Mont Ventoux

I have two childhood memories that always come to mind on pre-dawn wakings.  I’m not referring to those times I wake up much earlier than planned, and instead of drifting peacefully back to round off my 8 or so hours of sleep before facing 6 hours with 28 twelve year olds or 5.5 hours of C1 French exam (June 17, 2011: bad flashback), I toss and turn and fret about how tired I will be the next day.  No, I’m referring to early morning awakening when you set the alarm before sunrise because you’ve got somewhere to go and something to do. First of all, I think back to early morning ringette practices as a kid.  It was tiring and cold getting up so early, but it was sort of fun to get some time alone with either my mom or dad while driving to the rink, and then post-practice walking out of the rink after a good skate with the sun rising and looking forward to that second bowl of cereal and some Bugs Bunny.  Secondly, I think of road trips.  As a kid, my family did a lot of long driving trips from our home base in Ottawa: Alberta, Disneyland, P.E.I.,  Colorado etc. and my Dad always wanted to get cracking while it was still dark on the first day of a road trip.  My Mom would put down the back seat in our station wagon and throw down some blankets to make a cozy sleeping arrangement and carry the 3 of us down while still in our P.J.’s and half asleep.  I loved drifting back to sleep with the motion of the car while snuggled warmly between my two siblings while it was still dark.

I was reminded of both of these memories when we woke up to the alarm at 3:30 a.m. a week last Saturday.  We were meeting some friends for one of our last adventures out of Avignon.  Earlier in the week, we were at a farewell get together when an acquaintance, Nicolas, found out we had not yet been to the summit of the highest mountain in Provence (1912 m), Mont Ventoux.  It’s a mountain visible most days from Avignon that always has the appearance of being snow-capped due to its white lime-stoned peak.

The next day, he left a message on Barry’s cell phone that if we weren’t  too busy packing up, he wanted to arrange to take us to the top of Mont Ventoux to watch the sun rise.  It did seem a little crazy to set the alarm for 3:30 a.m. to drive up a mountain in the dark, and we did have quite a bit of packing and cleaning to get done, but the next day we found ourselves enthusiastically agreeing to the expedition.  Pourquoi pas?  At least it would mean I could postpone cleaning the apartment for another half day.

The girls were very good troopers about getting up so early, and although I couldn’t lie them down in a cozy car bed in the back of a station wagon, we made sure they were wrapped in blankets and had their car pillows when we carried them to their car seats.  Our two car party drove for about one hour in the dark before we started to near the summit.  As we neared daybreak, it became clear that being on the rooftop of Provence and seeing the sunrise over the bucolic fields and picturesque villages was going to be left to our imaginations.  It was very, very windy (Mont Ventoux, I now see the connection) and very, very chilly and the viewing distance approximately 5 metres thanks to the heavy fog.  But, not all was lost.  Our french hosts had carted up espresso (with cups and saucers), hot chocolate and croissants, which made the hour seem so much more civilized (much more so than the granola bars the Canadians packed).  We also had some good laughs about the whole experience.

On the way down we stopped at a lavender field which smelt even better than it looked. and found a café in a square in the town of Sault where we ate more fresh croissants and pains au chocolat from the bakery and drank more coffee while the kids played.

No Bugs Bunny to come home to, but after all that we were back at home for a nap at noon.  Pas mal!