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Saturday morning was foggy and cold
and I cooked and ate breakfast of bacon and a half dozen eggs with bread in a river bottom, which would be mostly my morning fare the entire trip; since I couldn't refrigerate milk, nor did I want to carry it. I used a tiny propane stove which I chose, based on the said universal availability of the fuel canisters everywhere in Europe, which if a little difficult to find in out of the way places - was true. Then I would have tea and a pipe. Coffee was out, since it would require a pot, and most purchasable coffee was in whole bean form, and I could not grind it. So I drank black Oolong Tea from bags.
On this morning I may or may not have had my tea, since the smell of brewing rain was in the air. As a kid I remember sitting by lakeside, maybe on a wooden seawall in summer, the water flat and calm, with the flaunting feeling of rain in the atmosphere. Black clouds would come sneaking in under ashen morning light and the air begins to scintillate with whispering little bursts of excited breeze, tracing and scurrying ripple lines across the water toward me. There was a tension in the air and the sky would darken. Soon a breeze would pick up and dark clouds began to scuttle in, and the air turned cool until the first rain drops began to splatter across the placid calm. Here in the French mountains it felt like that. I packed up and thought - I would race the storm.
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