Family togetherness: Four people in a six-meter RV without telephone or internet. Only one person can speak to anyone outside the family. Andy thought he would die without internet the first day. The second he was certain that his friends had all thought he had died, and everyone would have forgotten him by the time he returns to school.

Liam really wants some books . We didn't bring any books because we end up with a heavy suitcase full of books after weeks on the road. Liam can’t bear to read a book once and leave it. His books become his close friends, and he rereads them repeatedly. We bought one book, but we’re sending it home with Chris. Liam can renew the friendship when he returns to Carlsbad.

He’s spending time with the Eyewitness Travel Family Guide: France. This is a good thing. Liam is more aware of where we are going and the sights along the way. He now advises us on the major sights we should visit. So far he’s spot on. He can pay for his future travels by being a tour guide.

My travel advice: Skip the boring adult travel guides. Fodor's, Frommer's, Lonely Planet--they are dull. The two best travel guides I have every traveled with are this book about France and the London Unlocked: A Guidebook for Kids. They contain all the information the adult books have, so you have addresses, phone numbers, maps, photos (so many more photos than the adult books), etc . What you get in the kid guidebooks are recommendations for FUN things to do.

Liam desperately wants to move to France because field trips would be to cool places like Chartres Cathedral or Chinon Chateau—we saw school groups at both—instead of to boring places in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Plus, everyone would speak French with him.

Andy hopes no one speak French to him, though he has a lovely accent. He practices in the RV with me but is terrified of speaking a word in public. Today he spoke his first word to a Frenchman who helped him with an iPhone issue. Speech needs to be about something important for this guy.

Andy and Liam learned The Dubliners’ three-CD set when we spent a month in Ireland in an RV five years ago. The songs they know by heart: Donegal Danny, Fiddlers’ Green, Whiskey in the Jar, The Woman in the Woods (aka The River Saile), etc. It sounds like we are in an Irish pub as we roll along .

Liam hates all new foods. Andy is eager to try new foods. The few times we’ve eaten out, we have found places that serve pizza—sometimes along with other foods, and sometimes just pizza. It’s challenging to encourage an adventurous eater when the fussy one only wants pizza margherita.

We tried pizza again two nights ago. Foolproof plan fail! The margherita pizza had a smeared layer of goat cheese underneath the melted cheese. Liam feels completely betrayed! How could anyone do that to a kid!?!

From now on, we aren’t ordering food for Liam. I’m going to get something that I know has a kid-safe portion, and we are going to share a meal. We’ll eat like I did when I was a poor exchange student: Basket after basket of bread, endless carafes of water, and he can have a nibble of what I’m eating, if it isn’t disgusting to him. Almost everything is disgusting to him.

Though we are in the south of France, about as far south as one can go, it’s still light out until 10 p .m. The sun rises well before 6 a.m. We all need a hit of caffeine by afternoon tea.

Some snippets:

Liam: I might be claustrophic. We don’t know that I’m not claustrophobic.

Liam and Andy: I don’t want to shower. I showered yesterday. I brushed my teeth yesterday. Why do I have to do it again?

Andy, spokesman for the pair: We don’t want to go see some stupid cathedral . . . . This cathedral is awesome!

Four people in a six-meter RV. No telephone, no internet.

The photos accompanying this blog entry are of the Gouffre de Padirac east of Rocamadour, the Pyrenees, the Petit Train d'Artouste, villages we've stayed the night in or visited along the way--completement melange.