Friday 24 August

Carennac is a tiny storybook village (370 inhabitants) on the Dordogne, with an impressive 11th Century Clunisian priory, village houses with half-timber overhanging balconies, and a grassy shoreline walk along the little canal fed by the river.
It’s only a few kilometers from the amazing Gouffre de Padirac, a dramatic cavern with a cathedral-like chamber and an underground lake—and Rocamadour, built on a soaring rock, which became a major pilgrimage site in 1166 when a perfectly preserved corpse, believed to be Saint Amadour, was unearthed at the entrance of the village’s first chapel.
But what brings me here is a book I read ten years ago and re-read regularly: At Home In France, by Ann Barry, a New York Times travel writer, a single woman who fell in love with Carennac, and bought a house on a crest above the village, even though she could only carve out a few weeks a year to be there.


Here’s an Amazon.com review by Robert Ruiz from several years ago:

There is subtle artistry in the way it's written, gentle looks into the basic human goodness of the French people in her circle. Knowing that the author died of (breast) cancer in middle-age before seeing this book published brings a bittersweet feel that grows as the last page nears. (She mentions in the final chapter, for instance, that she will skip a planned trip to a spa that year to be at a village event, saying that the spa will always be there next year). You want to call out protectively to her, “Yes it will be there, but you will not”. I found myself transfixed by Ann Barry herself -- a loner who never feels so right in the world as when she is in France, as her truest self.

“I was happy in a way I’d never been before,” she wrote of her first stay in France. I know what she means by that, and I wanted to stand in front of her house high over Carennac and think about it.

Thursday, August 23

In my haste to get out of Brittany and the rain, I missed seeing the large city of Nantes, where the Loire ends, and where my friend Veronique was born. I also missed the entire Poitou-Charentes region, which looks lovely in pictures, but was a kind of a grey blur yesterday (at 140 km an hour), and there was still no sign of blue sky. Or any color of sky.
I decided to take the last leg of my trip along the Dordogne, (top) the prettiest French river I know so far.
I keep coming back to this region whenever I can, because it has a combination of natural beauty, fascinating history, and great food. It’s the land of "Clan of the Cave Bear," Richard the Lion-Hearted, and medieval Christian pilgrims, and its cuisine is renown: nuts, cheeses, salads, foie gras, and mouth-watering comfort-food featuring duck and potatoes.
This where you find the famous grottos and caverns that are geological marvels, and the ages-old cave paintings. Lascaux is one of the most famous. The actual site is restricted to archeologists, but France recreated an exact replica cave site called Lascaux II, accurate down to every rock contour and paint mark, and you can see the reverence with which ancient man regarded the creatures that gave them food and clothing, (bottom).

The river rises in the mountains of Auvergne, and flows generally west about 500 km through the Limousin and Périgord regions before flowing into the Gironde, its common estuary with the Garonne, north of Bordeaux. Once enemies, the French and English faced each other dangerously in their chateaux on opposite sides of the Dordogne.
All along the river you find charming little villages, such as Beynac, (3rd from top) known as one of France’s ‘plus beaux villages’-- it was the town you saw in "Chocolat" starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. Sarlat la Caneda (2nd from top) is the tourist favorite, mobbed in Summer, but offering great places to stay and eat.
Further on up the Dordogne is the village I was aiming for—Carennac, in the Lot.
No sun yet, but the rain had stopped, and I wanted a good experience to cap off my trip. I didn’t want it to end in defeat by the weather, and the dreary compromise of highway motel rooms.

Wednesday, 22 August

At 6:30 the morning looked promising. I could see spots of light on the grass outside the tent. Beau and I set off on what I call the ‘pee and poop trail’, which is the country road par course for our next daily event, the ‘beach run’. By the time we got to the beach and parked, the sky was dark and there was a wind, but Beau had a good time running in huge circles around the other dogs we’ve met on this stretch of beach…a spaniel, a little bug-eyed French bulldog, and today, we met a whippet, a cousin of the greyhound, and I chatted with her owner while Beau danced around her like Fred Astaire. Feeling warm and friendly now, in spite of the weather, we were headed back to the Kangoo when the boy in your fourth grade class who told on everyone passed by in his Coke-bottle-bottom glasses and raised a finger at me. “Vous n’avez pas le droit à promener un chien sur la plage” he said, telling me dogs weren’t allowed. I hadn’t seen the familiar sign of a dog head with an X over it, so I said something undiplomatic like “Ah shaddup”.
But sure enough, back at the car, I saw the sign.
“That does it, Beau, we’re going home”. He looked back at the beach kind of sadly, but he got in the car.
I broke camp, paid and told the girl at Reception that yes, I had indeed passed a nice séjour, even though there was a little too much noise at night. But it was amusing noise. Then I put pedal to metal and we were out of Brittany within the hour, looking for sun. Even just a bit of blue sky.
Eight hours in driving rain later, I was on a major highway near Bordeaux. Bordeaux sounds romantic, what with the wine and all, but it is an ugly city and the traffic is hell, especially at rush hour, and I was desperately trying to avoid it. I have a little compass to supplement my maps, and I headed east, but it kept reading south, or north—anything but east. After too long, I realized I was on the rocade, or beltway going around Bordeaux.
It was time to find a place for the night. It was still raining and now it was dark, so when I spotted a Kyriad, a kind of French Motel 6, I stopped and got us a 60-Euro room—with a bathtub. (French hotels gladly accept dogs—even the luxe ones).The only thing wrong with the room, besides the oppressive smell of stale cigarette smoke masked by an industrial air freshener, was that instead of a coffeemaker, it had a hot-water maker and teabags. Not for me, tea. I went back to the car in the rain and got the electric coffeemaker I’d bought for 8,90 in Brittany, and smuggled it in for my morning coffee.

