Tour

The first day was mostly a coastal ride all day in bright sunshine, and I ended up in northern Italy by the evening. For the first time I had to find a place to sleep. This according to a letter I have just found was between Grosseto and Livorno. I could find camp sites or I could just pull off the road and camp wherever, which is what I mostly did between cities. It was rather mountainous above the Mediterranean, but I found a little spot in a crag where I could maneuver my scooter into and off the road. Since I had no tent I figured out a system to wrap my sleeping bag in a big sheet of plastic, I had gotten for the purpose. Not sure where this idea came from, but it had to have come sometime in Rome.

I laid out the rectangular plastic on top of the canvas. I put the sleeping bag on top, so as laid along the longer right-side edge. Folded the left edge over the top so that it over-hung the bag to the right by a couple of feet. This was important. Without the overhang, rain could hit the ground sheet, and would run under and soak the bag. Then at the bottom I tucked under the long end. The top flap I could fold back and view the sky, which is the way I usually slept unless it looked like it would or was raining. Late in the early morning hours if it got damp or cold, I would pull it over my head. In all the eight months of camping without the tent, before I returned to Rome, I think I could not make dinner because of rain-out only once. Weather lucky.

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