Another travel day

THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 2012

While we were exploring Lyon on the previous day, we intended to hit up the Parc de la Tete d'Or, but it was a little out of the way from where we were, and we ended up being too lazy to make it up there.  We were kinda sad about it though, so we roped the peeps into going with us the next morning.  

Inside the park was this delightful little zoo.

Tortoise

Cheetah

This bird was putting on a show for the crowds.  It was right by the fence, flapping its wings, making noises.  At one point, it put a huge stick in its mouth, which weighed down that sack on the bottom of its beak.  It was a riot.

Giraffe

We saw this guy trimming some of the flower beds with some scissors and we got a real kick out of the technique.  It probably really sucks to manicure flower beds by hovering over them on a ladder.  Poor guy.

After the park, we really crammed into the rental vehicle.  Really. We had 5 adults, a baby, and all our luggage.  Sam had to have a suitcase on his lap for the entire drive, and the rest of us (excepting the driver of course) had to have stuff at our feet.  Luckily, the drive was only a couple of hours.

Cool scenery on our drive

We arrived in Avignon that evening and settled in to the hotel.  Okay, I am a little bit of a brat, but I just hated this hotel.  The room was so small.  We had to shuffle our stuff all around every time we wanted to walk around.

The bed was just these 2 twin beds pushed together, and there was no room next to the bed for the baby, so I slept with my head at the foot of the bed so I would be near her.

The room looked dirty.  This wall in particular grossed me out.  This picture did not do it justice at all.  Zack thought it was just the result of a crappy paint job, but to me, it was splattered with all kinds of unidentified things.  I made sure we did not touch it.

Luckily, I brought along a bunch of Clorox wipes, and I wiped down the important surfaces before we settled in too much.  I'm not really even one of those germaphobe kind of people.  I had the wipes because I had intended to wipe down surfaces on the planes to keep the baby from getting sick.  But I was happy that I had them.

I don't mean to complain too much though because even though I did not like the hotel much, I was in Avignon, France. So amazing!  Zack's parents and Sam went inside the city ramparts that evening to see some areas from Sam's mission.  We were planning to do some sightseeing inside the ramparts the next day, so Zack, Clara, and I took it a little easier.  We went to eat, walked through a mall right by our hotel, bought Clara a couple of cute coats for a real bargain, and got some milkshakes while walking back to our hotel.