Winding Down

One week from today we will be on a plane back to Florida. The two weeks since we returned from Normandy has seen us focused on getting the barge ready for its long winter sleep. It's not the kind of stuff that makes for scintillating reading in a blog post--kind of like watching paint dry. Oh, wait, it's exactly like watching paint dry, since painting is a large part of what we've been doing.

As we've known since we bought C.A.R.I.B. III, the roof above the salon

was in dire need of painting. For whatever reason--either bad or no

preparation before its last paint job--the paint was peeling horribly

The roof after sanding, priming, and painting. It looks 

good now; let's hope it still looks good when we get

back in the spring. In addition to the roof we also

repainted all the railings and spot painted the hull.

This past weekend (Sept. 21-22) was the 36th Annual European Heritage Days. Cities and towns throughout Europe host events and open their doors to monuments and sites--some not normally open to the public--as way for attendees to learn about their cultural heritage. The heritage events in Auxonne this year were developed to recognize and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Napoléon Bonaparte. Auxonne is very proud of the fact that, as a young artillery officer, Napoléon was stationed in Auxonne intermittently during the 1788-1791 period and attended the Artillery School that existed here at that time.

Lon and I attended two of the weekend's events. The first, on Saturday night, was a free concert-lecture in Auxonne's event room. The theme was "In the Music Salon of the Empress Josephine."

A pianist, a tenor, a soprano, and a narrator: the evening consisted of

readings from archival documents and letters of the Napoleonic period,

 interspersed with vocal and/or instrumental pieces (also of the time period). 

The music was wonderful, and despite not being able to understand much

of what the narrator was saying, we very much enjoyed his part simply

 because of the lively way in which he "got into" the readings. 

Dinner after the concert gave us an opportunity to socialize with fellow Floridians Barb and Mike Etsell (from the city of Englewood on the west coast, a little to the south of Venice). We met Barb and Mike very briefly during our last visit to the marina in Pont-de-Vaux in August. They have a cruiser in a slip in Pont-de-Vaux, but we didn't meet them in the spring because they had already started cruising by the time we arrived in late April. They contacted us when they stopped in Auxonne during an end-of-season cruise on the Saone and Petite Saone.

Mike and Barb and "pizza  night" in Auxonne. They had
some interesting boating stories from their pre-France
cruising days. 

On Sunday we attended our second event of the weekend.  The local Auxonne army base--where the 511th transport regiment (Régiment du Train) is stationed--opened its doors for guided tours of the rooms that Napoleon lived in while stationed in Auxonne as well as the regiment's present-day "Hall of Honor."  

The open window shows the location of

Napoleon's room. 

Napoleon was born as "Napolionne de Buonaparte" on the

island of Corsica in 1769, one year after the island passed 

from Genoese to French hands. The child of minor Italian

nobility, his name was "Frenchified" sometime after the

family's move to France. 

The anteroom to Napoleon's bedroom was 

a mini-museum. The tour guide was a soldier
from the regiment--a very engaging, funny fellow.
We didn't understand much, so we just "made it
up" in our minds until we could get back to the
computer and do a little research. I'm sure we
missed some amusing anecdotes.

The main "salle de Napoleon" 

Making our way to the Hall of Honor

The Hall of Honor was a meeting/conference room (note
the table) with two floors of memorabilia from
French military campaigns dating back to the Napoleonic
era. Much of the memorabilia of the last 70 years is
specific to the regiment. It might  be time to stop fighting--there
was only enough remaining space for one "future" campaign.

We leave Friday for a weekend in Paris, so we have a two more days to complete our specific "winterizing" tasks: Lon's doing oil changes, water system prep, and below-decks organization; and I'm doing most of the above-decks inside cleaning and sorting. We've had plenty of time, so it's a much more relaxed process for us this year than it was last year.

This could be a variation on the "ugly duckling" story, but I really don't
believe the muskrat thinks it's a duck.