and the supply of white chocolate turned out to be inexhaustible. The fat one went on the back of the Honda. Seen from behind, the fat man seemed to float carefree in a half crouch above the ground. His rifle poked perky above his driver's helmet. The stuff was delivered to the company Landrover and we were invited to come and have a glass later on the local terrace.
In France, traffic and alcohol go well together
A fat Mercedes-Benz passed by on the terrace. He honked. The equally fat driver raised a hand heavily ringed with gold. On his wrist he had a gold watch the size of a pizza plate. Forest ranger and ranger helper looked at each other with blank eyes. “Le con.” 'The asshole' so…
The man was the local contractor. Had a lot of French Euros. He was only tolerated because he had the best pack of herding dogs in the region. But last fall he sat behind the game screen waiting to get some hunted game ready for cooking. He heard something behind him. Turned from his stool with unexpected suppleness, squatted and fired. His best hunting dog received two double zeros in the chest and died with one last astonished look at his master.
'Le con'. Cheers. It was getting late. We slept in the forester's house. Because in France, alcohol and traffic go hand in hand. But there are limits.
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Good story. I sometimes like to take a route that I drove 50 years ago to a holiday address. You only see how much has changed and how little you see nowadays when you ride your tomtom.
Beautiful piece of weather, thank you 🙂 Refused to purchase a GPS for ten years, found the map on your lap or in the tank bag perfectly adequate. But yes, at a good moment you unfortunately really have to put on reading glasses and that leads to the choice of being able to read a map or see the road. Ok, or stop of course to read the map 😉 But that didn't exactly work ideal anymore, after of course muddling through for a while to maintain for yourself 'that it was still going well'.
In short, I finally bought a GPS (only in the car) and it usually works great to get from A > B. But maps remain fun and in principle are used for motorcycle rides, just like hand gestures instead of a communication set, although those motorcycle rides have unfortunately become a bit out of the picture due to all kinds of circumstances. Let's see if we can pick it up again next year!
Inimitable Dolphin. 'We just do something' and that's when you experience the best things.
I think the GPS is much better than the old-fashioned map! I give it to everyone!
Then the most beautiful routes remain for me, mapped out on that old-fashioned map…
If I have to go to the toilet here at home, I do it with the route planner because otherwise I get lost! I really get lost everywhere and, if there were no route planners, I would almost never arrive "somewhere".
My experience is that most people have no idea how annoying this is.
And I just discovered nice parts of the Netherlands and Germany through the route planner: type in your destination, draw a straight line there and make sure that you “prick” stopovers everywhere so that you have the shortest route via the smallest roads.
However, I have not (yet) come across white chocolate eating domestic white pigs….. often pink elephants after visiting local establishments on the road.
Learn to drive with a navigation and if it gives the pipe to Maarten you don't know where you are anymore. Orientation shriveled to the size of a pea. As the Germans say:
“Im Notfall functions nur Einfaches”(!)
In the nineties I worked as a sales representative in France, have literally been everywhere in the most impossible places. And that with Michelin maps, tickets from the tourist office and questions. Often drove wrong, but got everywhere. Had a great time! Navigation is much easier, but not more fun.
Nice story by the way and funny such a chocolate eating pig.
Since my stupidity gave up the ghost, I drive a lot calmer and sometimes a turn too far…
But I still get everywhere just like I used to and unlike driving the domdom I now remember the routes (approximately)….
Early granny used to do without it, so now she can do without it too.
And if I'm completely lost, I can always start up the phone with maps…
Nice article, it once again puts us on the ground in this over-digitized world.
A holiday planned out completely in advance leaves no room at all for improvisation or fun turns, and that's what makes a holiday so much fun: improvisation and unpredictability and not knowing what adventure the next day will bring.
And with an old-fashioned map you come across hidden treasures more often than with a dull GPS, but that's to each his own