The 4th and the French

Monday July 4, 2011
Bryce Canyon National Park
North Campground Site 45

 

We had no idea what to expect of
Independence Day in the Park.

But they pulled out all the stops for their 10am
parade.   And one of the campers decorated
our campground sign with Country Elmo
who when requested will strum his guitar and
sing “On The Road Again”. 
Just a riot!   I want one!!

 

 

Here comes the parade right past the campground loop.

Our campground hosts in the electric jeep like thing they share
were just after the Ranger’s car.

Mighty stylishly decorated I might add.

 

Followed by a couple of cowboys
and our mounted rangers
some of whom looked mighty happy

and some of whom welll…….didn’t
Hey there…perk up!!

We had the consessionaire
Forever Resorts who has recently
taken the place of Xanterra. 
And things are not
working so well under their watch IMO.
Shouldn’t they have been throwing candy????

 

We had all the folks who just wanted in
on the fun.  Who doesn’t like to March,
Skip, Run, Ride in a parade??

 

 

There was an old park bus

Hey that Bear isn’t Smokey.  What’s going on??

Next were our friends Chris and Jay.
Camp Hosts at the other campground, Sunset.
Now they look happy.

 

 

Not sure who these folks were but I like their
little tram.

 

The shuttle bus with windshield wipers running
equipped today with flags

 

And of course what parade doesn’t have a fire engine?

 

 

Sadly we had no floats.

But happily we had no politicians or beauty queens
riding in the back of convertibles.

All in all a Perfect Park Parade.

Our Neighbors watched the parade with us before
leaving to move on to Cedar Breaks National Monument.
We really enjoyed having them as neighbors
and David
wants to tell the story of meeting them.

Upon returning from our hike of the Fairyland Loop (June 30),
we found we had new neighbors. 
They had this cool looking RV with a French license plate. 

Had they discovered a new ground route to the US
or how did it get here?
It had this placard both on the front hood
and on the driver side of the coach. 

 

 

 

Sherry translated for me
"One year on the roads of America". 
Many thanks to those dedicated high school French teachers. 
It wasn't all for naught after all, though nearly.

The RV has a Mercedes power train
and manufacturer decals I had never seen,
"Europeo" and "RIMOR".

Yes, probably made over there.
But I have to find out how they got it here. 
So, later that evening I struck up a conversation
with the owners and found them to be wonderfully friendly. 
Meet Karine, Fabrice and Nils who is 9 this year. 

 

After a little conversation I learned
that their year of travel started in South America
where they spent their first several months,
then several more coming up through Central America
and now the remaining time in the US. 
Wow, what an awesome trip!! 
How can they be so young and
have a year free to travel?? 
Answer:  They live in France,
and in France you can take a year off
and return to your job when you get back.
Why can't we do that??? 

Nils is able to complete his studies
by Internet while they travel so when he returns,
he will stay with his age peers.  How cool is that??

I was blown away by the ambitious travel agenda
they undertook. 
Have a look at their 'course' - from their blog. 
More on that later.

 

The RV is a 2003 model, one year older than ours. 
Fabrice says they have had no trouble
or repairs since they started out almost 10 months ago. 
AMAZING!! 
Where can I get one? 
When I noticed that they never ran a generator,
Fabrice explained they didn't have one. 
How did they have lights on last night? 
He explained that he had installed a solar panel
on the roof along with a third house battery
before they left France. 
He said that it makes them more independent
of the private RV parks and makes it easier
to find a place to camp. 
That makes for nice neighbors too I might add.

From their blog I learned that Fabrice came over
with the RV on a ship bound for Buenos Aires,
and Karine & Nils flew over and met him there
to begin the journey. 
Their blog is written in French,
but you can read it anyway using a browser translation tool. 
There are many. 
I used the Google Advanced Language Tool
but there are probably better translations. 

This link should take you to the Google translation

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fkafani.canalblog.com%2F&sl=fr&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

Or if you read French, just go here http://kafani.canalblog.com

They left this morning after the "big 4th of July parade"
for Cedar Breaks National Monument. 
Special thanks to Nils who came over before their departure
to give us a fine keychain from the Eifel Tower in Paris,
their home town. 
Now it will remind me of our first French neighbors
and newest friends each time I reach for my RV keys.

 

After Nils, Fabrice and Karine left
we hung out for the rest of the day
reading

some of us napped

Yes the sound sleeper’s eyes are definitely closed.  :-)

and some of us played in the trees right next
to the rest of us.

 

A Grand time was had by all.
Happy 4th!!