This morning Beau learned that if you go after a bird sitting in bright green stuff, you may find yourself up to your snout in the water and dark muck that was lurking just beneath the bright green stuff, the bird will be cackling at you as it paddles out of your reach, and once back on the road you will look silly in your black stockings.

I am witnessing the good nature with which the French—and the English, Irish, Italians, Germans and Africans—are coping with a relentlessly cold and wet camping vacation.
“We come here every year and it’s never been like this” a French lady assured me in the laundry room (where at last we were warm and dry). Her husband was there, apparently just for moral support (or for the warm and dry) as his wife unloaded the dryer and folded every item perfectly. He agreed. They are staying in a mobile home. I said I was in a tent, and I came here from Provence, where the sun is shining.
“In a tent? With that big dog?” Madame shook her head. “You are courageous”. But her look said, “or nuts”.
“At least you get to go back to Provence and the sun”, said the husband. “We have to go back to Paris.”
“We had sun in Paris—for a few minutes in April” said Madame.

My French and English and Irish neighbors play cards and board games inside their trailers through the afternoon hours. The group of young French guys who kept us all awake last night, slept in today, their individual dome tents huddled together under a general tarpaulin, like turtles under a blanket. The surrounding turf is muddy and strewn with bottles, cans, shoes, and various items of clothing. At 1:30, when everyone else was finishing lunch, they sent their cleanest and most polite guy out to borrow something to cook on. I contributed my 2-burner butane stove. When they realized they also needed something to cook in, they sent the clean guy out again. My pan wasn’t big enough for them; sausages were on their menu. They ended up with a big frying pan courtesy of the Irish family, who’d cooked a lot and already washed everything.

The saddest display is probably the campsite several rows down the gravel drive from me. The tent is huge, so it must be a big family. They’ve created a private “yard” with a temporary fence of colored plastic sheets. Across this yard is a clothesline hung with underwear in various sizes, and socks and towels—all the same blue-gray, all dripping wet, wetter than when they were hung up to dry. At the corner of the fence, a pair of muddy work gloves are stuck on the tops of two poles, fingers spread and palms forward as if to say “Stop! Enough! We surrender!”

I am shamed. I’ve been whining about being wet and miserable—but I’m here for work, not vacation. These other people only have so much vacation time (well, for the French it’s 4 weeks but nevertheless…) Every day deals them more wind and rain and mud, and every day they go out and find something fun to do anyway.

Sticking it out has its rewards. I can now get enough muscles to cooperate so that I can rise from the air mattress to a standing position and walk out of the tent in dignity. This—instead of stumbling forward in a bent-over position, catching the toe of my Croc and grabbing wildly at the aluminum folding table which then tips over—is progress, mes amis.

Madeleine de Proust, c’est une madeleine trempée dans du thé qui permet à Proust de revivre un fragment de son enfance. Et donc, in extenso, quand on retrouve un goût, une odeur, une impression etc., qui nous fait penser à notre enfance, paf ! On parle d’une Madeleine de Proust.

Proust’s Madeleine, a madeleine dipped in tea which permits Proust to relive a fragment of his childhood. And so, in extenso, when one retrieves a taste, a smell, an impression etc., which makes us think of our childhood, paf! We’re talking about Proust’s Madeleine.


From the charming blog of a Parisienne named Deedee (http://deedeeparis.com/)

Beau and I have discovered madeleines, those wonderful cakey-cookies that, when dipped in his tea, served Marcel Proust as a memory trigger in Remembrance of Times Past (A La Recherche du Temps Perdu)
I find them to be food for thought, since I am writing a memoir, but also food for food’s sake, as when you’re holed up in a tent in the rain and you can’t cook anything.
Beau likes them because they are what I am eating.

Back at camp just in time to make coffee and bring everything inside for the morning downpour—and sure enough, here it comes. I take my Zoloft, roll up the sleeping bags, wipe Beau’s feet and bring him inside, hopefully to curl up and snooze. I bring in the coffeemaker, onto what I call my ‘front porch’—a little space between the opening flap and the zippered panel that closes off our sleeping quarters. Then, in the spirit of not-gonna-let-it-get-me-down, I set up an extra bedroll as a backrest on my air mattress, open two umbrellas and prop them just inside the flap, stretch out my legs onto my ‘porch’ and voilà—my office. Coffee is set on an ‘end table’ made of two stacked plastic boxes within my reach, and as long as I follow one of my own reminders, “Don’t do anything stupid”, I’m set for several hours.
As the rain persists in a maddening let-up-then-let-‘em-have-it pattern, last night’s voices are now grim and grumpy. Kids whine and cry and parents make desperate attempts to amuse them.
I’m over it. I don’t even care about getting wet, as long as I have my computer, hot coffee, a pain au chocolat and an internet connection, I’m happy. Maybe it’s as simple as switching off your expectations, in this case a sunny day. It ain’t gonna happen—not ‘til Wednesday, at least.
Did I come here to tan on the beach? To go shrieking down the camp's waterslide? To rent one of those silly three-seater-cycles and pedal around the town? Nope. Mine is an inner journey and I don't need the sun. Although it would be handy.
Anyway, it's useless for me to pack up now, piling all my muddy wet gear into the Kangoo and driving south, like two croutons in a chilled soup-on-wheels.
I'll take inspiration from those standing rocks and stay here writing my last chapters.

I remind myself of one of the many freaks that used to camp out across from the White House. This was a middle-aged woman who wore a dress and had a black wig as big and round and bulky as a football helmet. She would sit in the opening of her tent and rave at people. To supplement her vocal raving, she had printed up tall posters with her points of contention listed neatly in order.
Are there protesters camped out there now, I wonder, when there is so much more to protest?

