Les Setoux

I am writing this tonight (Sunday 30 September) and hoping I can send it tomorrow morning. We just walked back from a lovely ordinary pilgrim dinner of a green soup, a huge casserole of scalloped potatoes, pork cutlets, fromage, and an ice cream desert, all with red wine and French bread. The fog was so thick we could see only a few feet ahead, and it is very chilly. Fortunately we have heat in our room -- a standard 4 bed room, but we have it to ourselves for 15 Euros each. Nice showers and toilets down the hall. And the little restaurant where we ate with 3 Germans and one Austrian has wifi, although I had to type in a 20 digit code of mixed caps and numbers twice on the iPod to get it to work. We were also able to wash our clothes in a machine after 4 days walking in them--whew!--and they are drying on a rack in a heated room.

We had wanted to travel fewer miles these past 2 days, but places are closing for the season, and there was nothing in between selected spots. Today we left Saint Julien Molin-Molette before 8 am to walk 24 km with nearly 700 meters of elevation gain (about 2100 feet). It had been raining and miserable the night before, but the morning sun was brilliant. We climbed up high through green fields and then after about 2 hours down into the lively village of Bourg-Argental where we had coffee in a cafe and bought quiches and pastries in a boulangerie. People talked to us and were most helpful and friendly. By 10:30 we were heading out of town, 16 some km straight up all the way to this little hameau of stone buildings on the downhill side of the highest point on this Geneva-Le Puy route. We walked mostly in mossy for forests. Many people were out picking mushrooms. The sun gave way to clouds and mist, and we thought we would need our rain gear. But although it got increasingly cold and misty, which was good for pushing uphill, we stayed dry, and arrived here a bit after 4 pm., very happy to be here, and starting to get a bit chilly.

I am able to send this morning. Now, breakfast! Montfaucon en belay tonight. Only a bit over 17 km of ups and down. still foggy this am and full moon.

Pilgrims on the road of life