|
July 24 – July 30, 2009
 Well, Brett made it through the first week of torment. I had empathy for every limp and moan that he had, because I was there at one point. But it was a good first week. We got farther than I expected with the fact that there were new feet involved in the walk. We are taking a day off now in a town called Chatillon-sur-Indre. It is a pleasant little town with everything we need to get by on a day off. Every night this week we slept in the tent. It is almost becoming a game to try and find the coolest place to camp out. Some nights we camped in the middle of farm fields, some in public parks, one beside an abandoned windmill that looked haunted, and some just right next to the road. Well, maybe it’s not so glamorous yet but we’re getting there. One of these days I would like to try and camp out on top of a water tower. It’s a lot harder to talk to people and ask them if we can stay with them because, you know, we don’t speak FRENCH! I wish I did. I’ve been getting better though, slowly but surely.
Right now I think I’m pretty much past all the pain. Nothing is really getting in my way physically. But Brett on the other hand, well…he is getting there. He’s had blisters, sore muscles, swollen ankles, sleep deprivation, etc. It’s almost like he’s pregnant. Cross your fingers, I hope he’s not. But after this day off he’ll probably be a lot better. This next week will probably be an even longer distance.
 We caught a little bit of rain here and there but not too bad. What’s been the worst are the cloudless days with nothing separating us from the sun. I am half Cajun and half Caucasian. But luckily the temperature isn’t in the 100’s like it is back in
Texas . Usually it doesn’t get over the high 80’s but the humidity makes it feel like I’m on Mercury. A daily routine that we have been able to experience is river bathing. Every day we have come across a swimmable river and used it to bathe, wash our clothes, and just cool down. Thank God for that or we would have been suffering. The towns that we have passed through are very beautiful. I just wish we had more time to actually tour the town and visit the attractions. We only have enough time to walk straight through them and hope to see something along the way. Places like
Chartres ,
Blois , and Chateaudun have extremely beautiful churches and chateaus. You can see some of them in the pictures.
 So as we were walking into Chatillon, we were assuming that there were some places to stay for the night like a hostel or something because all the other towns had a surplus of them. So when we got here we stopped in a bar and asked the bartender, Nicole, with what little French I knew where a hostel was. She told me there wasn’t anything in town, no hostel, no hotel…nothing. She then called the priest of the town because the church has a house that people can stay in if they are traveling through and are in need. But that was no longer in use either. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that the town we decided to take a day off in had NO accommodation. So I called my uncle, who speaks French, and had him talk to Nicole to try and figure something out. She said she would call a doctor in town who could maybe help. Well she finally got a hold of him and he said he could take us to a branch of his hospital to stay in a vacant hospital room. And when he (Michel) came to pick us up we found out he was also the mayor of the town and he spoke some English! So at first we had no place to stay and were sore from six straight days of walking, and now we have the mayor taking care of us and giving us a place to stay for free! How amazing is God’s provision. If it wasn’t for my uncle, Nicole, or Michel then we wouldn’t have received this blessing. Thank you, Lord. Now we are just relaxing on our day off, going to the market to stock up on food, and blogging it up at the town hall. What an amazing encounter. This day off will be very beneficial to us. Tomorrow we will be ready to go for another week without stopping. Wish us luck!
|
