5-23-10 Frejus to Le Muy day 49

5-23-10 Frejus to Le Muy day 49

as usual I took time packing up all my gear from camp ground.. as I left the lady wished me a good journey and gave me three little packets of perfumed towelettes for the road.. I thought it both really sweet and a bit ironic.. I made little jokes in my head.. I might look like a pilgrim it does not mean I have to smell like one...
it was hot... and though my new heel inserts made my heels much happier I was still over all foot sore and not fully motivated...mostly it was about the heat.. I first had to walk back down to highway D N7, it did not really have a sidewalk it did have lots of driveways into parking lots to various businesses and malls... it was sunday and the malls here are closed... this meant it was safe for me to walk parallel to the highway through these parking lots and driveways to keep me off the road... not far into my trip... I came across a McDonalds.. it was open... it had coffee, and why not, an order of fries..also it had air-con and ambient wifi...so I stayed there a wee bit longer than I had meant to... but eventually I remembered about the walking and walked...the landscape eventually emptied of businesses and strip malls and became greener... there were cool hills in the back ground similar to yesterdays coastal walk..

I focused on walking, I was surprised that it was harder to walk now than it had been for a while, in terms of not having speed and wanting to take breaks more often.. Le Muy just seemed so much father away than it should... about one or two kms before it I saw a sign for a camp ground that seemed kind of posh... I decided to check it out... it was high end camper-trailer grounds... the man at the front desk was dutch..he was really friendly and said he wanted to go travel to the USA this year with his girlfriend and asked for some ideas, I would later make him a small list of mostly western american sights.. he in turn told me I was the first american of the year here.. I had to laugh.... it seemed all the customers coming in where dutch... eventually I was clued in, this was a dutch enterprise, RCN, and it was like a little Netherlands somewhere near the Mediterranean... I did hear some french but not much... it had an amazing pool.. in fact it had a completely separate area for the kids pool with slides so the pool I was in was mostly for the grown ups.. it was a bit chilly but not as bad as the day before... in-between I set up tent, did laundry... played on computer with wifi... and eventually tried to get some food at the cafe... apparently a lot of the tables were reserved so finding me a seat was actually a problem.. then this american sounding woman told me I could sit at the table with her and her husband... and of course conversation ensued... the story unfolded.. not in this order but... she is from Indiana... they met on-line first and corresponded for a year, then he insisted she should come visit him... apparently her mother and sister were worried if she went over there he would kill her or sell her to some Sheik... she decided if he wanted to kill anyone, dutch women are probably easier than importing one from the USA , so she went. .. they did get along and decided to marry, she was 52 at the time and both of them where previously widowed, he had some almost adult kids... she had been poor working class in america, at one point she held five jobs simultaneously: choir leader in two groups, beautician part time, voice coach and piano teacher and her full time job was controller in a factory for airplane parts.. she said the job was stressful and required a lot of responsibility, for if she made a mistake it could mean a plane could crash...and for this great responsibility she was paid $13.50 an hour, this was in the 90,s ..apparently a sister factory from the same company that had a union, had double the salaries but was in another state... so she moved to Holland eventually to be with her husband... apparently he would financially support her, but he put down the law as far as the language.. because she was in her 50's and was not working in Holland she was not be required by the country to learn the language... but he said that for six months he would speak english to her but after that he would switch to dutch.. he wanted to make sure she could be independent of him, so she could shop or go to the doctor or handle emergencies, without him having to babysit her all the time.. so in the end it took four months to get into the free language program so he stretched his rule to 9months..but then he stopped speaking english to her.. and now ten years later her dutch is quite good and she is really grateful that he'd laid the law down... it was interesting too, to see how well she had adjusted to a new culture and life which included three grandchildren... they had a camper that they stored in france.. and would drive down and pick it up and go camping from there to various places in france, spain and italy depending on what they wanted to see. He had also taught her to ride bike, she has had some accidents but she bravely goes with him on trips now from this campsite to various places in the area... they were eating giant stack of ribs and I was eating my little veggie lasagna...they seemed a very harmonious couple, it was nice to see that they had made this big cultural leap for each other later in life and they seemed happy with their choices and each other.. they asked me a bit about my walking....the condition of the roads and of course the conversation about feet... after dinner I played late on my computer and went to bed way past sensible... the ground was a bit uneven... I woke up a lot and tried to find a comfortable position..but I always went back to sleep..thankfully... one nice thing about the last few days camping.. my laundry dries easily outside...