Ces Tours d'Epingle francais; Ils Sont Fous. (Those french hairpin turns; they are crazy.)

It all seems so innocent. You gaze at the map of the French highway system and see all manner of brightly colored strands wending their way through the countryside. Some are denoted in red, some in yellow, others in white. Very pretty. What these merry designations fail to reveal is the mayhem that lies beneath.

The Oreo Express has been in high gear these past several days. Crisscrossing Languedoc-Roussillon in search of castles, wineries, art museums, and walkable ancient towns has all led to an increasing storehouse of knowledge of French roads and the vehicular mortal combat they present. Take yesterday, for example. One of our nominal destinations was the Priory at Serrabone, a 10th century retreat with an excellent pink marble representation of Roman architecture. Sounds refined enough. Looking at the map, the Priory is only mere inches west of our house, a straight shot. As the crow flies. But, we are not crows; we rely on the automobile to get us from here to there. And, cars do not fly. To get to the Priory, we must navigate a road that on the map takes on exactly the same shape as my lower intestine, worming its way through the mountains in every possible direction except straight. As if by some rudimentary law of road physics, the more turns a road has, the narrower it is.

We head up into the mountains joyously embracing the “charm” of the smaller roads. You know, that wonderful elation that can consume you when you’re “off the beaten path.” Almost imperceptibly, the road becomes steeper and, again, by natural law, narrower. The turns tighten. What was once a road that would reasonably accommodate two cars passing one another now devilishly morphs into spaghetti width trails, albeit paved. Every turn is now virtually 180 degrees. When an approaching car nears us, our backseat passengers, Hannah (Bob and Donna’s daughter) and Megan (Hannah’s buddy), audibly suck in their breath as if somehow this will facilitate the other car’s passing.

The coup de grace for all this is the fact that most of the way the only thing preventing one’s being catapulted down the mountainside is one’s overwhelming drive to live through this. Guardrails are clearly an afterthought in these parts. What started as a joyful jaunt now becomes a true white knuckling pursuit of staying alive. And, this is the scene for far too many kilometers. Lily manages to keep her screaming eruptions to a minimum, which is helpful. The backseat girls seem transfixed, perhaps traumatized. My white knuckle grip on the steering wheel goes unabated. When we arrive at the Priory, Bob immediately lays down on the grass, exhausted. I, semi-frantically, search out the toilette.

Are we having fun yet?