Fly Like An Eagle

Here at the chalet we have our own little kitchen where we have the drinks and ice and such.  Also in this kitchen is a bread machine.  It's an odd thing to have in France and I've never seen Zoe use it, nor do we eat bread here, it's all baguette and croissants.  So what's with the bread machine?

So looking at it the other day it looked to have these weird cubes inside and I couldn't figure them out... Why is that in the bread machine?  It looks like ice.  I never thought much about it again until this morning when I went to get ice for my water bottle for today's hike and noticed the cubes were the same shape at the one's I'd seen in the bread machine.  So I go back to look and sure enough now it's full on them.  Oh shit- it's an ice maker, not a bread maker!  I thought the ice was being made in the freezer where we were getting the ice from, I never realized someone was just transferring it there.  Apparently I wasn't the only one confused because John noticed Ben taking ice out of it too and was like "Why is Ben taking ice out of the bread machine?" HAHA.  And you have to admit, it does look like a break maker...

Today is our day off!  After 3 big days of hikes, my shins are sore, my hips are sore, my feet are so tired and I can't complain because I'm over half the age of many in my group.  Suck it up princess.  Nevertheless I think we're all happy to have a day off and get to check out the sights in the town.  Our plan is to go up to La Mer de Glacé (Ice Caves) in the morning and come back into town so that John, Susan and I can go paragliding.  Yep.  Paragliding - like the "off the edge of a mountain" type.

We took a train up to the ice caves and early bird gets the worm, there was almost no one up there.  It was already getting warm at 10 am and so it was good we went early.  It's a gondola ride half way down and then another 500 steps down (and eventually back up) to the entrance of the ice caves.  The ice caves are caves carved into the Mer de Glace glacier.  It was so cool!  Tunnels and fun carvings inside the glacier.  I can now say I've been INSIDE a glacier.  It's sad though to learn and see how much it has receded.  On the way down to the entrance there are markers along the way showing the level of ice from 1985 to present roughly every 5 to 10 years.  And every year it's losing anywhere from 4-10m of depth.  I guess they have to add more stairs every year and rework the ice caves accommodate the lower ice levels.  It's mind blowing to see where the ice used to be, even 30 years ago.  Seeing pictures from 1915, it's unimaginable.  We had a great time checking those out.

The train got us back down around noon and we were all a little hungry (Sue, John, Susan and I) so we decided to grab some food before our 2pm flight time.  Sue wasn't coming paragliding and the 3 of us kept psyching each other out.  All new to this and all a little terrified.  We found a restaurant that was right in the path of the paragliders and there were so many coming down all the time it reassured us.  Plus it was a beautiful day.  The rain was supposed to roll in, but it stayed hot and sunny all day.  No cancellations for us.

We get to the shop early and it all moves pretty quick.  You only pay once you land and there are no wavers or liability forms to sign.  It's so bizarre.  The sign outside also says "for ages 4+"...well if a 4 year old can do it, how bad can it be?  There are 4 drivers (going tandem obviously) and 3 of us, so we all got to go together which was great.  We get driven to a cable car, then from there walk a short ways up to a grassy area which basically leads to a cliff.  It's not wide, 50 feet or so.  We all get rigged up and given instructions... "When I say run, you just run as hard as you can straight out".  Uhhhh you realize you're asking me to run off a cliff, right?  Yep, just run and don't stop no matter what you do.  This is insane!  We are 1000m above the valley and all I keep thinking about is "what if my harness lets go?"  But John is ready to go before Susan and I and he takes off.  A minute or so later he's floating above us woohoooing and having a great time.  Before I know it it's my turn.  No time to think.  He says run and as instructed, I RUN!  The chute catches, pulls us back, my feet are now off the ground and I'm hanging there running still until we get over the edge and up.  He then tells me I can sit and I fall back into my harness and literally sit there like in a swing.  HOLY SHIT that was cool!.  Terrifying, but cool.  No dropping, it literally lifts you off the ground.  So now we're floating high above the Chamonix valley and it's amazing.  Just like a soaring eagle.  He tried to get us up towards John but couldn't catch the right thermals.  We did go higher and across the valley, up there for a good 20 minutes or so.  The only problem was I felt very nauseous.  Me and my good ol' motion sickness.  Luckily after 30 years I can manage it well, but I really didn't feel so good.  Otherwise it was the craziest thing ever.  He even asked if I wanted to try driving it or doing a trick or 2, and if I didn't feel like I was going to lose my lunch, I would have said yes, but I politely declined.  The landing was also pretty interesting, smooth and simple.  No photos, but I do have GoPro footage.  And some victory poses from the 3 of us for our first successful paragliding experience.  GO TEAM!  I would definitely do it again, but would take a gravol first HAHA.  You definitely feel like an eagle.

It was scorching now and Sue and I tried to do a bit of shopping but it was so hot.  I treated myself to probably my last "Glace" in Europe for a while and to celebrate not dying.  We took "the long way" back to the bus stop and headed back to the chalet to rest and grab a drink or 2 and would come back out later for dinner.  The others were all headed to a recommended restaurant close by but Sue and I didn't want to be committed to something like that so we never got a reservation and headed back into town around 8.  Stores and such were all closed but all the restaurants were hopping as per usual.  We settles on a place and I had a Croute Montagnarde - a local specialty.  Very rich with ALOT of cheese.  How the French are not morbidly obese is beyond me.  THis was garlic bread topped with bacon, tomato, cheese and their sauce and broiled in the over.  YUM.  A million calories, but absolutely delightful.

Walking home was an adventure.  For the first time I got us "lost"... Well not really lost, but just somehow on the wrong side of the river, with no way to get back across.  Not even sure how it happened.  We were walking parallel with our street and also the riven, but by the time I realized where we were, there was no place to cross back over.  And according to the paper map we were given, we should have been able to catch the bridge on the far side of our chalet, but the road it said it was connected to was a dead end.  It was so weird.  So the only thing I knew to do was to back track and pull open Google Maps to figure out what our options were.  It was getting pretty dark and Sue didn't like the street we were on (it was poorly lit) but we had to go back.  Like almost all the way back in order to catch the right street.  I did see an option closer on Google Maps, but when we got that far we seen it was an overpass and not an intersection.  CRAP!  Luckily it wasn't much further but by then we were almost back where we started.  Finally back on our street it wasn't lit much better than the other street, but this is the only way back.  Closer to home I needed to use my phone flashlight just to see where we were walking.  We did make it back, and got a nice long walk out of it all the same.  So much for a day off from walking.  

I really wish one of us would have had a pedometer of sorts to record how far we've walked on this trip - we are definitely over 100 km, just not sure how far over.