Badass Name For A Town

Dax. Very scenic as well but you'll have to take my word for it since I had to leave my camera (phone) back at the O Petit Hotel so it could absorb the 1.8gb final episode if BB. 

I did everything I could think of that didn't require a smart phone. Walked around a lot, got my 'passport' stamped, finished reading "Wild", and even got my hair cut. Getting a haircut in France is easy. One-word easy and for me that word is "trois". The universal clipper language makes it very easy. She asked what to do with the top (bald part) of my head and I gestured "whatever you want". I haven't taken a good look at it yet but walking back to O Petit Hotel I could see the shadows cast by the street lights behind me. I seem to have a tuft of hair in the center-front of my head that's pretty well established and she must've left it intact because the shadows make me look like a unicorn. So I got a badass unicorn haircut in Dax. 

Anyhow, 1.2gb downloaded so far. Only 600mb left. I should be good to go in about 4 hours. Till then I'm taking a nap. 

In Onesse et Laharie, No Food On Sundays

So I'm at the camp ground in my trailer home and although it does have a church, that's about all there is here. 

The trailer usually costs 40e but for pilgrims it's only 10!  The campground has a little snack bar that sells pizza but its closed. The father and son who work here both told me its closed on Sundays but about an hour ago the matron of the place stopped by to say that she'd injured her arm and couldn't make pizzas today. She sis however take me over to the snack bar and gave me a bag of pasta, some butter, bread, a couple of eggs, an ice cream cone, and 2 beers!!

No charge for the bread , pasta, butter and eggs. 6e for the ice cream cone and beer. I love this place. 

From here I really have to design not only my route, but tomorrows destination as well. The official destination, a village called Taller has a pilgrim house that you can get into by entering a code into a digital lock. You get the code at the bar next to the house. However my guide book explains that the the bar is closed on Mondays - no further explanation. 

I've had enough of this super flat terrain and perfectly straight roads. Over the past two days I've probably walked 20 km on the service road next to a superhighway. On the upside, I've passed two 7.50e tollbooths so I somehow feel 15e ahead of the game!

Finally Wearing A Shell

And not one of those store bought shells they sell at gift shops either. 

I never did capture a live clam this past summer but I did find a lot of scallop shells. One of them had a hole in the perfect place to tie it to my pack. Yesterday I finally got a string to do the attaching with - and not one of those store bought strings either!  This is a genuine used French shoelace I found by the side of an industrial road.  Now that "The Way" is showing in France, maybe someone in this part of the country will know what it means. 

I can't wait to get out of this region. I think the only people who travel through here are tractor and fertilizer salesmen so lodging is expensive. 

Tonight I'll be in a place called Onesse et Leharie. I think I've found a campground where I can rent an RV for the night. The guy on the phone might have though I want to park my own RV there for the night, in which case I'm sol. Staying in an RV on the day of the BB series finale sounds aprapo though, right?

I d

Not Fair!

Maybe I mean too fair. Here's how this restaurant charges for their house wine. A clear bottle with markings for each increment. 

- un peu (18cl)

- beaucoup (25cl)

- passionement (50cl)

- a la folie (75cl)

I don't know how they charge for amounts between the lines but just in case it's rounded to the greater amount, once I pass beaucoup I'm going straight for passionement!

Nearing A New Blog Map Solution?

The other day Tara complained that the lack of a mapping component to this blog is hard to deal with. So I've spent the last hour or so trying to come up with a solution and feel so close yet so far. 

The iPhone Photos app has a fantastic feature that when you hit the "Places" icon you get a map of where all of your pictures were taken. Very cool, right?  So now I'm trying to figure out how to share it with you guys. 

A Town That Doesn't Even Have A Church!

That's where I am alright. Le Muret. I'm in the thick of the Landes region and although I know I've only been in it for two days and I know it can't go on forever, it's pretty desolate. 

Without a church there isn't much to take pictures of out here.  The final few kms were along this lovely trail. Le Muret is right on the other side of this superhighway - about a half a km away but Gomie kept insisting the only way to get to the other side was to keep going another 3km to the next exit, then come back up 3km. That would have been over an hour. Luckily, 200 or 300 meters after this picture there is a construction tunnel under the highway. Imagine the thrill it was for me to see Gomie go from "Le Muret - 1 hour, 12 minutes" to "Le Muret - 10 minutes"!

Barp (Excusee Moi!)

I'm in the town of Le Barp, around 30km south of Bordeaux. As you may know already I'm not much of a hot weather person so I didn't much enjoy today's trek out of Bordeaux. It was around 90 degrees by 1pm and tedious. 

There were some grapes in the first couple of hours but then I apparently exited the Gironde region and entered Landes. The problem with Landes is that it's one if those places that's totally flat and there's no shade. For the most part the walking route is at least unpaved, but some of the paths go completely straight for more than five km. 

All of the regular rooms at the local flop house were booked so I had to pony up an extra 10e for the premium room. It has THREE AIR CONDITIONERS and a heated towel rack, which is the only thing that will dry my super socks overnight after they're washed. 

This is the view from the pool cabana entrance to the sitting room (note walking stick). Bedroom to the left, bathroom to the right.