We went to France: epilogue

We inaugurated this vehicle, and drove it from stem to stern. We're just getting in, to drive to the airport and fly back to North America. Check out that odometer!

Last leg

We're nearing the end of this great journey. Thanks, correspondents, for your interest and patience!

After leaving Lyon we enjoyed a very peaceful, very uncongested 90 minute drive up into the Jura Mountains. Whoo! Those various cities down in lower France were amazing. But are we basically, have we finally become country people? Maybe that designation doesn't apply to the forward-looking and going-places Spencer Duncan. But his past-their-primes parents? We'll all agree that the spacious and leisurely up-here sure were a relief, and a really refreshing way to conclude our travels.

Here's the situation. Annemasse, which was Spencer's second area, is in the lower right. Gex, his last, in the upper left. You can see the grey-black outline of the Swiss border, and Geneva in the middle, at the southernmost tip of the lake. Spencer belonged where he belonged when he served here, and at the same time did a lot of circulating in-between. Missions have so many blessed biproducts!

This is Gex. This is where the missionaries live/d, and this is the road in front, and the stupendous view from there, south-east toward the Alps. (That's Mont Blanc, right between those trees.)

Now we're driving, through Geneva and toward Annemasse.

The Salève.

Last day, Sunday, and two church meetings. What brought us, what brought Spencer  over here in the first place.

We'll leave these various tender reunions under wraps, and between the participants. We can all imagine, having all been so blessed.

A trip for the ages!

Spencer pays a visit to President and Sister Brown

We're in beautiful Écully, something of a suburb of Lyon. Here's an artifact of a long, lovely conversation between these three companions and good friends.

Transition #2

Eric has a new job! He and Sarah have vacated their place on 3rd South in Provo, and will presently be moving up to the Avenues in Salt Lake City.

Transition # 1

Dad, discarding, recycling, consolidating, in the midst of moving upstairs to that new office with a window.

It's July 4th, or so

The night before, featuring four old friends and some mini-fireworks on the Taylors' driveway.

The day of, with hikers on the Buffalo Peak Trail, off the Squaw Peak Road, up Provo Canyon.

Lyon, day 2

We continue on with the method that's been working for us. Up we get, out we go!

This is where Spencer used to live.

The beautiful new chapel, completed and dedicated while Spencer was serving here.

Just around the corner from there we visit the very birthplace of film: Lyon's Institut Lumière. The mansion/museum, ground zero (where those workers left that factory), and the thing/cinématographe itself. You might scoff, but this was a touching experience for an elderly film professor!

Not quite cosmopolitans, maybe, but we have ourselves an actual Paul Bocuse experience.

We drive, we park, we walk. Here's Lyon's huge central square, the Place Bellecour.

So much more to cover, with night coming on. Here's a good solution. Poor Spence, though, reduced now to riding in a two-level tour bus with his agéd p's.

We'd been looking down upon the beautiful Rhône; here's the Saône, just as splendid.

And then, evocatively, almost demanding to be considered symbolically, the rivers come together. La Confluence. (Credit, Musée des Confluences, Google Maps.)

Lyon, day 1

To Lyon now. Spencer worked here in the mission office, after the exertions and elations of his Lormont/Bordeaux period. He went on to serve as District Leader as well, operating out of the Porte des Alps area.

Do we, living over here, appreciate the magnitude of this place? UNESCO sure does!

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/872

As for mere, miniscule us, we made our in, negotiated the vertiginous up and down of these streets (and in a standard transmission, no less), and got ourselves situated at what turned out to be our very impressively set B&B!

We went into and drove around town. We went to the office of the France Lyon mission. We went to a pharmacy, because bug bites are itchy! We went for lunch, and discovered that even plain eat-in places around here have a certain gastronomical je ne sais quoi.

We went to a mall, and to this store ...

... where Spencer purchased himself a real live real sharp French suit!

The old Croix-Rousse district, just over (down/up) from our place. Argentina's Croatia debacle, about which we all felt quite happy. The previously unsuspected—by Mum and Dad, anyway—Parc de la Tête d'or. It might partly be the newness and novelty of the place, but doesn't this charming space rival any green space that London has to offer? Which is saying something!

St. Etienne

In going to Spencer's third mission area we strayed somewhat from the touristical path. We're in St. Etienne now, which in place of glory and glamour offers all sorts of (post-) industry, sociology and economics. Family history too!

You can see the difference. You can also, as our guide and his perspectives made clear, feel the viability.

Here are our digs this time. Modest. No World Cup. Hot water, though, three distinct places to lay our heads, and the lock worked.

Here's St. Etienne's branch of the big, flaky Paul bakery chain, where Elders Duncan and Pincock used to stop and refuel every quite frequently.

Spence and Mum reflect upon all that.

We could put a photo here of all of the mosquito or flea or bedbug or whatever bites that now started breaking out across Spencer's various extremities. We won't do it, but we'll mention that it happened!

Here's where the elders lived. One floor up and two windows to the left of the big pair of underwear.