Baguettes

So for those of you who don't know the reason why this is the first time I'm posting in all of May, it's because I was traveling for the first 17 days.  First I was in Columbus, OH for a conference (and I am leaving tomorrow for a related conference).  Then I went to Europe.  I stayed with a friend in southern Germany and visited several German and French cities as well as Luxembourg.  We finished off the trip with a Paris visit.  The whole trip was a lot of fun, but unfortunately, I don't have a camera so the only pictures are those she took in Paris.  The unfortunate part about returning to the States is that the bread there was so amazing, I don't think I'll ever be able to eat store bought bread in the U.S. again, even from the bakery.  This isn't a huge problem since I bake about 80% of the bread that I eat, it's just cutting out that remaining 20%.  It does mean that I need to expand my repertoire, however.  Since I've been working from home, and will continue to at least 4 days a week (this is of course, including weekends), I have the opportunity to do things like attempt baguettes, which require longer proofing time than other breads.  I started with a fairly simple recipe and liked the outcome except the crust did not brown as much as in their pictures.  I left it in the oven for about 45-50 minutes, which was definitely too much, the crust was thicker and the inside drier than the baguette should have been, but I was waiting for it to turn "dark golden brown."  In retrospect, I should have baked them at a higher temperature.  My oven claims to go up to 500F.  That being said, I made the baguettes on Thursday morning and they were gone by Saturday afternoon... and I didn't share with anyone.