National Lampoon

For Shane, who took one of his only family vacations to Silver Dollar City as a kid... and it was closed.
Today we took the rental car over about 45 minutes toward to mountains and saw another castle, Chateau Foix. When we got there, just like when Chevy Chase took his family to Wally World, it was closed (most everything closes here from 12-2 for lunch)! Luckily it would be open soon. We drove up into the mountains for a bit and came back later when it was open. It had a pretty view of the snow capped mountains and it had Henry IV's bed which they were pretty proud of. He lived there but before he was king. The castle is over 1,000 years old!
I said many prayers that none of us died on the insanely thin and steep steps and also gave thanks that Inola isn't paved in 1,000 year old stones. It was very steep and very far and I loved seeing a very old French lady making the hike in her fur coat (although fur is cruel). Curtis still LOVES wind power (his debate topic in high school- which is funny cause he works in the oil industry, even tho he has for 3 years and I have only known it for one year) and he was excited to see so many wind turbines. They have the prettiest crop growing on their farms- it's bright yellow. I think it is dandelion greens. Ive had them before in the states and I didn't love them in smoothies but I had noticed they eat them a lot here.
French radio in the car was a trip. I will do a post on it later.
The castle had spurs on display inside and there were horses outside. It thought about Dusty G. and Tessa- even the French love cowgirl stuff :)
The kids are really into the war and fighting and knights part of medieval history. Their pacifist mother is exhausted by it. They put me under siege til I gave in and got them their own wooden swords yesterday (cause I'm a pacifist).