Today we set out for the towns of Blois and Beaugency in our little rental car (the second one following yesterday’s incident). In Beaugency we walked through a smaller, very old church with incredible stained glass windows. In many of the churches, the stained glass panels placed around the church told the stories in the Bible in picture form so that the townspeople could follow the stories without needing to read them. Some were just gorgeous and vibrant like this one.

Today is a national holiday in France called “Ascension Day,” a religious holiday celebrated 40 days after Easter. The towns were very quite and most shops closed for the holiday.

And then, in Blois, disaster struck (again):

Yes friends, that is a flat tire. Very flat. No spare in the trunk either, just a pump to refill the tire and an orange vest (safety first). While we sat in the car figuring out how to get it fixed on a national holiday 50 miles from Orléans and get back to town, two people knocked on the car window to tell us the tire was flat.

We pumped it up, twice, to try to get it to the local Avis location. We made it, but sadly was closed because it’s a national holiday. We called the Avis help line and it was… say it with me… closed because it’s a national holiday.

We left it parked out front and because they had no key drop, piled ourselves and the keys into an Uber and headed for the Blois-Chambord train station where we caught a train back to Orléans for the night. Looks like we’re probably going to have to take a train back to Blois tomorrow to sort this whole thing out, so the trip to the Costco in Paris is cancelled for now. Neither of us are sure we ever want to get behind the wheel in France again.

For now, we’re home, we’re safe, and we have each other to enjoy this crazy adventure. Let’s hope tomorrow the adventure comes to a boring and uneventful conclusion and we again find ourselves out exploring this beautiful place.