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75.27km – 10H59’
Altitude : 359 m
There are days when this daily progression oppresses me and today is one of them. I feel as if I am asleep standing up; the heat wave is heavy upon my shoulders as if it were a cement cover and my mind is trapped by fatigue. Serge is on the road and I know that the day is painful for him because of the extreme heat and the hilly terrain. I would like to be able to press the pause button so that everything would stop for a few minutes or for several hours so we could catch our breath, just for a moment. Oh, not to have to follow a schedule or be active so that today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow will be better. Oh, not to be obliged to set the alarm for 6:00 a.m. or earlier like we have for 278 days. Oh, not to have to drive this RV which, after 48,000 km feels like a lead weight.
It is impossible and I know it. I also know that after a good night’s sleep I will see things differently and will be ready to start on the right foot, with optimism.
For the moment, I am pushing myself to plan the itinerary that will take us to the border of Luxemburg and enable me to calculate the approximate date of our entry in the next country. I also have to book the ferry crossing between Amsterdam and Newcastle, so I must set the date and try to find enough kilometers for Serge, on terrain which will be as flat as possible. I stop and open my friend, the computer.
I try to make up the time I have lost in order to answer e-mails. I have not been able to it, so please excuse me if your messages remain without an answer because I am honor bound to reply to all of them, as promptly as possible. Since our arrival in Germany, the complexity of the roads has meant that I have spent a great deal of time on the itinerary, which leaves me less time for administrative work. Gone is the beautifully peaceful life of northern Scandinavia….
All of a sudden, the scenery of Thuringia leaves me cold, even though this region is very beautiful. Erfurt is the capital. Yesterday at the end of the day we were just north of this city of 200,000 inhabitants. Urban development is prevalent in Germany, the country with the most inhabitants in the European Union: 82 million. The population density per square kilometer is twice that of France but still less than that of England. I hope you are still following me… In any case, I feel that we are not heading for calm and peaceful days in Luxemburg, or Belgium (340 inhabitants per square kilometer), or England…A nice straight line with no vehicles, no traffic: am I asking for something impossible? If I were to buy a people mover along which we would post different scenery wouldn’t that be a good idea? Surely if I had there would not have been so many things to tell you over the past 9 months.
Serge is lying down after his shower « I feel nauseated, I am shattered but shattered”. But tomorrow he won’t give up anything, as usual.
Town : Schwarza (La Thuringe) GPS : N 50.37’82.1° E 010.32’35.5° |
