We woke to a fog so thick we could scarcely see the edges of our tent's vestibule, little more than a foot away. You could step out into the whiteness that surrounded you and believe that the world had fallen away into chaos and the tiny island on which you sat was all that remained. You could taste the fog on your lips and feel it roll across your skin and seep into everything. It was worse than rain because from rain you can seek shelter while this rolled into everything and soaked everything.
We sat and stared in wonder at the vanished world. We decided to stay the day and enjoy the lakeside and hope that things would dry out. We waited for the fog to lift and we waited and we waited. Finally around 11 o’clock the mist lightened enough that we could emerge from our tent and enjoy. Now it shrouded the world only so much that you could not see the far bank of the lake and the grey of the water matched the grey of the air so that it seemed as though the ducks sped from the shores and drifted skyward to vanish in the heavens.
Great swirls of mist formed in the air in front of us , like a vortex sucking some of our atmosphere into a strange world. Around us were a million million spider webs, bejeweled with dew drops until they glistened like necklaces wrapped carefully around delicate flowers.
One flower was so entwined that it seemed to be imprisoned in a cage of delicate silk. Strands of spider silk hung like gossamer curtains from every tree until walking seemed to be impossible for fear of destroying their beauty. Spider webs can be such things of wonder and delight in sunshine and dew.
Most of our day we spent down by the lake shore watching the dew slowly evaporate and the spider webs vanish in the glare of the day. When we returned an hour later to the flower that had been previously encased it was now almost impossible to tell that a spider had ever touched it.
Brian and Margaret had left early that day so we had the campground to ourselves. Tomorrow we plan a big push towards Nantes, hoping to hit the campgrounds that were open, so we were reluctant to head out and explore the area around us today. So we plunked down at a picnic table and finished off the adventures of Bilbo Baggins.
J.R.R. Tolkien truly had a gift for the written word but he seems to have enjoyed ending his stories on a down note that is a little depressing. Especially for us. It does us no good to hear how at the end the Tookish side gave out and the Baggins won so he returned home and spent the rest of his life curled in front of his fireplace. Very cheery for us in France with a good six months or so traveling in front of us.
We are slowly entering the lands in which Guy Gavriel Kay sets most of his novels so it will be interesting to see familiar names suddenly popping up at us from inns and small towns. If we want to fit in properly, however, I’m afraid we will have to start drinking more wine. Last night we had three cups each and could hardly make it back to our tent. The only worry about drinking the wine is that it could triple the distance we travel in France, without once taking us off course.
We had, I am forced to admit, originally seen France as merely a country we had to pass through to get to Italy. But the more we travel the more we find things we want to see. We had expected to see nothing in Rennes but walked to exhaustion without seeing half of what interested us. If the rest of France proves as interesting we might never want to leave. I only hope the weather holds up. Today, once the fog had cleared, was one of the most beautiful days we have seen so far, with nary a cloud to be seen and no wind at all. Typical, actually, because we weren’t on our bikes.
I am getting a little anxious to send messages home, they have not heard from us in at least 20 days and our email accounts shut down if not used every thirty days. I would like to get the news as well. We will be heading, eventually, in the direction of Toulouse, and last we heard they were still trying to figure out if the blast there had any terrorist links.
It is pretty obvious that from my writing, I think, that today is another shut in day, My thoughts are all over the place and as there are no events to record I record my thoughts instead. If we have too many more days like this I shall run out of thoughts and be forced to fill the pages with doodles instead. Ahh, just like university.
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