Chapter 105: An Unexpected Chance

Ira

Mark gently shook me awake and a look at the clock told me it was half past two in the night. I had to say, I had slept quite well. Not being prone to turning at night was a big help, but I was also used to it. Back in my days as a flight attendant, I had only only served on small Antonovs and Yakovlevs, but there was hardly anyone of us who didn’t use her annual vacation to take up a temporary job with one of the three big Russian airlines – Aeroflot, Pulkovo and TransAero. Not only did they fly western Boeings and Airbuses, the pay on long-haul flights to the Russian far east was also massively better than what the Ukranian airlines paid. I had spent enough time in the crew rest areas of Boeing 767s to be used to sleeping while being tied down to the bed.

I could see that after ten hours of driving, Mark was ready for some sleep. He told me where we were, and that he had programmed the route in the satnav system. Not that it was needed for anything but the last few kilometers. We were basically going to stay on the same motorway all the way to the French Mediterranean coast.

I drank the coffee he had prepared for me and by the time I was awake enough to take my turn, Mark was already sound asleep in the back of the vehicle.

Mark

Despite the unusual sensation of being tied down in bed, I had slept like a log, and if Jenny’s later complaints were to be believed, I had even snored a bit. The good thing about snoring is, you’re the only one who doesn’t hear it. I was finally woken up by the monotone drone of a fuel pump, as Ira was filling up the Vehicle. I realized she must have done most of her allowed driving time, because it was already bright sunshine outside.

I untied myself and shuffled outside, quickly making a U-turn when my bare feet hit the tarmac – okay, it was very warm wherever we were. Once back, after finding my shoes, I realized that we were not where we were supposed to be. Instead of the Mediterranean sea, I saw mountains, lots of them, and big ones at that.

Meanwhile Ira had returned from paying for the fuel, so I sat down in the passenger seat upfront. Jenny was already there and greeted me with her customary peck on the cheek. “Morning, dad.”

“Morning,” I grumbled, still not firing on all cylinders.

“Emergency coffee, auntie Ira!” Jenny called out and Ian’s girlfriend handed me one as she returned to the driving seat.

“Thanks,” I said and sipped my hot drink, trying not to douse myself in it when Ira set off to vacate the petrol station.

“So, whereto are you two abducting me?” I asked, once the coffee had jump-started my brain.

“Normally we would have had to turn Northest near Toulouse,” Ira explained. “But then we would have to search for a camping site somewhere, and even more importantly, we would have been at the Nürburgring by tomorrow afternoon. It’s an exciting race track, but it’s not exactly the place to spend three or four nights until the race.”

“Well, the original planning was for me alone to do the driving, so we wouldn’t have been near Madrid even at this time. So I guess the two of you decided to spend two or three nights in a somewhat more appealing location, I presume? I hope you don’t expect me to climb these mountains. I’m not good at that.”

“Nope, we’re going to a lake – Lac de Castillon,” Jenny told me with an enthusiastic grin. “And the place is called Camping naturiste Gordon Provence.”

“Why am I not surprised,” I said with a chuckle. “Leave it to you two to find a way to ditch the frock. And you just happened to stumble upon a nudist resort in France?”

“It was actually uncle Ian’s idea,” Jenny reported.

“I’m going on a reconnaissance mission here,” Ira said. “Ian has flown a lot in these parts, especially on the new Geneva-Nice route. Normally we would go to Esther’s place, but this year he’s adamant to go somewhere where not everything is artificial.”

“As long as you know where we’re going, I’m ready to be surprised,” I said.

Regina

“That sounds like a Jenny idea,” I said to myself, looking at my laptop.

“What’s she up to now?” Femke asked and sat down next to me, with a beer of course.

“Aren’t you afraid to put on weight?” I asked, pointing at her beer bottle. “You’ve been drinking a lot of this lately.”

Femke let out a sarcastic snort. “Not with the amount of kilometers on the bike and the roller skates that Lydia has us doing every day. And besides, it’s not normal beer – look.”

I took a closer look at where she pointed on the label. “One point nine percent? That’s basically lemonade,” I noted. “I’ve never seen such weak beer before. Not that I’m an expert or anything.”

“That’s because you can hardly get it anywhere in Germany,” Femke replied. “We drank that stuff as kids.”

“You drank beer as kids?”

“Sure,” Femke said. “You have to remember, I grew up in Zeeland. Most of it is below the sea level. It happened often enough that tap water was salty. Lemonade had too much sugar in it, tap water wasn’t fit to drink most of the time, so our parents gave us this stuff instead. It was even weaker if I remember – one point two or so.”

“Well, at least we now understand you’re not sliding into alcohol abuse,” I admitted with a sigh. “Meri and I had really been worried lately.”

“No need to,” Femke said and hugged me. “Mind you, I really like my proper beer in the evening, but I’m not as stupid as to ruin my career a year before it ends with hopefully another Olympic medal.”

“And what about those ... whotsisname ... isotonic drinks that Lydia and Nadja keep chugging down? Don’t you need those instead too?”

“I have one,” Femke said and pointed at her bottle. “Low alcohol and alcohol-free beer are isotonic drinks. The only downside is that they lack Sodium, which is why I usually have one of these salty Pretzels after the training. The big upside is, it doesn’t taste like crap.”

“Ah,” I said.

“By the way, what about the ‘Jenny idea’ you were muttering about?”

“Have a guess,” I said. “Since Ira is now with them, they can make the trip in less than half the time that was planned. That means they were not far from the Swiss border by this morning with three days to spare. Jenny booked the lot of them into a French nudist resort for three days.”

“Yeah, you were right, girl,” Femke said with a giggle. “That definitely sounds like Jenny.”

Mark

It was a good thing we were no longer using the camping trailers from years ago. Putting up the tents around them had always been a job I had not been particularly good at. For our RV we only needed to put up a drive-away awning to give us some sheltered outside space around the door.

Had I needed a helping hand, I would have been snookered because, as soon as we had found our assigned space, Ira and Jenny had abandoned first their clothing and then me. While they went to explore the surroundings, it was left to me to tie down the RV and put the awning up.

Looking around, there was of course a distinct lack of clothing, but what this place definitely did not lack, was amenities. We had water supply, which spared us the necessity to empty our onboard water tank, we had electricity supply, and even internet access. Mind you, this was before WiFi became common place, so hooking up to the internet meant fiddling a long LAN cable through the access hatch next to the door.