D - 1 or "le tour du perollier" between Laffrey and La mure, Matheysine

Ana, Stuart and your obediant servitor went to a nice randonée in order for me to be sure to be able to sleep in the plane i have to catch the next day.

on the top (2000m) we could see the 3 lakes from Laffrey. the other side of the mountain was the ski fields from L'alpe du grand serre. it was amazing to see it completely green and also to realise that snow was hiding most of the roads when i used to go there in the winter.

The nice thing about going to the mountains with Ana is that for some strange and complex reason, flies like her a lot even with tons of repulsives sprayed all over LOL, so both Stuart and i were quiet. :)

(photos in 22 days)

the big CRACK

i was sitting in my car reading maps to plan the saturday expedition when i heard a very loud breaking down noise. i jumped on the moment but i could not localise the problem since nothing appeared to be broken. I found it strange and assumed it was just steel contraction as the temperature was going fresher.
I left the car and realised that the conductor's window was down, but i could not remember opening it... it is after such moments that you ask yourself if you are not driven crazy! LOL

Impossible to close the window up again...
The autopsy carried out by Dr Max led to the discovery of a plastic piece wreakage.

The scene of the crime, the broken plastic bit is shown on the middle of the picture on the right.

Here is the problem: the spare piece is not sold for new in the citroen garages... you have to buy a whole new system (very expensive). Yet I went to 2 different demolition places/spare pieces shops and could not find any clone for the plastic piece. The best i had was a mirror image incompatible with my system.

But i was not going to let it go like that...

what is the melting temperature of polyproplylène? +/- 150°C
i melted the broken parts with an electrician heater (or iron) and reassembled the parts together. it holds as new. except that i do not really want the same problem to happen again so i slightly modified the layout so that the cable extension that was ejected could not escape again ... (see centre of pic below)

ouff, back in place!

bike trip to le lac Monteynard 5-7-08

why not a trip in the mountains by bike? this time i challenged Ana to do it with me and i was amazed that she could follow... we had to go from Grenoble 270m altitude, to Sinard 840m alt. then go down to the lake at 520m alt. From 10h until 21h10 i did 88km.... Ana had 8-10 more km to do in total.

The courrageous enthousiasts


I am a genious, i wanted fresh drink all along the way so i froze a bottle of limonade. The only drawback is that it took ages before unfreezing in my special isothermal bag LOL!


Le barrage de Monteynard in the back


some of the paths we passed by...

on the slope to go to the lake.

we could reach the passerelle above the lake and the views were fantastic!
it was amazing to see a dog on the passerelle not feeling very well... the fact of seeing the water far under your legs makes some effect...




She did it!! ;)


and me too (resting on the other side LOL)

The relaxation :)