It is an interesting story.  In 1993, while Lorenzo was still a teenager I was trying to find trails to organize trail rides in Southern France originating from Chateaux de Fayette a Chateaux that a friend of mine Lucien owned.  Lucien and I went to the home of one of his many lady friends who had a stable in the Camarague area of France.  Her son (Lorenzo) agreed to take us out to see the trails near there that he said we could use for trail rides.  Now Lorenzo and is momma had a business giving trail rides to people already and we could use them as a source to send our clients.  I was leaving the next day to return to California so I could go on the 265 mile 5 day Outlaw Trail race.  The clothes I was wearing at the time were the same clothes I planned to wear on the trip home.  So Lucien and I along with a young couple from Paris that were Lorenzo’s clients took to the trails with Lorenzo leading us.  It was not a very exciting area to ride in for me especially since I was used to riding the Tevis type trails.  Matter of fact it was basically a delta swamp near the Mediterranean Sea.   The area we were riding in was cow pastures and swampy.   The mesquites were huge and it was muddy.   Along the way Lucien asked me “ So Mr Potato how do you like this trail?”  My response to him was “ quite frankly Lucien I think it is like sitting on the toilet” He gave me a smile and we continued a bit then I said “ however Lucien at least on the toilet you can read the newspaper”.  Little did I know the couple in front of us spoke English, if I did I would not have said what I did.  A week later while riding the beautiful trails of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid in Southern Utah near Bryce Canyon I purchased a scenic post card of that lovely area and mailed it to Lucien.   The memo on the card said “Lucien this is not the toilet” That remark has become a standard comment between Lucien over and I the years.  One of the things I recall was that Lorenzo in his typical trail guide routine would take us through some pretty wet and muddy area’s as well as make us ride through small ponds to add excitement to the riders.  It was not exciting for me as I wanted to keep clean and I found no excitement in riding in muddy water especially when I could see good alternate routes to take.  Along the way Lorenzo did impress us all with his horsemanship.  He was a very nice and polite young man.

Potato