6:30 Monday morning, 20 August

Aha! Good morning my sleeping neighbors. You’re missing out on a spectacular sunrise. Beau and I steal out of the enclosure for our early walk. (Actually, I steal and he runs around sniffing peoples’ trash).
The sky is, for once, a mellow turquoise and the clouds hovering over the rising sun are in shades of peach and apricot on their soft underbellies, like children around a campfire.
Back at camp, the little donkey, a kid attraction, brays obnoxiously in his stall right behind the big late-night party tent. Hee-haw… Ha hah!
We hop in the Kangoo and go to the beach. Now it’s gray and the clouds are dark and scolding, but the wide crescent beach at Carnac looks inviting. There are only a couple of dog walkers on the sand and occasional joggers on the perimeter walkway.
Carnac’s shoreline winds around a point to the little town of Trinité Sur Mer, which has smaller beaches and a bigger port. Neither one of these little towns are ‘beachy’ in that no souvenir stalls line the roads between town and beach—only residences and hotels, with cafés and restaurants. The ‘commerces de la plage’ are located on side streets, but still no surf shops, cartoon beach towels or French fry stands.
To me, that seems fitting, knowing that in the countryside just beyond are thousands of those ancient rocks, placed upright by Druids (or giants, some say), standing solemn and dignified as one does when in possession of unknowable secrets.
To keep my vision of them in my imagination, I avoid the tourist office, information centers and the museum, where vacationers are lined up to ‘see’ them.

Sunday Night 19 August

Now the air is clear and cool—not an August-nightfall-heat-relief cool, but a September-is-near-now-things-will-begin cool. My quartier is full of newly arrived people; gone is the English mother I heard through the hedge, thoughtfully lecturing her child on his comportment, pausing often to say “do you understand that?”, the child saying “yes, Mummy”. Gone are the two boisterous English families in their elaborate trailers with fold-out front porches made of plasticized fabric; Gone are the angry young men whose arguments turned into fighting late in the night.
Tonight, there are layers of happy noises suspended like sprays of stars over the camp. In the far reaches, sounds of pre-teens shouting, whooping and laughing contagiously. One girlish voice bursts out regularly in delighted high-pitched giggle that makes you smile and wonder what’s going on. A dad coaches, sounding benign and encouraging. A woman sings out “AhooooOOO!” as if to a baby bouncing in air. Sounds surround the dome of my tent, seeming close and intimate. From one direction—the melodic lilt of conversation, a cheerful roundness of the voices—they’re Irish, telling stories. Behind me, friends are playing a parlor game, singing bits of lyric, imitating percussion instruments, chuckling politely—they’re English. Across the grassy lane catty-corner to me, a group of French kids in their teens are crowded into one big tent, playing and teasing, drinking themselves sillier. Their clown cracks them up with impressions, funny accents, shocking remarks. Next to them are two young French families—the teens themselves in ten years—alternating adult conversation and toddler-talk in the enthusiastically capable style of young parents.
It’s the end of summer, the dead space between two charged seasons, and for a fleeting moment we all feel right just where we are.

Top is the tumulus near my campsite.

Next is a menhir (single standing stone) Many are associated with graves (as is this one). Others are thought to be parts of sightings for determining the extreme positions of the sun and moon.

Dolmen. Megalithic tomb built of stone The oldest dolmen in the Carnac area was built 1000 years before the pyramids in Egypt.

Alignment. Rows of standing stones (menhirs), ranging from one row of a few stones to several rows of hundreds of stones. The most famous are at Carnac.

Sunday, 19 August

The light (when there is light in Brittany) is silvery, whereas in Provence it’s golden. This is the land that inspired the legends of King Arthur, and there is certainly an ephemeral Arthurian atmosphere in this silver-and-green land.
The Morbihan gulf, where I am now, has the greatest concentration of strange megalithic structures left us by our Celtic ancestors. The district around the village of Carnac alone contains more than 3,000 prehistoric stone monuments. These include long avenues of menhirs (single standing stones), tumuli (tombs) and dolmens (multi-stone arrangements supporting horizontal slabs), Hewn from local granite, they were erected at different periods from early to late Neolithic (c. 4000-1500 B.C.). Now nature and time have covered them with white lichen. There are a tumulus and a menhir a short walk down the road from my campground.

Saturday, 18 August
Rain, rain, wind, and rain. I am camping at Carnac, on the southwestern coast of Normandy (apparently not far enough south), just 10 minutes from a great wide sandy (and soaked) beach. Beau and I are huddled in our tent, fighting for stretch-out room. Periodically I raise my arm and punch the top of the tent to release the accumulated water. I bought some nice broccoli and salmon for dinner but I can't cook it in the rain. I received a rejection from a literary agent I was really hoping for, so now I'm eating cold sugary snack cakes and drinking Coca Light and pouting. I do have a wireless internet connection--strong enough to get it right here in my tent, though, so at least I can bitch to all of you. Do you know how Crocs feel when your feet are wet, sandy and muddy all at the same time? I sit here barefoot because I can't go to the car and get dry socks because if I do, I'll be soaked and Beau will take over my space, and it's the only place in the tent where I can sit upright.
Waaaaaaaaah.

Friday, 17 August

We were sad to leave Vic and the Esnaults and the woods and fields around their equestrian spread. It was a good stay, even for the rain. (Mais il fait beau entre la pluie” insists Monsieur—“It’s beautiful between rains”. The big lie in Brittany is that it’ll be fine tomorrow—they mean between rains.
I was lucky to get an hour of sunshine to take some photos.
The Esnaults’ son lives in Wisconsin. Madame told me he learned English with an English accent and when he got to Wisconsin he couldn’t understand people. Now, she says, he's learned American English and he can’t understand people in England. He’s married to a Venezuelan girl who, besides her native language, also speaks English and French flawlessly. Her mother speaks only Spanish, and Madame is sad that she has never been able to speak directly with her daughter-in-law’s family.

