We went down for breakfast at about 8 and we're the only ones there for a while. I saw some kids peaking in wanting breakfast but they had to rouse the grownups first.
It was foggy but not raining. I'd heard lots of rain in the night so fog was ok. We were delayed by a phone - mine - that was plugged into a disconnected cord but still managed to be on the road around before 10.
It was foggy and cold but the scenery was nice and we were on a quiet road. We passed through more small towns. Today there were more hills and we had a lot of half kilometer stretches with 50 meters of climbing.
At around 25 km we came to L'Isle Jourdan which had a restaurant. It was before 1 so we got to eat. We are starting to catch on to the French eating timetable. The food was good but lunch in a restaurant is not a quick operation. We didn't leave until 2. On the patio was another EV3 cyclist going the same direction as us. She was lingering as we pushed off.
The sun came out! It was getting quite nice and warm in the sun. This was nice. Suddenly, Aidan's front tire exploded. I thought someone shot a gun near us at first. I looked over at him and saw a white puff of powder coming from his tire. His tire had shredded itself with a huge bang. Naturally, the other cyclist passed us as I'm changing the tire. Pretty much the only time I saw people was when I was fixing a tire today.
It didn't trust the other tube that was the same as the one that just exploded so I patched the last inner tube that had a small hole flat. That seemed to work but I was realizing the patch I was using would likely be quite a few years old.
A few minutes later my rear tire went flat. I patched the small hole in that tube with what I hoped was a younger patch. It held all day.
Soon we were in the home stretch and Aidan was a little tired from the extra climbing today so we took a coffee/apple juice break at a municipal park food stand. Refreshed we got back one the bike to find Aidan's patch failed. I redid the patch and we got to Confolen a few minutes later.
We crossed a stone bridge and our room for the night was the first house on the left. There were no marking so I called expecting to have to try French over the phone but an English guy answered. Our room is a large suite with a nice view of the river.
Dinner was just across the river at the hotel restaurant. For dessert I had the best combo of cheese and rhubarb jam.
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