QUESTION: How can you turn a 12 mile hike into a 16 mile hike?
ANSWER: Join Stephen’s Tours!
Today, we hiked from Marsolan to Condom, France. (I know, who names a town after a protective penis sheath?) Regardless, this trip is supposed to be about 12 miles, but due to an unforeseen navigational error, we took the scenic route and hiked it in 15.6 miles (25 kms) and just under 6 hours. My Apple watch says that I took 33,836 steps, climbed the equivalent of 70 flights of stairs and burned 1,942 calories on the way.
Now the story about why we took the longer route is like something out of a Gilligan’s Island episode from the 1960s.
In our episode, we were on track for most of the day, but then our leader ( let’s call him“the captain”) got turned around and decided we were going the wrong way. The “professor” (that’s me) questioned this, but nobody listens to the professor, so we backtracked to the last posted signal. The captain insisted that we needed to proceed down the hill, and so we reluctantly followed for about 100 yards. Then the captain discovered that this was a dead end. Gilligan was also confused because he saw two different routes down the hill and couldn’t figure out where each began. The professor kept pushing to go to higher ground, but the captain and Gilligan wanted no part of it. We finally found a trail, but the professor argued that this was the long route (and it was). Needless to say, this little navigational error added several miles and time to our trek.
On a light-hearted note, we walked into a church today and found a bottle of hand sanitizer where the holy water should be. I don’t believe that Vatican II would condone this, but I blessed myself with it anyway.
We had a marvelous lunch in the town of La Romieu. It was Sunday, so there weren’t many places open.
Le Romieu also had a magnificent garden, filled with all kinds of flowers and plants. We didn’t stop, but took pictures from the outside. (Les Jardins de Coursiana)
Our journey ended in Condom, after almost 6 hours of walking. The picture below, makes it look better than it really is.
Our hotel was right on the river. It is called the “Continental” hotel. This is not to be confused with a similar hotel chain that adds the “Inter”.
Yesterday, I shared a picture of 2 scoops of ice cream and asked if anyone could recognize the blue flavor. No one got it right, despite some good guesses like boysenberry and cotton candy. You’re thinking too logically. It was vanilla! And the server tried to tell me this was its natural color!
Tomorrow is our last day of the hike. We’ve covered over 160 miles to date. More to come.
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