Pete writing…  We slept great. Our body clocks must have caught up. Woke to rain, a lot of it. Forecast was rain all day, so after breakfast we rode off into the rain. We followed a route suggested by Google - you know the ones that have a note that says ‘this feature is in beta, so don’t blame us if this route stinks’ or something like that. Within the first 100 yards we were bouncing along a rocky path. For most of the day we alternated between remote roads and trails and crowded roads. We’re going to go back to our other routing software tomorrow. Sorry Google.

It rained hard most of the day, but somehow it was still fun. The rain made the colors more vibrant and saved us the trouble of sweating. Our Houdini coats turned out to be not as rain proof as we hoped. Maybe next time we will bring plastic overcoats for days like this. We are grateful it wasn’t colder today.

Today we rode through lots of small towns. Sometimes our route would take us off the main roads and onto small unpaved village roads that have probably been there for hundreds of years. Crazy cool way to see Europe.

We were so soaked we decided not to stop for lunch or rests - just photos. We worried if we stopped moving we would get cold. Plus, we wanted to get to Sedan before it got worse. And we wanted to get dry.

We arrived in Sedan relatively early and checked into an older hotel near the center of town. It has character. (I mean that in a positive way.)

We showered and then scrounged for groceries, walked around a few hours, and found an open bike shop where we got some chain oil. We sat in a pretty garden park for a while. Then we looked at the massive castle fort of Sedan. The didn’t seem to be much else to see, so we found a simple dinner, bought some groceries for breakfast, and headed to our hotel.

Rain is in the forecast. We are excited to see more of France.