Wednesday, 15 August “Quinze Août” as they say---the day the summer turns, weather-wise as well as in attitude. A day that is a holiday for many French people (who are mostly on vacation this month anyway). Andrew called to tell me that a soreness under his arm that’s been bothering him, with all the chopping and dicing he does in food prep, is probably a cyst according to Web MD, and he was going to go to the doctor this morning and get it lanced, but…it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Quinze Août, you know. Doc is closed.

Thursday 16 August
Andrew reports that he has a hematoma. Doc said it wasn't serious but ordered a pulmonary xray to make sure. Andrew said he was in and out of the radiology lab in 20 minutes and it cost only 27 Euros. If you have to be sick, this country is where to do it.
Beau has made a friend. Here he is with Vic (or 'Veek' as my hosts, Monsieur and Madame Esnault would say.)

Along the Northern coast of Brittany, the section called the “Emerald Coast” close to Number One Tourist Attraction Mont Saint Michel, every lodging place I saw (through pouring rain and frantic windshield wipers) was full. I realized that this was not the time to be winging it in one of Europe’s most popular vacation places.
Just then I spotted a sign offering horseback riding and chambres d’hôtes, a place for “green” vacations--riders and hikers. I pulled in, and Madame said they had just one chamber left, and I could have it for a few nights. I brought in Beau and my things, and Beau freaked and ran out of the room. “He’s too big for the room” said my hosts, dog people who know greyhounds and had already fallen in love with him, so they put us in their “gîte”, an apartment elsewhere in their long, charming house facing the Bay of Mont St Michel. They’d put another client who’d wanted a room into the apartment, so they just moved his bag out and mine in--and gave me the same price! It’s made up of three big tile-floored rooms, bedroom with a double and two twin beds (French family vacation style), a big sitting room with leather easy chairs and a huge fireplace, occupied by a stuffed fox, a bathroom and a WC just off it, and then a big country kitchen. I may use the kitchen, Madame said, so I don’t have to spend money on restaurant food—great since this very reasonable price is nevertheless blowing my budget for a few days. Fifty a night as opposed to the fifteen or twenty I pay to camp. As long as it’s raining, though, it's worth it. Even though I fall a little short of the bathroom mirror.
Everyone told me Brittany was going to be grey and rainy. I’m sure it’s beautiful when the sun shines. If it does, I hope I see it soon or I'll have to head back south. I can't afford a place with a roof and indoor plumbing for very long.

Finally--a chateau with no crowds and no rain--for a few minutes (car's running).

Tuesday, August 14
Long walk with Beau in Rennes—great section historique, with winding cobblestone streets and narrow townhouses with traditional wood-and-stucco upper stories that characterize the local architecture, the wood having been plentiful in the surrounding forests when the place was building up in the 16th Century.
Consulted my maps and set out to find the ancient moulin-à-eau, or water mill, which Andrew had found in a magazine featuring properties for sale by owners. It was formerly a hotel-restaurant, with 5 guestrooms and an apartment in two connected houses. (That’s how miserable JC and his tenant have made our lives—we’re looking for other places to live.)
It took awhile for me to get my bearings, but by getting lost you can find things, even in this rain. The countryside is green—green—GREEN, and no wonder. Everything is soaking wet. The car smells of wet dog. My socks are drenched and my feet slide around in my wet Crocs.
I pulled into Vieux Vy, where the moulin is located—a dreary little crossroads with a few ugly grey buildings. Just outside, on the route touristique along the Cousenon river, you come around a bend and you can see the moulin below, with the little silver river meandering toward it through fields of green dotted with cream-colored cows. It’s a breathtaking bucolic vision.
Up close, the place looks in need of a lot of repair, and just beyond it is a development Andrew and I would call ‘Tim Town’ because it’s a development of cheesy new prefab dwellings our former trainer would have admired.
And, as I talked to Andrew on my portable, looking at the moulin from the road, it became obvious that, lacking sunlight and all colors except grey and green, this place would suck for painting—either groups of students or for Andrew’s work.
That’s OK, though. I enjoyed the mission of finding it and photographing it, and verifying that it was unsuitable for us, outside of the fact that we wouldn’t be able to pay half a million Euros for it—or anything else for that matter.
Now it was afternoon and time to check out the next campsite I’d found, about 30 minutes from Mont St Michel and the northern coast of Brittany. The site was fine, but I asked about the weather—rain for the next two days, and all they had available were tent sites. I decided to move on.

August 13 Continued
I left Angers and Drove straight to Rennes, a university town, full of young people, and a real town complete with crazy sidewalk homeless people. The river Vilaine curves through the town and a canal branches off and flows by grassy banks along a tree-lined street of modern apartment buildings, just shabby enough to look affordable.
Posters (Afro Night!) suggest lively and diverse cultural events, and there are young people everywhere—such a refreshing change from The Luberon, the British equivalent of Sun City.
Attracted by signs to Le Rocher aux Fées, the Fairy Rock, I detoured off the route to inspect the ancient Dolmen in Ile-et-Vilaine.
It continues to be gray, heavily clouded and intermittently pouring—not auspicious for camping. I decided this would be my hotel night, and checked into a 3-star Mercure chain hotel on a main avenue. I told the young woman at the desk I’d been camping and she gave me a room with a bathtub, two stories up overlooking the Kangoo in its curbside parking space.
I was badly in need of a leisurely bath and enough time in a spotless bathroom to tend to grooming. I’m becoming as filthy and matted as a wild dog, and almost as indiscriminant.

Monday August 13
This is Chateau Country and I haven't done my duty as a tourist--the crowds are unbreachable. I was determined to go to the one across the river from my campsite at Seillac, but it was pouring rain by the time I got there, so I looked at it from the opposite bank and took a very wet photo.

