Larry L. Lynch

Biking Normandy and Brittany with Paris to follow

2011-09-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Our Backroads tour group before final dinner.

Day 2 -- Getting ready to go another 20 miles

2011-09-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

Here and in posts below are personal photos from the bike tour Kathy and I took through Normandy and Brittany this summer. Also I’ve included a few pictures from our four days in Paris.

We’re not yet very good with Kathy’s IPhone. Missing are several of the pictures I’d like to post -– of the Shakespeare Book Store on the Left Bank near Notre Dame and of the view of a church across green fields at one of our hotels. They were shot in video by mistake and when I find someone to help me pull out stills, I’ll post them.

The six-day Backroads bike tour through Normandy and Brittany provided everything we hoped for-- great food, wonderful hotels, great guides and van support. We did the short routes, usually about 19 miles. Our tour companions mostly did the longer rides of 35 to 50 miles. Notice that in the group photo they all look relatively young – at least to me -- even though a number of the strong bikers are older than I am – and that’s old.

For the first two days on the bike, Kathy wasn’t wearing glasses that allowed her to read the directions on the front of the bike. She was certain I had her lost all day. Once someone loaned her sunglasses that covered her reading glasses, she was a bit more trusting.

That is until we got to Paris. We wandered around trying to find our hotel from the Metro stop for more than an hour in a humid 85 degrees, tugging bags after us until we consulted a group of National Police who couldn’t give us good directions but suggested a taxi. Voila. Viva la France the taxi driver shouted as we pulled up in front or the hotel a few confusing blocks away. The picture of me looking at the map was taken on a better day – a set up. If it had been taken that day of searching for the hotel, I wouldn’t have been smiling.

Above: Getting ready for the Day 2 ride. Note Kathy is clutching the directions that she can’t read without stopping.

NOTE -- TO SEE ALL 12 PHOTOS YOU'LL NEED TO DOUBLE CLICK HEADLINES AT RIGHT

The entry to the old Brittany citadel of Dinan

2011-09-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

TO SEE MORE OF THE 12 PHOTOS CLICK ON POSTING NAMES IN COLUMN TO THE RIGHT

Kathy and big gun at a German bunker behind Omaha beach

2011-09-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

Holding up Mont-St.-Michel

2011-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

(To see this popular pilgrimage site in full, just Google the name and the post-card shots pop up.)

Our own concert on a Brittany hilltop

2011-09-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

Ocean view from Chateau Richeux

2011-09-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

View of Chateau Richeux, our last hotel, from beach

2011-09-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

Kathy on Montmartre with Paris behind her

2011-09-25T11:47:00.001-07:00

Finding my way in Paris

2011-09-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

Notre-Dame from walkway along Seine

2011-09-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Windows of Notre Dame from inside

2011-09-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Closer to the end than the beginning

2008-06-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

That's me with my father when he was about 80 and I was 56, give or take a year or two for both of us. He died at 85, not long after he told my wife the only thing he regretted was that "I spent so much time on women." But that's not what he told me when he showed me his stash of secretly penned short stories. You never knew what he really thought because he always tailored his comments to his listener. I guess my excuse for posting this is that Farewell Bend is, in part, a story about my old man during his best years, when he edited and published The Farewell Bend (read Ontario, Oregon) Argus-Observer.

Coaching my step grandson's soccer team, two years ago when he was five

2008-06-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Finley is No. 8 with his back to the camera. He and his buddies went 7-1-0 though who's keeping score. Finley's dad called them the "thundering herd" for the way they drove on goal, for which I could take no credit.

Kathleen Cairns in The Enigma Woman's hideout

2008-06-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

This shows how far Kathleen Cairns, my wife and relentless editor, will go in researching her non-fiction books. Here she is digging for details in the Frazier Park mountain community north of Los Angeles, where Nellie May Madison went to get away from the apartment where she shot her "husband." Nellie was hiding in this closet when police arrived to take her back to face interrogation at the hands of both cops and reporters. I tried to get Kathy to put this photo in her book, but she resisited.

At work at the typrewriter during high school

2008-06-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

My journalism and political career

2008-06-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

1964-67 --- Government and police reporter for The Long Beach Independent-Press Telegram

1968-70 --- Political consultant, Spencer-Roberts and Associates, Los Angeles

1970-71 --- Director Public Relations, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles

1972-91 --- Suburban bureau chief, assistant city editor, city editor, political writer, editorial writer, Sacramento bureau correspondent, Long Beach Independent and Press Telegram

1991-02 --- Editor, publisher and co-author of a non-partisan, independent Sacramento-based political insider newsletter Political Pulse and its sister publication, Political Pulse’s Education Beat. Sold that in 2003.

2003-08 --- Semi-retired writer, editor, and community volunteer