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35 The Devil Came Down To Georgia The morning dawned foggy and lacklustre. The sun broke through and instantly the tent was hot. That was good--it hadn't been dry in a while. We didn't get wet because of our camprests, but the tent floor was always wet from osmosis. There were platoons of slugs and snails to flick off the tent. When we were finally brushed, flicked, packed and ready to hit the road, the vineyard workers were already toiling. I wondered how many bottles they got off one field. Chateauneuf de Pape produced twelve million bottles a year. That was why those grape growers had such large estates. The rocky soil was said to be fabulous for grape maturity. During the day the large round red rocks--left over from a long ago sea--absorbed heat energy from the sun and then slowly released it to the roots at night. Two trains were working on a section of track. They signalled one another by blasting their air horns. It sounded like horn tooting school. They became excited and did their own rendition of duelling air horns. I half expected them to break into their own rendition of the Devil Came Down to Georgia. As we passed, one engineer waved and tooted toot de le toot-toot, toot-toot! We stayed on N86 all day. It was flat, but that was all it had going for it. We were cycling more, but enjoying it less. We discussed taking a small road to get off the busy main route, but it looked as if it were too much trouble for just a few kilometers. Farther along, part of the island we would have been on was underwater. That would have been a change of scenery all right. We passed through a village having a Petanque tournament. Numerous men, mainly old, lined the action watching intently. I wondered if those games ever got out of hand with the loser winging his steel ball at the competition. The river was wide and murky with trees along the bank wading into the river. In the late afternoon, Sharon saw a road crossing an ancient double arched bridge to a farming area of fruit trees and vineyards. Workers, bent over, weeded tiny onion shoots. We zigged and zagged down the narrow one lane. It became gravel and ended abruptly at a pond with a majestic swan paddling adroitly searching for dinner on the pond bottom. It swam over to check us out, but when we didn't throw it any bread it went back to dunking. A trail, paralleling the river, led beside the orchard into the gnarled forest. A brief moment of sunshine weakly projected over the far mountain. I pushed my bike over the squishy earth to a small clearing between thick growth blocking the last visages of daylight. I declared the spot too gloomy. A strange feeling hit me. Looking at the wide muddy river it felt as if I were beside the North Saskatchewan River back home. With difficulty, I persuaded myself that we were not in Edmonton waiting to be stumbled upon by dog walkers. We were in a small French forest some distance from any town. It was after six and unlikely anyone would be out. They would be at home sitting down to dinner behind closed shutters. Still, I was taken aback at the similarity between the two landscapes so far apart, and yet so much alike. We set up the tent as a barge chugged past. That was something I wouldn't see in Edmonton. About to crawl into the tent I saw ivy plants. How did one know if they were poisonous or not? Roll around in them and see if an itchy rash developed? I wanted to heat a pot of water to wash, but I couldn't get the stove to light. I disassembled it and cleaned the jet. That simple procedure had always restored it to perfect working order in the past. Still, it refused to ignite. I took it apart a second time and replaced the jet with a new one from our stove spare parts. Soon, I was bathing in luxurious hot water, albeit with somewhat sooty hands. Waves from the barge lapped the shore like a jet's sound reaching one's ears long after it had passed.Darkness fell complete under the tangled canopy. I got up to mark some territory. A slap on the river startled me. Beavers? Were there beavers in Europe? Grasping a sapling for balance, I craned my head back and glimpsed a few stars. I was a quick learner. Back in the tent, listening to oldies on the radio, I wiggled the antennae trying to improve the reception. The aerial popped off in my hand. The reception didn't change. Sharon had her ear plugs in and was already snoring blissfully. I settled down with the candle lantern to read a couple Alfred Hitchcock's mystery stories. Frog's croaking echoed in the still forest, tuning up their alien voices. They sounded like a macabre laugh box the Joker would leave behind at a crime scene in a Batman movie. "Ah ha ha ha a ah ha ha a ah ah ah a...." So much the better.... |
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