Second leg Kerbors to Lyon

We began our second day of our trip from Kerbors to Lyon by taking a family trip to an excellent zoo, the Zoopark de Beauval. It really was spectacular. The best zoo any of us had ever visited.

We stumbled upon one of their free shows. The first half of the show was 45 minutes of large birds of prey swooping above our heads, small hawks stopping mid-flight to catch a morsel of food, and flight choreographed to classical music.

The second half was a water show with seals doing tricks in the water and on the land. During this 45 minute show, two younger seals spent the entire time sitting at attention with a trainer "watching" the show and clapping at the appropriate times. My best translation skills deciphered that these young ones were being trained by watching the older, well-trained seals. They also talked about how the seals enjoy this learning/play time and the ways they do training to prepare the seals for medical exams.


The park had a nice aquarium section, too. Charlie especially enjoyed it:


All over the park, animals were quite active. I've never seen animals doing so much--usually we see them just resting in their cages. These porcupines were big, and there was nothing to prevent a person from reaching their hand out and touching them (well, except for a sign and common sense!). They were busy eating a variety of fruits and vegetables in their area. It was interesting to see that each of the porcupines had a favorite treat: one liked broccoli, another cabbage, another lemons.


After the park, Shawn got back on his bike to ride more of the Tour de France route and the boys and I meandered our way towards our meeting point. We stopped and played some as well. Here they are in a freshly-harvested wheat field playing creating a universe of fun with a few small toys:


Until this day, we had had very good luck with our plan of meeting one another at "the church on the square" in whatever small town we chose. Sometimes Shawn arrived first, other times we did. But both Shawn and I learned not to panic, and to simply wait and we would be reunited.

But this day was different. The boys and I were close to the small town we'd chosen on the map. We drove by...and missed the town. We turned around and came at it from the other direction...and there simply was no town!
Luckily, it was still an hour until our scheduled rendezvous and I knew Shawn couldn't have arrived yet. So we drove to the penultimate village on his ride and waited for him at the edge of town (hence, the playing in the wheat field). I flagged him down as he was riding by, and we were reunited.

What a blessing to be able to live through those few hours without worry and fretting. Without cell phones, without a "home", without any other back-up plans we had a deep and abiding sense that it would all work out in the end. This, possibly, is the most important thing we'll take away from Sabbatical: how very unnecessary it is to worry.