I'm in France

Well! Have managed LAX, Frankfurt Airport. Geneva Airport, many Swiss and French trams, trains, and automobiles, and have now seen the caves at Font de Gaume (last cave paintings of the folks commonly known as Cro-Magnon man that are still open to the public), Combarelle (ditto, except these are cave engravings), and Lascaux (where the cave was ruined through tourism and had to be closed, so you can only see a replica). Mind blowing, as was the late-night effort to find a hotel room on the way to the French farmhouse where I am staying. My hostess swears that the name of the town where we finally found a place to sleep at 11 pm above a bar and cafe means "The Suspicious Room."

Surely a book must be written.

Now that I am safely settled in everyone's fantasy of a farmhouse in the French Alps (pear trees, walnuts, apples, tomatoes, grapes, homemade bread from the wood-fired bread oven, homemade ice cream, two huskies, a sheepdog, and two cats, one of them named Praline), I will be able to update more regularly.

But I want to leave with a closing thought -- if you can, see these caves! They are mind blowing, and they may not stay open forever, or even for much longer. You need to make reservations, make a trip of it. They open your eyes. These people were the same as us in every way -- emotional and mental capacity, technological inventiveness, artistic sensitivity. We all come from them, and they rocked!