I made a detour to check out Chateau Chenonceau, known as le Chateau des Dames because ladies, from Catherine de Medici to Diane de Poitiers, were responsible for building it, restoring it, protecting it during wars. It’s built right on the river, and I wanted to see it, but arriving at the gate—with guards and ticket booths and traffic directors and seas of parked cars—I decided to wait for an off-season trip.
Got a look at the Angers chateau from the car—must skip that too for now. I’m sick of chateaux and the crowds. I’m leaving the Loire for awhile and heading north to the coast around Mont St Michel.

August 12

Some of you are wondering about my meals on the road. Actually, no one has asked about that…so I’ll tell you.
For dinner tonight, for example, while my Dutch neighbors burn whatever horrible things they’re preparing, I am having the following:
A filet of lieu noir , a fresh Atlantic fish which I’ve breaded (I brought my own seasoned breading mixture anticipating fish, (The Loire, right?) but it’s good with chicken also, and cooked in my camp skillet with a little butter and olive oil.
Fresh spinach, which I washed leaf by leaf under the faucet at my campsite and then scalded in another pan in a little salted water.
A boiled potato seasoned with salt, butter and dried herbs.
Mineral water and Diet Coke
And for desert a tiny pot à crème from the grocery store.

Traveling alone, you're never alone--it's almost impossible not to run into interesting people along the way. Here are Sherry and Pau, a Dutch couple, and the charming and quirky garden they've created around their mobile summer home in the middle of the farm-campsite La Ferme Prunay in Seillac, Loire Valley. The sign overhead says 'Rebel' and bears the US Confederate flag, a gift from a friend "Because I'm a rebel" says Pau.
Their 'Beer Garden' was planted by beer loving friends (sharing a taste for the brand in green bottles). The "Calvados Maker" is another tongue-in-cheek piece of art.

Saturday, 11 August
I left the petite Ferme in the Centre region for the Pays de la Loire to the west. Its big city is Nantes, and it extends to the coast, where the Loire spills into the Atlantic Ocean. My campground is in a little town called Les Rosiers sur Loire—Rosebushes-on-the-Loire, and it rates three flowers as a ville fleuri de France.
There are indeed plenty of rose bushes, in gardens and along public routes, but the town itself seems a little depressed. There’s something about its architecture that can’t make up its mind on heritage and preservation matters. But in the surrounding countryside the farmhouses are flower-bedecked and cheerful.
The suburbanesque campground Val-de-Loire, accessed by a key, is organized in a maze of tall green hedges separating tent and camper sites, and I got a spacious spot in a far corner, with three nice shade trees (although I haven’t seen the sun in days). Again I’m surrounded by Dutch people—these are younger, with fewer children—and a couple of young guys on the other side of the hedge sound Portuguese, between the farts and the laughter. They’re noisy, but it’s good-natured noise.
Yesterday morning, before I got packed to leave, I was coming back from a walk with Beau when he spotted a big hare and took off after it, wrenching the handle of the retractable leash right out of my hand. He flashed across the field with the red handle bouncing behind him. I got the car and drove up and down the road looking for him, but there was no sign. I notified Camp Reception, and called Andrew, in case anyone called our number engraved on a medal on his collar. He also has a micro-chip, so he would be found somehow—I just didn’t know how long it would take, and I had to be out of my caravan by afternoon to make way for the next people.
I stood drinking my coffee and looking out over the sunflower field in the direction he and the hare were headed when I last saw him. Then I thought I heard him. Beau is normally silent, but when he barks it’s more like a york. I put down my coffee, stepped over the wire fence and started down the outside rows of sunflowers, calling his name. No answer. I quit calling, and then I heard “York! York!” , then silence while he presumably waited for me. How was I going to find him in a sea of sunflowers? How far in would I have to go, and how would I find my way out?
I waited until he yorked again and moved toward the sound. Looking over the tops of the sunflowers, I could see a kind of gap several yards in. I whacked my way through the rows and bent down to see what was making that gap. Sure enough there was Beau, his long leash wrapped several times around five fat stems. He was tied fast to the flowers. He just looked at me over his long nose as if to say “What took you so long?”
After that, I just wanted to get our stuff together and get on the road.
Later that afternoon, about half an hour from my destination, something behind me started making a chaotic racket. I pulled over and got out to find the Kangoo's muffler hanging down to the ground. A passing trucker had noticed it and pulled over too. He put on heavy gloves and got down and pulled it all the way off, tossed it aside, and told me where to find a garage.
I roared into a town called Samur and at the first rond point I looked over and saw a Midas sign. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even know Midas was in France!
A big jolly grease-stained guy ordered the piece on the phone, telling his contact it was for an ‘Anglaise’ .
“Américaine” I corrected him.
“Ah, pardon”, he said with a big grin and a thumbs-up.
“Right”, I said. We weren't the ones who killed Joan of Arc.


After a whole day of nasty surprises and the anxiety they create, there was only one thing that would make me feel better---something that’s been denied me by circumstances for what seems like a long time. Did I dare? The tent was up, sleeping bags and mattresses installed, Beau conked out for the night. I was free to do what I wanted, and there was no one to tell me 'no'. I took a chance, finding my way to a place I knew would have what I wanted, hoping it wasn’t too late. I was in luck—and with a simple twist of the cap the comforting liquid splashed forth, drowning my worries and lulling me into a state of bliss.
Is there anything better after a hard day than a hot shower?

9 August
Andrew urged me to stay in my little caravan another night or two if I want. He laughed at me for feeling guilty over 28 Euros a night (as opposed to 11 for a tent site).
I wouldn’t be happy at home right now, he said, because the kitchen is a perpetual mess from the preparation he does each morning for his daily cooking gigs. He’s been assigned by an upscale agency to cook for groups of English and American vacationers staying at some of the splendid private estates around the Luberon.
I would be cleaning up after him and complaining, he said.
Let him have his mess and the accolades I know he’s receiving with his luscious meats and sauces, and his perfectly grilled whole fish stuffed with fennel. He’s bringing home the bacon.

