Day 29. Coole to Donnement – Heads Down

Before we begin the day let me give a shout out to our hosts Brigitte and Jean-Claude Dulieu.  They fed us well, and we had a wonderful night of conversation.  We saw their pilgrim book of all those they have hosted,  and Brigitte received a Key.  This gift seemed to be very special to her and later we understood why.  Since the story is a private one, I won’t publish it here.   It was an important evening and I’m glad we came.

This morning starts Day2 of the Coole Valley ancient route.  It will be like yesterday except even straighter.

We left our host house with an escort. Brigitte insisted on walking us down to the boulangerie to get supplies for the day.  She then walked us onto the Roman road before heading back home.  It was a sweet gesture and gave us time to say our goodbyes. 

Speaking of Roman Roads…today was a heads down, plow forward kind of day.  We didn’t speak with anyone because there was no one with whom to speak.   We didn’t stop to visit anything for a similar reason.  This was pure left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot… for about 16.5miles. 

There was a breeze at our backs in the morning,  so we actually walked backwards for a bit to get refreshed.  But by the afternoon it was just still and hot and exposed.   We had an extended lunch in the shade and then plodded on toward our next host house in Donnement. 

To pass some time we listened to some music and two chapters of Oliver Twist.  In fact we ended the afternoon listening to our kids childhood favorite “We Sing Silly Songs” …. Ok… maybe it’s about time we got out of this desert.  Perhaps it’s making us a little crazy. 

We took our last swig of very warm water about 1/4mi before the end with some heart pounding John Phillips Sousa pushing us forward…Good timing. 

Our host for the night has a larger family than do I.   Not many people can say that.   This place has a bonus feature…an indoor family pool.

Dinner was so much fun. Our hosts had friends over, and he had a wood pizza/bread oven. We had homemade and home-fired pizza. In addition we had a homemade cherry wine and a walnut wine. The walnut wine tasted like a port. The wine and the conversation was fantastic.

Tomorrow we emerge from the “desert” to rejoin the VF and camp.