September 17, 2014
Loches, France
After 5 glorious days at a campground in Tours, resting, enjoying Chuck and Susan's company (Brad and Lesley...their kids), and getting chores done, I departed this morning. Not alone. Susan joined me. Her plan is to ride south with me, spend the night wild camping, then bike back to Tours where Chuck us healing from minor surgery before they continue on.
And one of my chores was getting a decent SIM card so Google Maps would assist me again routing my travels. So today with a route chirping in my ear and Susan on her compactly packed trike behind, we took off. Girls ride! Wahoo. Siri (my google voice) wound us through the most delightful countryside and villages. A slow leisurely day. About 4 pm we found this old woods and garden with an old shed, overgrown bushes and freshly cared for veggie garden...only strawberries left. We picked a spot to put up our tents needing a rock to pound in the stakes because the ground is so hard and dry. All of a sudden we se a car pull in up the dirt road and around the bushes to where are tents and bikes are parked. Pssssss! Blow out tire!! Look at that! A tent stake is protruding. SHIT! We're in deep doodoo now! An confused, elderly couple emerge from the car. In our limited French we are apologizing, trying to explain why we're camped on their property. They are angry and perplexed. First they need to call for a repair. I dial the number with my phone. Need to call the 800 number. They don't answer. He tries so many different numbers and can get nowhere. We're staying close, manning up to our responsibility. Tell them we'll pay for a new tire. Finally he connects with someone and gets the repair truck summoned. Then he shows us the cabin and asks us why we didn't camp in front? Then he wouldn't have hit our stake. We did ask if we could stay the night or did we have to leave after the tire was fixed. We finally understood we can stay but no mess, no paper. Bien sure. Of course. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. By the road. With them. We tried to talk with them as much as we could. They have no children. One son died in a motorcycle accident when he was 23. He showed us where we could pump water for washing up. He showed us the outhouse. Finally about 90 minutes later a guy showed up and changed the tire. (We probably could have done it for them but didn't need anything else to go wrong.) We insisted on paying for the tire. A woman, perhaps their agent, don't know, said insurance would pay for it but finally we got and understanding that we would. He won't know until he gets the garage to put a new tire on it how much it is. We insisted on giving them €100 and we will stay here tomorrow until he gets it repaired and returns here with the exact price. We felt so bad but told them we were delighted to meet them. She kissed me goodbye. Such a sweet couple under stressful conditions. He swore a few times but I think he was madder at the garage than us. Craziest wild camping experience ever!!!
Livin' the life,
BagLady
Facebook: Kathryn Mossbrook Zimmerman
