All the big roads are toll, and Google routes you onto
them even if you ask it not to. This means, among other
things, that gas stations are few and far between. As
one gets closer to Paris, there are more of them, but
that was not where we were going today.

Somewhere near Vierzon, the car told us it needed gas, so
Lilli asked me if we should get off, and I said yes. She
replied that usually the car tells you well in advance, but
I said we should start looking as soon as possible. The next
exit was Vierzon Nord. Once in town, the car told us we had
to fuel now!, so we got into a bit of a tizzy; luckily just
after going through the center of town there was an Esso
Express, where we tried four or five credit cards before
being able to buy our 44.78 liters. Later I found the manual,
which said that the capacity of the tank was 45.0 liters, so
it appears that the first alarm went off at the 2 liter mark or
so, not much notice when one is on the highway, and children
and morons getting special treatment, we had about a mile's
worth of gas left when we found that Esso.

Back on our route to where I thought we were supposed to go
- we were flying blind at this point, without a reliable GPS,
and I regretted not offering to buy Ian's Michelin atlas. At
last Lilli's GPS fcaught a signal and pointed out the Oree des
Chenes, but after we got there (involving quite a bit of a
backtrack, over 50 miles each way, and trundling through the
countryside on roads marked and unmarked), it turned out that
the stupid machine had taken us to the wrong one, a hundred
miles away from our real destination. An emergency phone call
at E3 a minute (we were glad that the instructions we were
given were a little cryptic), and we were put right finally;
with various inquries among the locals and a wrong turn or
two, we ended up 4 hours behind, showing up at dusk (we stopped
at a rest area on the way to figure out the lights, which
turned out to be controlled by a separate dial under the
dashboard). It is by no means straigtforward getting there, even
with directions, but once we got into town, there were these
discreet little signs, which Lilli was able to pick out, as it
wasn't quite dark yet. At last we got to the proper Oree des
Chenes, and the receptionist still had our room and a dinner
reservation for us. We were given a nice room on the second
floor overlooking the pool (it was in the 40s by the time we
arrived) with, as it turns out, someone else's lingerie hung
behind the bathroom door, which we didn't find out until next
morning.

The restaurant was open for another hour, so we had time to
clean up before dinner. It was a perfectly fine room, sort of
hunting lodge-like with a fireplace and little sitting area; the
staff were fine. The food was fine. Don't believe Internaute,
but rather believe Michelin.

We were given our choice of several tables. I wanted a deuce I
spied in the main room, but Lilli chose a four-top near the
fireplace, which they accommodatingly reset for two.
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