Aug 11 to 14…apologies for the delay in posts. We have not had good wifi connections for several days.
With our Via Francigena postponed for a couple of weeks due to injury, we rented a vehicle and booked a canal boat, so rather than walking / cycling adventure photos, we will make do with boating ones.
Very strange corn.The country is so dry. Heat wave. Crops going to dust. Large wildfires with 6000 people evacuated. Many towns in the south with no water.French grain elevators.Sunflowers soon to be harvested.Fountain is barely damp but then again it’s from the 11th century. Our home town is one of the oldest in Alberta (an old Hudson Bay post) and our claim to fame is a mission that is only 150 years old. The houses here are older than our country!This is what you get when you point the camera and click without looking at what you are photographing!So many buildings covered in ivy.Ken tries crepes suzette.Wins the award for best looking bank machine.For my fellow foresters…this small town of Clamecy is known as the “log drivers” town. Logs were brought here from the local forests and driven down river to Paris…from the 1600s to as late as the 1920s. Zucchini Cup of Soup. This did NOT go in my shopping cart. I grew 2 huge zucchini last year (why? The plants were on sale) and left them for the wildlife…deer nor skunk nor porcupine would touch them. I take my cue from them! Although admittedly some tiny rodent had a few nibbles. Stocking the boat. I buy vegetables, Ken buys treats. But how can I eat such a smiley happy face?Our boat is Ziggy.The big boats…we needed one that could be handled in the locks by only 1 1/2 people as I can’t step off the boat to handle the ropes.Fascinated by the mistletoe balls…but the trees are all infected and are being slowly killed.Lift bridge. Ken is so strong. Well, okay, strong enough to push a button.So sad. We took our first canal trip in 2005. These lock houses were lived in and cared for, with beautiful flowers. Now for the most part they are used only as shelters. The locks are still manned but the lock keepers live elsewhere.Traffic jam.Which way do we go??? Um…Ken? It’s a canal. Go straight.Each lock has 4 gates. Boat goes in the lock. Lock keeper closes gates behind you. Water is lowered through sluices while you hold the boat steady with ropes on the bollards. Once you are at the level of the water in front of you, the lock keeper opens the gates and out you go.Cows woke me up from my afternoon nap. Such a different mindset from when we were walking and cycling the Via, where you needed both mental determination and physical stamina to go from Point A to Point B every day.I stole my favourite line from SpongeBob Square Pants!
Song of the Day: Since we are pretty much going nowhere right now, it seems appropriate to have Joel Plaskett and his lively number Nowhere With You as the song of the last couple of days. I must say it is livelier than we are presently.
TerryandKenViaFrancigena2022 
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