Saturday, November 14
Woke this morning to many emails and texts making sure we were ok. I knew something had happened so before I could wipe the sleep from my eyes I grabbed my phone and read the news about the Paris attacks. So sad to hear about that going on, especially after having just visited it and how beautiful and historical of a place it is. We were thankfully far away from Paris, nestled in our villa in Grasse in the south of France.
We had planned to have a day out at a nearby Adventure Park, with the recent comments from the kids about having their fill of medieval villages we figured it was time to treat them to a special outing – I know what you’re thinking, this whole trip is pretty special, right? I think that too. But a 5 and 10 year old will need to be reminded of the specialness pretty regularly.
We arrive at the Riviera Adventure Park in 20 minutes or so, not too far. It is just past the Maison d’Arrêt (the local prison), literally translated as House Stop, but actually translates to prison. One of the reasons I never did good in French at school.
The Adventure park is pretty quiet this morning, we get harnessed and are taken to the demonstration course. I am taking part in today’s activities. We’ve been to 2 places near Servian and the first I stayed with Max on the smaller kids course and then the second I could have gone on but figured Max would need me on the ground with him but ultimately he didn’t that time. So today it is a family adventure day.
After our demonstration we head to the first course, it is labelled green, a nice beginner course. We come up with a plan that has Shelby going first then Max and then Justin and I’m holding up the rear and fending for myself. Max is sandwiched between the 2 of them so they can help him on both ends if needed, mainly clipping and unclipping if he can’t reach. And actually, I know Justin is in front of me in case I need help, I know he’s thinking of me too. You see the 3 of them are seasoned in this adventure park stuff, I have only been watching from below.
The Wilsons tackling the course!
Green course goes well. We finish and Max and I head off the the little kids course so Shelby and Justin can do a level up, a blue course. The kids course is “too easy and boring” Max says. But he still has fun since he is able to reach everything himself. He gets himself all buckled in with his carabiners each time and sets up his zipline carabiner on his own also. We find Justin and Shelby and watch them finish up on the course they are on and decide to head on a snack break. We chat with the owners for a bit about the other courses and what else could be a appropriate for Max to do, especially because of his reach, he can hold his own on the obstacles themselves. He recommends the blue course that Justin and Shelby did a part of and points to the start of it. He says the red is pretty hard, might be ok for Shelby and then his comment about the black is that it is, impossible. Alrighty then, we head to the start of the blue. The 3 of them head to the bathrooms and I wait for them. The first task is a climbing wall about 20 feet. I’m thinking to myself I should probably get started on this, so off I go. They get back to me and I’m 2/3 of the way up. I get myself up and wait for them to join me. Shelby is pretty quick she has one moment where she says “how did you do this?” but gets up no problem. Max has the disadvantage of short stature but the advantage of little feet since the grips, I think, are pretty small. He gets up no problem and then spiderman, I mean Justin, reaches the top. We get back into our order so there is help for those of us that might need it. After the second task my forearms and hands are burning and tired from holding on for dear life. And yes I’m think already, I’m screwed, however I am also thinking “this is my first time” and “don’t be so hard on yourself”.
Max tackling the climbing wall.
Since Justin and Shelby did a part of it already they knew that some of the zip lines were a little fast. So Justin headed off first on those so he could stop us from slamming too hard in to the padded tree platform. My first one I came in hot and thankfully as planned Justin was there to soften my landing. After a couple zips and other obstacles Max is feeling done. There are 2 spots where there are ladders and you can get down and stop but Justin convinces Max that he can go on, and that the fastest zip lines are done and he can do it. So he does and we do finish most of it but get off just before the last 5 obstacles because 1. they look like too high of a reach for Max, 2. my forearms and hands are tired after the last couple holding on for dear life obstacles we just did and 3. one of the upcoming obstacles is a wooden bar you hang/dangle from and swing towards a cargo net where you slam into it and then grab onto it to get yourself up onto the next platform – no thank you!
Shelby landing on the cargo net like a fly on a spiderweb.
Team J & S finish the course and Team G & M cheer them on. Shelby took some extra moments on the cargo net obstacle but after a reminder from Jsutin that they did something similar at another park already in France she musters up the courage and does it. As soon as she hits the net I hear “that was awesome”, “I was scared but that was so fun”, “I want to do it again!”. She ends up doing that last part with the cargo net one more time and Justin heads off to tackle the red course. We find him halfway through it, he’s doing great, he makes it look easy. Then I tell him I think he should do the black course, the one where the guide/owner says it’s “impossible”. He’s up for it of course. So he sets off. It has 9 obstacles we follow him through it. Some are harder than others, many have cobwebs on them as I’m sure when you’re told that it’s impossible people steer clear of it. He did it, a little arm fatigue by the end but no complaints and the guides were impressed when we went to get our gear off that he tackled the black course.
As soon as we got in the car to head home Max was reminded of one of the zip lines we did since it was adjacent to the car park. He says to us “that was the zipline that I said to myself half way down -I didn’t really want to do this”, that earlier comment about him being done, well I guess when we neared one of those exit points on that course he said to Justin he was ready to go down, but Justin convinced him to carry on and finish the course, funny though never once did he say to me after that he wanted to get down, he knew he was committed and carried on through some more tough obstacles. I think at one point at about the second last one we had to attach his carabiners and his zipline carabiner to a “non-zipline” course just so he could get across because the safety cable was too high for him to complete it himself. One of those “what are we doing to our kid” parenting moments.
It was a very peaceful day up in the hills with panoramic views of the French Riviera but it was not forgotten what happened in Paris last night. Today I am thankful for my family and friends and our health and happiness. We are living a dream these last couple months in France but nothing beats the friendships, family and life at home.
Hugs
