Normandy Beaches

The events of D-Day on the Normandy beaches were less challenging to explain to a 5 year old than I’d expected: There are people in the world who feel differently about things than we do; We try to talk things through to understand all sides, but if one side does something to hurt us or those we care about, we need to do whatever it takes to protect what’s important. Walking through the American Cemetery talking about making sacrifices, and standing among the huge German guns that made up part of the “Atlantic Wall,” it’s absolutely humbling to think of those young men sailing across the Channel to face the mission and obstacles before them and to think of how the world might be different had they not succeeded. #omahabeach #normandy #travelwithkids #familytravel #roadschool #worldschool #worldschooling

Help! I can’t figure out how to get this campsite into @campendium! Actually, thanks to @lostworldlacey and @lostworldluis, it’s already in @ioverlander. If you’re brave enough to squeeze your rig through a narrow stone archway, six spots behind a very old farmhouse await about 5-10 mins from D-day sites. 5€/night Plus 3€ to dump. Just as Ann was emptying the cassette toilet, a rainbow came out behind her, but I missed the shot... 👎😜
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Hey Euro road travelers, what are your favorite apps for finding campsites in France/Spain/Portugal? We’ve been using Parkings and ASCI cross checked with iOverlander. Info (especially on opening/closing dates and reviews in English) is spotty, but we’re making it work so far!
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#rveurope #europecamping

Dramatic recreation of the Army Rangers routing the Germans troops from their bunkers after scaling the cliffs using ropes tied to rocket-propelled grappling hooks at Point du Hoc. #artisticlicense #roadschool #worldschool #worldschooling #historycomesalive #nochildleftinsideabunker

We decided that trying to lift the kids with one arm was getting too hard to do for #wynnehangingwiththefamily pictures so we tried something different. Turns out, timing a jump with two kids is even harder. Nice afternoon strolling around (okay, climbing endless steps on) Mont St. Michel, and exploring (and clowning around) at low tide. #montstmichel #normandy #travelwithkids #familytravel #jumppic

St. Malo was almost entirely destroyed in the campaign to push the Germans out of France following the D-Day landings. British and American forces believed more than 1000 troops were holed up behind the massive city walls and went as far as using Napalm for the first time. Turned out, there were far fewer than expected inside, but the city was left in ruins. Over the next 15 years, it was completely rebuilt as close to original as possible.
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We’ve been battling the constant “can I have’s” from the kids while wandering around touristy towns and even the assurances that we’d “add it to the Christmas list” are getting old. We woke today to a rainy forecast and made the kids’ day by suggesting we might be able to buy them some umbrellas. Of course, we then had to go into every single crap-filled souvenir shop to look for two child-sized ones, and when we came across some, they’d be covered in characters or rainbow colored.
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Standing next to a bucket of the cheap rainbow ones, Ann spied something across the street and hurried us all to the other side. In front of that shop, was another bucket with tell-tale curved plastic handles, but when the child-sized umbrellas they were attached to were popped open, they had these cool World maps on them! What better for the #sisterhoodofthetraveling parents to pick up in a historic town in Brittany?
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In the end, we swallowed our personal-projections and let them choose what they liked best.
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#travelwithkids #familytravel #nomadbreederproblems #stmalo #itdidntrainfortherestoftheday

You don’t have to be @rvlegend to get your rig stuck in some nasty mud while off the beaten track. While he was stuck for 8 hours, I managed to extract ourselves in under 8 minutes.
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Okay, fine, the I needed the help of the guy in the next camper over who had been watching my antics for long enough and offered up his traction pads. McLouis may not be pretty, but at least she can get stuck on wet grass. #mohobrag
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People have asked a bit about how RV camping in Europe has been. A few notes:
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- Campsites in France range from full on resorts with water slides and cabins (most of which closed around 9/30) to “Aires” which are more like most US campgrounds with grassy sites and connections to a shared electric pole via a long cord to basic parking lots (also sometimes called Aires) where you’re allowed to pay for access 24hrs at a time. We’ve paid as much as 35€/night for a resort very close to Paris but are more commonly paying 5-10€/night plus a few euros for a dump.
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- RV’s in Europe have cassette toilets where the tank, usually in the 5-7 gallon range, can be removed via a side compartment and carried or wheeled to the WC/chemical toilet dump. Swivel out a tube, remove a cap and tip into the hole while pressing a vent button. The dumps also have water to swish around in the cassette to get everything flowing. Pretty convenient not to have to move the rig to dump the toilet, but you definitely have to do it more often which kinda sucks.
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- Grey water is dumped by driving the camper over a grate in the pavement and pulling the valve that releases the contents of the gray tank straight out the bottom. Kinda nice not to have to deal with the “stinky slinky.” Perfect compromise would be the grates for gray and slinky less frequently for black.
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- Black and gray dumps are very common, sometimes just in parking lots in a town or by the entrance to any campground. They’re often free with a 1-3€ fee to fill water.
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- We’re definitely traveling in the shoulder season so have been able to roll into campsites no more than half full, but I get the impression that several of them are overflowing in July and August.
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#rveurope #adventuresofdaveandannandmclouis