Versailles (updated)

(Edited Tuesday night to add movie, and THANKS to my office mates!)

Alright, before the Versailles stuff, here are a couple of random photos from during the week. If you're saying to yourself "eh, I'll skip 'em and get to the good stuff", well don't or you'll miss the kids in drag.

Moving on, our tour yesterday (Sunday) was delightful all around - great weather, beautiful setting, fun kids, and a good guide. We owe huge thanks to my office mates from EPA, who found the Fat Tire tour folks and got us a very generous gift certificate. Plus, they got it back when the dollar wasn't in such crappy shape, so it was worth something! Our friends at Fat Tire have been very indulgent of our constantly hanging about distracting them from work, so it was nice to finally be able to take a tour with them!

I wish I had the energy to tell you in more detail, but I don't, so for now you'll find some pictures and an excerpt from an email Betsy sent KEG about it. Also check out the movie of the boys getting ready.

This weekend we took a bike tour out to Versailles. It was really fun -- we saw the castle, of course, and also a lot of the gardens. There's something like 750 acres, so we saw only a small part of the whole grounds, but still covered a lot more than you can get to on foot. We had a picnic lunch down at the end of the grand canal, which has a straight view about a mile up to the chateau. The kids were so good. Carter rode his own bike, and Calvin went on a trail-a-bike (have you seen these? It's basically half a bike, with a seat, handlebars, and a back wheel. The front hooks onto the seat of an adult's bike, so the back end just gets pulled along. The kid can pedal if he wants, but the only necessity is that he hold on.) Calvin got jostled a little on a couple bumps in the path, but never fell off and was so proud of himself. It was a little nervewracking with Carter on his own bike when we were on the streets (we took the bikes on a train out there, so had to go back and forth to the train stations from the bike shop). His main problem is that he gets distracted by the passing scenery, or his bike chain, or other interesting things, and forgets to look up and go straight. But the guide took really good care of him, and Carter never complained about being tired or anything -- he really only complained about me nagging him all the time to pay better attention. Now he's lobbying to go on a multi-day bike tour somewhere in the countryside.