Lavender in bloom at L'Occitane

The source itself of the best skin care products on the planet

Chateau Barberbelle, north of Aix

The local vintner in his cave at Chateau Barberbelle

Jeff and Kristi at Bonnieux

Beautiful Gordes spilling down the hill

The main fountain in Aix

The nuclear power plant near our gite (Provence is not all picturesque)

The campus of the mining university in Gardanne where the workshop was held

Alice with her research poster at the workshop

Kevin Gue, Alice, Russ Meller - incredible brainpower applied to floorplan design for order picking warehouses

Kimberly Ellis (center) and her two lovely sisters at a bar in Aix

Chicken (finally - after a sea of meals of pork products!) with yummy au gratin potatoes at La Chimere Cafe in Aix

The spouses of the workshop (Randy in center) get ready to tackle Marseille

Tuesday started with a drive to Manosque where we toured the L'Occitane factory.  This was a pretty good tour focused on production but also including some info on the raw ingredients such as lavender, shea butter, etc.  It lasted about 75 minutes and we got a sample size bottle of both lotion and shampoo (which we were out of).  Then we picnicked at the local park (cheese, the last of our Swiss sausage, wine, bread, etc.) which was nice but windy.  We headed back to Aix and picked up Jeff and Kristi and headed north through the local wine country.  We stopped at two local wineries for tastings and they bought a couple of decent and very well priced wines.  We had a surfeit of wines already and could not buy more :-( .   Then we saw a couple of  "beautiful" villages - Bonnieux and Gordes.  We drove back and chilled at Aix until the workshop reception.  This was pretty fun and we followed it with a light dinner with Jeff and Kristi at a street cafe in Aix.  Headed "home" for some sleep.

Wednesday was work day unfortunately.  I got up and went to my workshop (International Material Handling Research Colloquium) at the School of Mines at Gardanne, which is a new campus and focused on microelectronics manufacturing.  It was easy to find and has good internet.  But the sessions dragged a little (like all conferences) and the rose wine at lunch did not help my peppiness.  Randy went on the spouses program which toured around Aix.  We met up for dinner at La Chimere Cafe which was good but the restaurant opened an hour (!) after the scheduled time and was so slow that Randy and I forewent dessert so that we could get a decent night of sleep.  Randy had a good time with the spouses but they were mistreated by an evil French maitre d' at lunch which irked him (Randy).  For the most part we have been treated well in France but there are a few who keep that stereotype of the stuck up Frenchman who hates Americans alive.