I’ve been hearing a distinctive birdcall that I never heard at home in the Luberon. It’s similar to the cuckoo if the cuckoo had Marge Simpson’s voice. In Digoin, the bird sang “Don’t-go-there-Dee-Dee” and another agreed; “Don’t-go-Dee-Dee”.
Here in Seillac, the bird’s voice sounds the same, but it sings “Go-home-Dee-Dee”.
I wonder if anybody can tell me the name of that bird. I’ll just call it the Mom Bird. Mine didn’t want me to go anywhere, either.
She thought being out in the world was dangerous.

This morning as we left the camp I heard dogs howling as if in agony, and a sustained honk of a horn. It sounded like an emergency, and I was torn between going toward the noise to see if I could help, or taking Beau back to the camp to keep him out of it. I went forward, and found a party of hunters. They surrounded the sunflower field next to a farmhouse, guns on their shoulders, and one of them had an old-fashioned horn. Beau was rigid at attention—there was hunting in his past and he knew exactly what was going on. What’s more, he wanted badly to get into it. I approached the nearest hunter and asked “On chasse quoi?” and he answered “perdreaux”. So they were hunting partridges. Yum.
I had to drag Beau away.
We went back to the sunflower field this evening. It’s the end of the season for these flowers and many of them have bowed their heads, their brown pie-faces ringed with droopy yellow petals like little girls’ curls, and their scalloped leaves like tired ruffles. Standing in the front row, they look as if the Queen were passing. “Don’t bother curtsying for me, girls”, I say, but Beau likes the show of respect.
At that moment, I got a call from Ben. I told him about the look of the sunflowers. He told me about the taste of his wine.
I think being out in the world is glorious.

Tuesday, August 7
The problem with sleeping with a greyhound is that in the morning when they wake up they stand over you and poke under your covers with their cold wet nose.
This morning we were up at 6:30 and went for a 2-hour walk in the countryside.
Along the road by the campsite are two wonderful big old farmhouses made of dark, mossy stone, with this region’s characteristic pitched roofs. They’re nestled in a thick clump of tall shade trees amid vast expanses of wheat, corn and sunflower fields, and each farm has its own little pond and family of ducks. The houses and outbuildings are arranged to form a central enclosure, like a grassy courtyard.
We stopped at one with a shed facing the road to watch the sheep in the pen outside it. There were chickens sharing the same shed and pen, and when the sheep moved toward us, so did the chickens, staying underneath their sheep chaperones and peering warily through their wooly legs. When the sheep decided they didn’t like our looks, they turned around and the chickens turned with them, and the whole flock tiptoed and waddled together back toward the shed.
Beau busied himself pouncing on lizards and flushing quail.
Back in my little garden in the early sunlight, it was a warm-on-your-face-cool-on your back morning, and I hand-washed some clothes and hung them up to dry while I enjoyed real percolator coffee for a change. I’ve been short-cutting it with instant coffee but now I remember what I was missing. I’m getting one for the road. After all—I made an investment in that rallonger and its multiple outlets.
By afternoon it was pouring rain again and I had to bring my clothes indoors. What a lucky stroke getting this caravan. What do we call it in the States? A trailer, I guess. It was great weather for a nap. I slept on Beau’s side of the bed because he wouldn’t move over.

Everybody is Dutch in this camp. Is there anyone left in Holland this month? Everyone is blonde, blue-eyed, angular and energetic. Everybody says “Jah!” They show their teeth when they smile. Their caravan awnings are printed in bright colors.
I was musing about this on our walk this evening. “They have everything but the wooden shoes” I thought to myself.
Then a group of kids passed me and they were wearing wooden shoes. Red ones.

Where are all the French people vacationing? Will I find them when I get to the Atlantic beaches?

Of course everyone—French, Dutch, German, Italian—must be wondering what the hell an American woman is doing here. Camping, even.

Monday August 6

La Ferme Prunay is 2.5 km outside of Seillac, a tiny town surrounded by farmland, about 20 minutes down the Loire from Blois, which appeared spectacular to me as I approached from the south and crossed the bridge over the river. I can’t wait to go explore it tomorrow.
The owners of this campground are a family with young children, and the reception is in a barn adjacent to their old stone farmhouse. Madame convinced me, when I called to reserve a tent space, that a caravan would be better—more “calme” for my writing. A good thing that I agreed, because in Digoin it began to pour at exactly the moment I finished loading the car with the tent and all the camping gear. Monsier told me when I went in to settle the bill (78,42 Euros for 6 nights, including electricity) that rain was forecast for the next two days!
“Vous avez emmené le soleil “said Madame at La Ferme, “You brought the sun”. But it still looks iffy for tomorrow.
So here I am in a kind of Euro-hippy Yasger’s Farm—and the caravan I’m renting belongs to a Dutch couple, Sherry and Pau. They seem to live in a bigger one in a garden next door, shielded by shade trees and ornamental shrubbery. Mine is tiny and adorable. It is reached by going through a leafy arch into a smaller garden off theirs, and then passing through an opening in a tall hedge draped with honeysuckle vines and with a little slatted wooden walkway. There are flowers and pretty little hanging ornaments in ‘my’ garden. My caravan’s living space consists of a tiny stove/sink/fridge unit, a table booth, and a double bed tucked into the rear under a slanted picture window that frames a field of sunflowers as far as the eye can see, and it is extended by an awning and enclosure, creating a dining room that is outdoors yet sheltered, with a ‘sideboard’ that holds a toaster, microwave and coffeemaker. In a corner of the little lawn is another table, white plastic with two chairs. The long side of the lawn borders on the sunflower field, and there’s an shower rigged up there so you can shower au naturel on a fine day. The only thing missing is a shower and toilet—they aren’t functioning—but I’m now used to using the camp facilities anyway, and it’s a short walk.
The Ferme is promoted as having Wi-Fi, but when I asked about internet connection I was shown a cable in the reception area where I could hook up my computer and get online. I’ve never seen a wireless connection with a cable. We’ll see about that tomorrow.
Beau had a great run through the fields in pursuit of quail hiding in the wheat field, and is happily sacked out on his sleeping bag laid over the bed in our caravan. I got a salade composée from the bar—a ranch-like open air pavilion with rustic wood ceiling, next to the small but shapely swimming pool with the sweeping view of green, white and yellow fields crossed here and there by islands of dark trees. The salade of tomatoes, tuna and corn was copious and will last me two days. It’s humble, but delicious. 5 Euros. Add to that 2 Euros for a grocery-store jambon buerre with emmenthal and lettuce that I had for lunch in the car, and that’s the sum total of my vittles today. Pas mal.

