Vallon-Pont-d'Arc

    Jed and I were supposed to go to the beach at Narbonne to see Fulbright family Jeanne and Alex with another Fulbright family, Carrie, Mary, and Nate, but plans changed at the last minute when Nate awoke in the middle of the Friday night/Saturday morning with a sore throat.  We then looked at the weather report and saw that it was supposed to rain all weekend on the coast so we decided to postpone our trip for another fall weekend.
    I have to admit that Jed and I were very disappointed.  We had had a tough first week of school and were looking to rewarding ourselves with some good company and sunshine.
    Fortunately, Nate rebounded from his allergies, and the weather in our area was quite nice so Carrie, Mary, and Nate came to visit on Sunday, and we all took a drive across the Rhône River to the department of Ardèche.  We wound our way through the mountains for about an hour until we came to the Gorges de l'Ardèche where we stopped for the day at a natural limestone bridge called the Pont d'Arc.  We had a picnic by the Ardèche River, and then the kids swam, jumped off of rocks and swung from a rope.  There are beautiful campgrounds by the river as well as places to rent canoes and kayaks so I'll keep that in mind if any of our friends actually do end up making the trip over for a visit.