Bonjour! Today's hike was a mere 18.8 miles. I never think that major miles on the first day are so awful because I am hiking on rested legs. Plus it was totally flat. I tell Dennis that there are never any flat miles in Europe but for one day it was flat!
It started along the Rhone River.
This photo is for my sister, Sandi, and her husband David St Pierre. Prayers for Dave's speedy recovery. He is in rehab after a fall and some pretty serious injuries. Just in case you wanted to know, a quai is a wharf.
I am following the GR-653. European trail (GR) markers are red and white stripes.
I met three French pilgrims early on the trail and I keep seeing them. Very nice. Their English is only slightly better than my French. But we smile and wave.
My whole day was on a road specifically for walkers and it was flat as a flitter. Ever wonder what a flitter is? My grandmother, Nanny used this expression all the time. According to Fornoob, a flitter is "a Southernism, which means very, very flat. And supposedly there's a source to document this, which also defines other southernisms such as "cotton pickin'" and "no bigger than a minute": Further research indicated that it is fried flatbread made from self-rising flour.
I turned here by mistake but only walked a few feet when I realized my mistake. My only mistep the whole day. Whoohoo. I never got lost.
At some point, the river became the Petite Rhone River but it was just as beautiful.
The rest of my journey will be in the région Occitanie which is the southern third of France. On one side is the Mediterranian Sea the southern part encompasses the Midi-Pyrenees. That means mountains ahead.
After I checked into my hotel, I decided to have a glass of wine and try to find the internet. No luck, it was down in the area. This fellow was drunker than Cootie Brown and he turned up the music and danced for us. He keep making googly eyes at me until the bartender made him behave. He was more funny than annoying. At least he didn't take off any clothes or made any lude gestures. All and all, pretty harmless.
My first course at dinner was okay. Fresh shrimp cocktail. Unfortunately, the whole reason I like shrimp cocktail is for the sauce with enough horseradish to give me that tingle in my sinuses. The French serve it with kind of a tartar sauce. Not as good as our good ol' American cocktail sauce.
For all of the wonderful meals that I have had in Europe, I was due for a terrible meal. I think this was supposed to be veal but it was tough and fatty. I always carry a zip-lock bag in my purse and I put it to good use. The waitress was so nice that I didn't want to hurt her feelings so into the bag (secretly) this abomination went. Usually, I have happy cats if I get too much food but I decided that I like cats too much to torture them. It is hard to mess up pasta with tomato sauce but this had no flavor. The wine was pretty good.
And at least the chocolate mousse was edible and actually decent. Not the best but it is hard to mess up any kind of chocolate pudding. I even like instant chocolate pudding.
So this blog is a day late because of the internet. I finally called Dennis to make sure he wasn't worried. He then texted my Mom who also worries. I also wanted to find out how he and Ralph fared in the bridge tournament. They won first place in three of the four events and placed third in the other one. Way to go!
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