We finally made it back to France. We spent the last two weeks making sure that all of the paperwork was perfect, expecting that the immigration process would be very strict. When we arrived the line was pretty long but we have seen it longer. But, much to our surprise the immigration process was not any stricter than in the past. The only delay was a new automatic process where you scan your own passport and stand in front of a screen to have your picture taken. No one even wanted to see our vaccine cards, or the QR code we had downloaded from the French government. After all of the worry and stress about the new Covid requirements we were kind of disappointed.
The ride to Sens was uneventful. Since we were last in France the company where we store François was bought by a French company and they have relocated from the old farm compound that used to serve as our base to a proper garage and store building. They are also acting as a RV dealer for the French population of the town and not just overseas customers. I asked if they had seen a large downturn in overseas customers and they said no. While we were picking up we met an Australian couple, a South African couple and another American couple to prove their point.
The water pump was found to be defective while we were picking up François so we had a little delay while it was fixed. We were worried about the effect of having an unexpected two years of idleness and the water pump seems to have been the victim. After they repaired the water pump they also apologized and said that the starter battery had run down and not to let the van stop running for awhile.
After we settled the bills we headed off to the gas station to fill our LP gas. Knowing that the battery was low we debated whether we should leave François running while we filled, but when we had returned from our last trip in François we had an extra LP bottle installed for our system and this would be the first time filling, so we decided to shut him down to prevent having François go up in a fire ball if we had a gas leak.
After completing the fill and finding no gas leaks from the LP system it was time to move on. Unfortunately, the time we had let François run and the short drive to the gas station had not been enough to restore the battery, so when we went to start him up the battery was dead. The clerk at the gas station had already been really fun as she broke out her high school English when I purchased the the gas, now I got to test her language skills further when I asked for her help to reach Eurocamping cars. She stayed past the end of her shift and insisted on giving Ton and me a free cup of coffee while we waited. Eventually we got hold of Eurocamping cars and they sent one of the mechanics to give us a jump.
It is always amazing how when we run into problems the most unexpected people come to the rescue. The clerk was our guardian angel and like usual I forgot to ask her name but I will always remember her kindness. She turned a potential bad day into a good day.
Our next stop was the Aire in Sens and after hooking up the electricity to charge our battery we headed out, grabbed some food and turned in for a well earned sleep. We had been up for about 26 hours straight minus a couple of cat naps on the plane.
I believe it took you less time to get your battery jumped in Sens than it did for me at Winco! You must have been wearing your dress blues, complete with stripes.
Good to hear you are back on the road. You jumped through all the right hoops it seems. We miss you guys already but have your blog to keep us warm.
By the way, I tried viewing your blog on my iphone but it could not hook up, either with Google or Safari? Is there a special trick for this?
We had a lot of help from the clerk at the gas station, and fortunately the company was only a couple of miles away. Not sure about the phone I will take a look later on my phone and see if I have the same problem.