Sunday August 5
Now I know why Digoin has a kind of wistful air. This morning in the wonderful wooded park on the other side of the Loire from town, while Beau was gleefully running wild, I learned from historical panels that this was once an important river port, serving all of Burgundy. The town was engaged in boat-building and everything related to river transport. When the automobile was invented and trucks took over local transportation, Digoin’s raison d’être was gone, and the town fell back on ceramic production. The local faience (or porcelain) is white with bright flowers—a cheerful homey look. But walking around the town you get a sense of grandeur that has gone.
Speaking of truckers, I noticed four Portuguese 18-wheelers parked in the allotted spaces this morning at the intersection leading to the campground. As I passed the huge municipal pool, usually still and vacant at this early hour, I heard laughing and saw four dark heads in swirls of splashes. On the wire fence hung four pairs of pants and four shirts.
I’m just saying…
I got back to camp in time to enjoy an impromptu Sunday morning concert. A camper several tents down from me was playing a squeezebox—don’t wince, he was doing it quietly and well, and there was scattered applause after each tune as campers listened over their breakfast.
The famous European disregard for modesty is accentuated in a campground like this one. In fact, it’s contagious. I have changed my pants with only my tent as a screen, and I think nothing of peeing in bushes. I sleep with French couples making love in their tents on both sides of me, and wish them a joyful dénouement.
The other night a violent storm caught me unprepared – I had noticed the lack of stars in the sky but I didn’t connect that to the possibility of a night of terrifying wind and rain as the tent became a whirling dervish with me and my dog flopping around inside like fish. In the morning I found that a branch of a red maple tree had cracked and broken in the wind, and it was resting across the back of the Kangoo, which was happily unscathed.

Tomorrow I will leave for a town called Seillac, near Blois, in the heart of Chateau country. Madame at the camp reception tells me that region of the Loire Valley is “something else”. She gave me that French glance-over-the-nose, suggesting a polite criticism. Digoin seems to be a place of country folk, not down-at-the-heels, but simple. I’m sure it will be “something else” to leave this part of Southern Burgundy and cross into the Centre, where François I and the Sun King built all those castles—one of them just for hunting—where Joan of Arc was born and defended her home town Orléans, where the Nazis set up the government in Vichy.
I am curious to see if my fellow campers there are as mellow and easy-going as here. And I wonder if I’ll see my first American tourists on this route.

Madame at Camp Reception insisted that I stay at least through Saturday for the Fête d’Escargot here in Digoin (Dee-gwah, the g is just a suggestion at the back of the throat). I’ll do that—I love snails and the kind of people who would have a fête in their honor.
I like this place—a small town built on the Loire with a pleasant plaza and promenade along the quay. There’s a canal that is carried across the river by a bridge—a canal bridge, something I’ve never seen. The canal leads through the town to a little port for pleasure boats.

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.

Monday, 30 July
I am not willing to stay up all night fighting with a large dog over the one sleeping bag and the air mattress, so after our long rambunctious walk this morning, I went straight to a sporting goods store I saw from the car and bought a second, identical sleeping bag and air mattress. It seems indulgent, but it’s cheaper than renting a hotel room, and I have cramps in my cramps.
This campground is small and rustic, just a short walk from the Loire, which at this point is close to the source and very shallow. There are only 50 spots and the few camping cars are small ones. The office is also a bar/auberge that serves dinner. Their specialty is La Patate en Fête. I would translate that as Sweet Potato Party, and I avoid it.
The man behind the bar/desk seemed amused by me (I’ll wonder why later when I get more confident) and delighted with my dog. He led me to a site right next to the “sanitaires”, the toilets and showers. There is no electricity on that spot, however, so the guy invited me to plug in my computer in the restaurant while I had a Coke. A little girl about 3 came over from her table several times to feed me her soggy bread.
There is a volleyball court, a boules court and an inflated plastic dipping pool. The sanitaires are clean—toilet cubicles on one side, separated by sex, showers also separated, and vanity cubicles with a sink, mirror and—surprise—a plug for hair dryers. I didn’t bring mine. I made a mental note to buy one if I see my reflection and I look awful.
People are friendly—families and couples, some young outdoorsy guys—and they pet Beau and offer me a hand if they see me struggling with something, but otherwise go about their own business. They’re all European, so they stick to the schedule—I know when they’ll be at table or off doing things so the sanitaires will be free. You have to reserve your morning baguette the evening before. When I went into the bar/auberge, they were lined up on the counter with the site number printed on a piece of paper attached to each one. The baguettes are huge—three days worth of bread for me, so I shared some with Beau and I’ll skip it tomorrow.
These first few days are to establish a routine with Beau and refresh my camping skills before I get down to work. My Ralph Lauren jeans gave out with a wide irreparable hole between the legs. Time to switch to my new lightweight drip-dry shorts and pants in olive drab with pockets and snaps, bought especially for this trip. They breathe and they shed dog hair easily.
I think I’ll be ready to move on tomorrow. The mountain air is nice, but the Auvergne region is a little too—what? Old houses built of sooty-looking stones, clusters of inexpensive new houses built of block and finished in the same fleshy tones. I did shoot a photo of my first castle on the Loire—dark and blocky.





