My camp site is a command center, a Mission Control. My rallonger delivers juice to my electric cooler and my computer. I can pick up the wireless internet signal all the way from Camp Reception. I take photos, transfer them to the MacBook and send them out to you without leaving my canvas folding-armchair-with-cup-holder-by-the-Loire. I am so bien equippé that people are coming over to borrow things from me.
I’m waiting for my clothes to finish being washed and dried (6,50 Euros—steep but I’m moving on to the château region and I have toothpaste, grass, mud and olive oil stains galore, and I stink.) It takes hours—the French machines wash the living daylights out of everything, going through complicated sets of cycles and lasting hours. The washing sinks next to them have a washboard surface molded into them so you can scrub the bejesus out of your garments. Fiercely clean, those French, and the German hausfraus like to use plenty of elbow grease.