We finally had to leave the Alsace region and return to Grenoble.  Jim had to go back to work, and we had to continue on to Paris.  Such responsibilities to attend to..  NOT!!  :-)

We left Eguisheim heading south.  We didn't really have a plan, which is pretty much how we do things.  I think it might drive Mickey a little crazy, but she humored us nonetheless.  

After another continental breakfast at the hotel, a warm goodbye from the hotel staff (they really liked the fact that I was having all this champagne in the room, and they liked the stork and all that), and we were off.

We headed for Mulhouse, which it turns out has the French National Automobile museum.  What luck!  Jim and I were thrilled, Caroline was tolerant, and Mickey was "OK" with it, as the perfect host she always is.

The Schlumpf museum is not as well named as other museums that I seen.  However, don't judge a museum but it's name, this was a way cool place.  Not only did it have air conditioning, which was a key factor in my part of the decision, since the fine piece of French engineering were driving didn't have any working AC at all, and it was hot as blazes out.    

The museum has hundreds, and I'm not exaggerating, of cars of all types.  Apparently, there were over a hundred auto manufacturers across western Europe.  Most of them no longer exist, but they made really neat stuff.  I have to admit I've always had a soft spot for Bugatti's.  I just like them and the performance over the course of thier history has always been awe inspiring.  This was the largest collection of Bugatti's I've ever seen.  They has all the private cars, the race cars, and the combo cars.  There must have been 1000 cars in this museum covering all the ones you might know, and then a whole bunch more you never heard of.  Very cool, I recommend it if you are ever in the area.

The museum has this old car for photo ops.  We took advantage of it.  Unfortunately, I separated from the group, and when Mick and Jim got turned upside down in a Peugeot to demonstrate how good the seat belts are, I didn't get a shot of it.

I took these pictures because these are unbelievable cars, and yes, they are Bugatti's.  I wouldn't want to own one, but the workmanship, the style, and engineering for that time was just incredible.  These were cars that Bugatti was trying to sell to various royalty and movie stars.  The left one was a bomb and was owned by the Bugatti family until it went to the museum.  But the second one was owned by several royal families in France and Italy before coming to the museum.  These cars are 6.3 meters long.  And it's a two seater.  I won't bore you with more details..

The other car that I thought was quite unique was a 1955 Delahaye, which was a really fast and solid sports sedan.  It was purchased by a French couple that wanted to drive it around the US for their honeymoon.  They never left the US, but decided to live out thier lives in San Francisco - imagine!  35 years later the car was donated to the museum and shipped back to France on the return ticket from 35 years before.  Something about this really appeals to me.  Maybe it's the romantic spontaneity, maybe the symmetry, or maybe the idea that a marriage can be terrific anywhere.  I guess I've already got that one covered no that we've tested it on three continents, and we're not really done yet.

You have to understand the setting.  We are roasting away cranking down the national auto route somewhere about 35 Km outside of Besancon.  We decide it's time for lunch but aren't sure where we might find something open on a Sunday.  So, we wing it.

We end up finding this little restaurant hotel along the edge of the Doubs river.  And we get a seat right near the window so we can see what's going on in the street, always an interesting thing anywhere.  And there before us is this M&M machine you see above.  I guess the idea that someone might need some M&M's on this road was foreign enough that Caroline needed to get a picture of it.  It's almost as bizarre as the Pavilion of Circles which is a rest stop building up on the Jura plateau that is a 200 year old design that was never built.  Someone thought it would be a good idea to execute it at a rest stop, and it was done.  

Or, the auto route rest stop at Besse, which is renown for it's chickens.  So they have a 75' tall stainless steal wire frame chicken at the rest stop cookadoodling to the highway.  The French can bring bizarre to new levels, and I haven't even begun to delve into it, but I digress..

We eventually got back to the Grenoble area.  Since we wanted to enter Grenoble a different way than the train, and we wanted to cool off a bit since it was as toasty as I've been in a long time, we meandered.  And the pictures above are typical of the some of the sights that we gazed upon as we wended our back to Jim and Mick's house.