"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was your night?"

This blog’s headline is posted as such for good merit and I will explain why in a few words. I don’t think the headline needs an explanation — at least I would hope not.

To call today a roller coaster is a drastic understatement. I could not have envisioned it shaking out as it did.

I lost an hour this morning between various directional and shopping delays, and while frustrated in the moment, it was thanks to some calming philosophy from my friend and colleague Paul Ryan (no, not the Wisconsin Congressman) for some necessary perspective. Little did I figure how much I would need it later in the day.

With a few blog posts and photo galleries put online on the Alley blog and a major story complete breaking down the acronyms at Le Mans for Motorsport.com, I headed out to the pits about 2 p.m. for the day’s pit walk. Fun times and a lot of good pics which I will upload later.

I made the decision to really soak up the rest of the day with my dad, without worrying about work. Too much of this week has been spent in the media center with my nose to the grindstone that I hate to admit I haven’t been able to enjoy too much of it, so that was the plan for the day.

The parade was in Plaza Jacobins in downtown Le Mans, which I have been to now several times but navigating with a lot of traffic in my dad’s rental car was always going to be a challenge.

When entering a roundabout about 2 or 3 miles out, it all went completely wrong. We merged into the lane but unfortunately lost sight of another car stopped in the right lane going the opposite direction, and rammed right into the car’s rear bumper. We weren’t toast but it was a mess of a time trying to get it all sorted from there. Suffice to say more, other than it was not a good situation.

About an hour later we valiantly fought onward in the attempt to find a parking space for the parade. Oddly that wasn’t the worst part. When in the scrum to get on a tram, my dad was the unfortunate victim of a pick-pocket on his backpack. His camera was stolen. It became a worse situation because it was quick, stealthy and neither one of us noticed.

We held out hope it fell out in the rental car, but alas, this was not the case. We got confirmation when we returned from dinner, which in and of itself nearly made up for the two major faux pas of the day.

Culture is an interesting one here — you can plan for it and suddenly after three hours eating, talking and drinking at dinner you find you have met new friends. That overcomes the angst and frustration of the downsides. In this case, someone I had met briefly at scrutineering stopped by, and my dad and I met some French fans who spoke very good English and did everything they could to improve the mood.

Put simply it was a day where things just went wrong more often than usual. I could say more but it just brings up greater frustration. At least no-one was hurt from the proceedings.

A more pleasant note to end this on is that this relative day of frustration occurred on my grandparents’ 72^nd wedding anniversary, June 10, 1939.

I guess I’ll always remember June 10, 2011 in that vain as well, if not for all the wrong reasons. But to quote the two mottos of the trip: in France, it’s not supposed to make sense, it just is, and secondly, it could be worse.

Off to sleep and get more than four hours before race day tomorrow … it’s going to be tiring but fun. Later.