what to do when it rains

In Arizona as May and June approach the temps start to increase, a fact of life that usually elicits a certain amount of grumping on the part of the locals. Joe and I usually deal with the increasing Arizona heat by looking forward to the cooler temps in the French Alps and, in fact, usually arrive in the mountains with our warm clothes packed in the bottom of our bag, necessitating a fair amount of unpacking before finding the right kind of clothes for the moment. But that’s always part of the fun – standing by the side of the road shivering as we dig through the bags until we finally find our jackets.

This year we’ve not seen the sun for more than a few minutes since we arrived in Geneva and have had off-and-on rain and snow since arriving in the mountains. Remembering my earlier comment about the gods being against vacations in general, the ongoing rain/snow/sleet does give one pause. On the other hand, our unwillingness to go out hiking in the rain provides ample opportunity for long luxurious post-lunch naps. After the frenetic pace of the last weeks prior to departure, this is not bad at all.

Yesterday, since the weather was iffy, we drove the 30km (~20 miles) down the mountain to Bourg Saint Maurice, which is the nearest town. BSM is the end of a rail line and the jumping-off point for skiing, camping/fishing or mountaineering, depending on the season. It’s a sleepy little town that undoubtedly comes alive in the Winter and later Summer season but just lurches along during early June. It sports a variety of pensiones and small hotels, most of which are closed at this time of year, a cinema, numerous small restaurants selling steak et frites or pizza, outdoor cafes, little shops where one can buy postcards or batteries or flipflops or tents or toothpaste… you get the idea. There is also a SuperU (supermarche) and a McDonald’s. One of us (which is not I) has the occasional hankering for a hamburger, so we visit McDo’s, as it’s called in France, from time to time. McDonald’s also serves at times as our internet café, but more about that another time.

We needed a few grocery items and ventured into the SuperU. We had already purchased a week’s worth of food there when we arrived on Saturday, so this was just for some forgotten items. Most people think of France as the land of gourmet food and exquisitely prepared meals. What we have found over the years is that, at least in these mountains, restaurants offer little more than the above-mentioned steak et frites, pizza, or anything covered with cheese. Admittedly. milk, from cows, sheep and goats is plentiful in this land of pastures, but all the restaurants offer the specialty dishes of the region and ALL those dishes have melted cheese in one form or another - fondue, raclette, pierrade - the list goes on and on.

Furthermore, as you would expect, one of the largest sections in any large market or marché (open-air market) is devoted to cheese, which is usually inexpensive when compared to U.S. prices. And the variety is beyond belief. For example, if one wants bleu cheese, one finds not just plain ol’ bleu cheese but bleu cheese from many different regions of the country, each of which is a variation on a theme. The cheeses are available both packaged (useful for those of us whose French is limited) and in large display cases so that one may point to a particular variety and explain how many grams/kilos one wants. This is always a bit tricky. Over the years I’ve learned to translate ounces and pounds into grams and kilos, pints and quarts into liters, degrees Fahrenheit into degrees Centigrade but getting the desired amount right doesn’t always happen and from time to time I’ve left with either way too much or not as much as I wanted. I can clearly recall both very skimpy picnic sandwiches and times of having enough sliced meat in hand for a crowd of 20!