Las Vegas, Nevada and Lyon, France

A hectic week as I needed to prepare for the trip to Lyon, France to start coaching the Bron-Villeurbanne Falcons.

But first, it was time to say farewell for a time to family and friends.

We were off to Las Vegas on Sunday to visit Andy, Jenn and Kevin.

Vegas heat and sprinklers,

fun in the sun for the Tank 

Keeping a sharp eye on Kevin  

Ready for Monday Night Football

"Explain to me again why

you're a Raider fan Daddy."

Fierce Pass Rusher or

maybe a TD call 

The rest of the week would include visits to my Mother and Aunts home, dinner at Cronies with friends and a visit from Michael, Vanessa and Jacob for dinner at our house the night before I flew out.

Vanessa took a great photo of me with Jacob that I can not download off of Facebook for some reason. Thanks V!

Also a big thanks to Michael for helping me a whole bunch with pacing my two bags with all that I will need for the next nine months.

Finally, at 3:00 a.m. on Thursday the trip to France started with an alarm clock going off way too early.

The flight out of Los Angeles left at 8:00 a.m. for the start of an 18:15 journey via layovers in New York and London.

The nice thing about both of my two hour layovers was the chance to walk around and stretch my legs for a bit. The bad thing was having to go through security a second and third time. 

British Cuisine . . . sure

In a stroke of luck, I had no one sitting next to me on all three flights . . . YAHOO!!!

I made it!

The 3 Brewers

I was met at the Lyon Airport by Falcons Julien Urgenti, Christophe Thuau and Olivier Caldes who took me to this restaurant for lunch.

I get a free lunch from this excellent brewpub five days a week.

FANTASTIQUE!!! 

Our Game Stadium 

One of our practice fields 

A market just a block from The Villa

The Villa is on this street 

The Villa is part of a Gated Community 

OK, there are only two homes behind these gates but we are still a community!

The Villa

Two bedrooms, one bathroom and two stories . . . clean and efficient, The Villa will be my home base for a long time.

Flora outside of The Villa

In the evening, it was off to watch the Falcons flag teams practice as they were enjoying a final tune-up before playing in a two day tournament this weekend.

Improvise 

Olivier Caldes, who coaches our Junior team, built these two sleds from scratch! These will be a big part of Falcons' practices I assure you.

Pre-Practice meeting 

Eventually, 25 players would show up which is great when you realize that the tournament features only five players on the field, four men and one woman.

Flag Scrimmage

This Flag team is a mix of Senior and Junior players. I was very impressed by their athletic ability, effort and willingness to accept coaching.

Bonne Chance Falcons!!! 

Saturday started late for me as I slept in until noon trying to overcome my sleep deprivated travel and jet lag.

The bus stop just a few feet from

The Villa's gates 

 Uh Oh . . .

This bakery is about a three minute walk from The Villa . . . inexpensive and OH, SO GOOD FOR ME!!!

Especially the pain chocolate.

Reading is FUNdamental!!!

A good travel read

This book was given to me by Steve Swindle a few months ago and I read it during the flights to France.

This easy, pleasurable read deals with San Francisco's airport, a terrorist bombing threats and a budding romance between a cop and a fireman, the only thing missing was a few Nazis.

Or a Free Mason or two.

Time to go, College Game Day just started on my ESPN America channel.

The Adventure continues . . .