Tuesday, 31 July
Broke camp for the first time. Yesterday when I changed sites, I just pulled up the stakes and dragged my tent to the other site. Today, after making coffee on my camp stove, which is just a two-burner bar screwed onto a butane can, I spent about half an hour taking down the 2-second Quechua tent and wrestling it into its cover. It works a little like a slinky but must be twisted halfway through the process in order to fold into a compact circle. It was hot and I was sweaty but triumphant when I shoved it into the back of the Kangoo. Beau, who was on a lead staked to the ground for this operation, cavorted with his squeaky toy and then flattened himself in the sun to doze. He’s perfectly happy riding in the car, and since he has the backseat all to himself, he is just as at home as he is on the sofa in our den, which he selected as his bed on his preliminary tour of our apartment.
Next stop: the town of Digoin, further along the Loire as it meanders briefly into Burgundy. The drive through the countryside—increasingly greener and more charming as we left the Auvergne and crossed into Burgundy—was beautiful but the warm sun made me drowsy and as the road left the mountains and leveled out, I almost fall asleep at the wheel several times before I pull safely into Digoin and got directions from the Office de Tourism.
I love this about France: you walk into the tourist office in any town and ask directions to a place and someone immediately whips out a map of the town and a magic marker and traces a path for you to your destination.
The Loire has picked up some depth now, and the little town is built along its shores, with stone bridges and wide promenades alongside. I get to the municipal campground at four. It’s right behind the huge municipal swimming pool and canoe basin. I hear the screaming and splashing as soon as I turn into the camp road. There are 100 places at this campground, and several sanitaires for men and women, with toilets, cold and hot showers, washing basins for clothes and utensils, and cubicles with sinks, mirrors and hair-dryer plugs. I get the idea these facilities are consistent throughout France, so once I get the hang of it I’m sure I can travel seamlessly, without having to re-learn the drill at every campsite.
This one is called La Chevrette, and I get a tent site on the raised, grassy area right along the river, shaded by huge old Poplar trees—what a win! I can get a wireless connection, strongest at the tables outside the office and snack bar which are unfortunately close to the moon bounce and a dozen screaming kids.
European camping is a family affair, and the few adults-only campgrounds are clothing optional. I would like to avoid the waterslides and moon bounces as much as possible on this trip. I’ve always hated that atmosphere—my poor child was deprived of so many cheesy attractions because of me.


Wednesday, 1 August
A casual survey of the multitude of beefy barely-clad bodies in this camping ground suggests that parts of Germany have emptied their people into this region for vacation. The European license plates read ‘D’ for Deutschland, and those that don’t are from NL, the Netherlands. I saw only three French plates on a walk this afternoon…there are French in tents on either side of mine. We are in a ghetto, surrounded by bulky trailers and campers, wired and watered, equipped with instant folding porches, faux potted plants and picket fences, lawn furniture, even portable satellite dishes. We French sniff with distaste.
Tonight I am waiting for the Dutch family in front of the trailer across from me to end their board game and go inside. Then I’ll feel safe in removing my ralonger from the electrical kiosk long enough to take it and my computer to the snack tables in range of the wireless internet port. The ralonger is a retractable extension cord with five outlets that extends so far you can plug it in at your neighbors’ house down the street and use their electricity. It is an important piece of equipment for camping because it allows cheapskates to siphon off other peoples’ electricity. I paid for my connection in the office, so I’m legit, but I’m paranoid that someone else will snatch the one available socket if I turn my back for 30 minutes.

Sunday, 29 July
Left my home and my love in Saignon and drove several hours to my first stop just south of Le Puy (known for lentils) in the mountainous Auvergne, in a little commune on the Loire called Coubon. I’m starting very close to the source of the Loire and will follow the river until it flows into the Atlantic Ocean past Nantes.
My first night is a camping rehearsal. I’ll practice setting up my tent and my camp stove, and I’ll see how the sleeping arrangement works with my companion, Beau, a 3-year-old greyhound. If you’re going to take a camping trip with a greyhound you’re better off in France, where everyone loves dogs, and you must be willing to get hours of exercise. I am, and I will.

Let’s say you’re an American woman in her sixties, living a comfortable ex-pat life in Provence, single but happily conjoined (as the French put it), sharing a satisfying albeit penurious life of art and adventure with a handsome younger man. What would make you take to the road in an eight-year old Renault Kangoo (a high-topped vehicle that might deliver your pizza) and wind your way around France, camping on grassy spots alongside the Loire?
It’s a little like Outward Bound for the mature writer. Not Jack Kerouac, more like Thoreau and his Walden Pond, or Robert Louis Stevenson and his donkey—just as silly and almost as capable a load-bearer as my Kangoo.
Sometimes life gets to be too complicated for you to keep your place in your own personal story. In that case, there’s nothing like paring everything down to just you and the great outdoors to bring you back to what counts: finding food and water, a safe, dry place to spend the night, time for reflection, a glimpse of beauty and satisfaction in mastering basic survival skills.
After all, you’ve never been the age you are today. You have to take stock periodically. In my fifties, I found my motto in a sports tagline:
Now there is one less thing I cannot do.
This decade of my life requires a new one:
Now there is one more thing I still can do.