The report is being posted late this quarter because we left in early June for a “family reunion” in France. We did not get everyone together at once, but did manage to have 26 guests during our 4 week vacation. Prior to joining us on the Canal du Midi for a week, son Paul spent several days in Paris where he proposed to Xue (pronounced shoe-ahh). They are pictured here steering our boat up the canal. Oh, yes — she accepted.

The trip was ostensibly Gary's 70th birthday celebration and he designed it to be a “do it yourself” vacation. We rented the boat for two weeks and did all the work of driving, getting through locks and fixing meals ourselves. Since we spent most of the time along a sparsely populated section of the canal we had to go into the markets in small villages to obtain day-to-day necessities. We also managed to find small family operated wineries to stock up on wine for the meals.