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French Sabbatical
1. Setting It Up
2. The Preview
3. French Christmas
4. Univ. of Rouen
5. Parents Visit
6. 2 Weeks in Paris
7. Spring Sights
8. 1st Week- Périgord
9. 2nd Week- Périgord
10. Adv. in Brittany
11. 1st Week- Alps
12. 2nd Week- Alps
13. England & Home
14. They Visit Us
15. Other Visits
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Master of Arts in
Counseling Psychology ("MAC")
 5.
Merry's Parents Visit
In the spring, Merry's
mother and father came to France to spend a few weeks with us. We
had a marvelous visit with them.
One of our favorite side-trips was to the beaches of the WW II
D-day Landings in Normandy. Her father, himself
a WWII vet, loved that, as did we all.
We
first took them to Ouistreham, the site of a large five-story Nazi
artillery observation bunker — part of what was called, "the
Atlantic Wall." It was
now a museum with a reconstruction of the bunker as it had been
in 1944. We climbed up from
floor to floor, looking at the various displays,  until
we reach the observation
room at the top, which looked out over the English Channel.
It was all very fascinating. And
to think that we were walking through the rooms and on the stairs used by
the Nazis 50 years earlier!
Then,
we went out on the actual beaches of the D-Day invasion.
Here I am on the remains of an old concrete barge
half-buried in the sand.
 We
all loved the museums - even the boys. We spent hours in the
Memorial Museum followed by the Omaha Beach Museum at St.
Laurent-sur-Mer where the owner gave us a WWII bullet.
We decided to explore for our own. It was after a storm and
debris had been washed up on the sandy rocks.
Imagine our excitement when the boys started finding our own
sediment encrusted, WW II bullets among the rocks!
The smaller one on the right is a rifle bullet and the
larger, a machine gun bullet. We
just couldn't believe we had found 50 year-old, live ammunition laying among
the rocks, and coming from one of the famous battles of history.
 Well,
we saw many other things with Merry’s parents.
One of the other gems was our favorite little town of Honfleur, just
across the Seine River from Le Havre. It was still early
in the year but we were treated to a beautiful day.
Merry's
mom loved the palace of Louis XIV at Versailles.
It was huge! We drove round the
massive gardens behind the palace.
It was like we were driving in the country, yet we were in the middle of Paris, one of the biggest cities in
the world.
We didn't go inside the palace itself — but we were very satisfied with what we did see.
 Granna's
favorite sight had to be the spectacular Eiffel Tower. It
is much larger than people expect and very impressive as you can see in
this photo of Braden sitting across the river from the Tower.
Their last night in France found us on the Tower's elevator and rose higher and higher to the third floor.
What a breath-taking view! Granna
couldn't get over it; we have rarely seen her so thrilled. "Gosh!
This is really exciting, isn't it!" she kept saying.
And, it was very
exciting. The evening was
beautiful, perfect for the activity.
We stayed until the guides threw us all out at midnight.
 In
the morning,
we
drove
them
to the Charles de Gaulle airport. While
there,
I
showed an airline attendant one of the WW II machine gun bullets we had found on
Omaha Beach. "Whoa!
Ah, no, no, no! Ah, no! That's a
live machine gun bullet!! That's
a $10,000 fine if we let you take that one!
Ah, no, no, no!" That
was a problem we would have to work on. It was time for them to
go. Granna
choked up a little, kissed us both, and they were gone.
It was
the last time Merry saw her father alive. When he returned to Lacey,
he was diagnosed as having terminal pancreatic cancer. He died two
months later.
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