Traveling, it is universally agreed, makes people act mad. Traveling with pets in this fashion proves it’s no act. Sometimes it really does help to be crazy...
It was late October in Paris. The baggage cart sagged under the load we had brought to begin our retirement to France. We stood in the parking lot at the Charles De Gaulle Airport at Roissy and considered the rental car. We had asked for a large one. A second look at the documents proved this was the car assigned to us. We looked at one another in dismay. When we had booked, we had explained carefully that we had tall kennels and had paid extra for the larger car. This was a low profile station wagon. Back to the rental desk we trudged. “Non,” the girl at the kiosk sighed, “z’ere ees no larger car.” She gave a winning smile as if that would help. It didn’t. We retraced our steps to the miniature station wagon and my husband worked out the logistics.
Fortunately, the cat kennel was not a problem and we put it in without letting the cat out. “Sorry, Maleah,” I said to him, “we’ll find a rest stop soon.” The cat had heard these kinds of lies before so he simply glared at me. The dog kennel, on the other hand, could not enter through any door. It was going to need disassembling. I walked the dog around the parking lot while my husband worked on the creative geometry that would allow the station wagon to hold all our belongings and yet leave room for us as well.
I apologized to my dog for the lack of grass or trees and promised again that soon, we would find them. Our dog was good. I suppose she had avoided drinking during the long flight and so we ambled around without incident. That is until we encountered a lady with a small, blood-thirsty mutt who threatened to eat my dog, me, or possibly both of us. Thankfully, it was on a leash so we took a few steps sideways and escaped to our car while, behind us, the lady wasn’t the least bit apologetic and instead, laughed heartily. She bobbed her head, smiled and yelled something to me in French about how wonderfully savage dogs were. Our own dog, being an angel, ignored this and walked at my side. We returned to the car and she jumped into the back section, curling up in the only space left. “Can you stand a two day drive with these two cases by your feet?” my spouse asked hopefully. “Pas de problem,” I said. I levered myself in and consulted the map as we pulled out. “Follow those arrows and turn right at the highway,” I told him. I was wrong. So wrong.
An hour later we were passing the airport once again (going in the right direction) and soon joined the stop-and-go traffic of the Parisian periphery roads. This was more like it. The cars crept along. Time passed and finally we saw the large, beautiful sign that read “SUD” (south) and left the city behind. Traffic was still heavy but at least it was moving and the overcast day suddenly felt sunny. The four lanes were already insufficient for the number of cars heading south when the lanes converged to become only three. Some of the maneuvers of the trucks made me sure they were elastic.
We listened to jazz and watched in amazement as the blur of one car after another overtook us. Although we were driving the 130 kilometer per hour speed limit, they made us feel like we were crawling. It didn’t matter. We wanted to arrive alive. Destiny beckoned and she had all the time in the world. The mad drivers wove in and out of the far-left lane and the center lane jam-packed with giant trucks whose gravity tugged us ever to the left. We resolutely stayed in the right lane and watched as both cars and trucks raced one another in the two fast lanes. Every now and then, an absolutely insane motorcyclist would arrive and thread through the space between the trucks and ourselves before disappearing quickly from view. Even as my husband put his foot down and the speedometer hit 140, we were the snails in the slow lane….Welcome to France.
And that was our initiation to the world of French drivers. The surprising part was that we never saw a single pile up or accident as we raced to the south of France. Join us next time...when we prove that "Nous sommes fous!" (We are Crazy - Part 4)
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