Day seven- Lasbros to Nasbinals

This post comes to you from an official campground as you walk out of Nasbinals. Super lady greeted us and we chose this option for hot showers and a kitchen. The town is precious and all the familiar faces are here! We even ran into Father Francois from the church where we had mass a few days ago!

Great grocery with more decent prices then recent villages.

We cowboy camped outside of the gite yesterday as there were no trees, we woke to dark clouds and were up at seven packing in a mad rush afraid of rain. No rain came and our terrain was soft ups and downs...

At night the best treat!!!! As we were about to make our dinner two young Parisian girls we met several days ago came in seeking us. They had to take an extra walk to find us as we are camping out of town, we shared dinner and they are opera singers!!!!! We love opera, infact the older kids have seen over 50 live performances... They suprised us with a song and said we should recognize it, the older kids recognized it from " The Tales of Hoffman".

Flora and Morgan thank you for a wonderful evening playing cards, singing and reciting poetry!

Dog on the blog

Day six- woods near St. Alban to Lasbros

Michael saw us off this morning after delivering us hot crepes in the woods (how awesome is that?)! Maureen and Frank walked by us I suspect giggling at the situation we landed in. It is so wonderful having them in our Camino, they are just wonderful people!

The weather could not be better, fluffy clouds, wind... The perfect day for hiking!

We were with a nice bubble of pilgrims, only a handful say they are going to Santiago, most are on trail for a week or two.

We walked to Aumont- Aubrac, a typical stopping point for many but too short of a distance for us today. We like stopping in the larger villages at lunchtime and breaking for about two hours and walking around. Sometimes it is difficult watching others call it day, having showered and hanging up their clothes to dry calling it a day. That is typical of my last two caminos, I never would have imagined a close to 100 percent camping Camino 

I was intrigued by those who did it before as I checked myself into an albergue and was in a shower ten minutes later. Here I am doing it with five kids! So far all is going great!

We were out of food this morning so the timing of our crepes could not have been better. Stores are closed Sunday and many on Monday so Saturday night I purchased six baguettes and food to get us through.... Yesterday the kids nibbled on the bread all day leaving us 1/2 a loaf at dinner. Thankfully in Aumont-Albrac  the grocery was open on Monday but we arrived during their 3-4 hour siesta, when they close from noon to three or four. I decided to treat us to a nice lunch, the region is known for a potato cheese dish called Aliout (sp?) and the thought of having it got everyone excited.

I ordered omlettes which came with a salad, Aliout, and me a salad from a wonderful restaurant where one man is the cook and waiter! Great food right when you approach Aumont-Aubrac.

Funny story, pilgrims we recognized started arriving, John- Michael, Marc and others. 

As they arrived the restaurant owner said he was about to close so I paid my bill. We stuck around at the table for about fifteen minutes, he licked the doors ( with dishes still on the outside tables) and he drove off. Minutes later we all got up to start walking and noticed Karsh was missing. It ends up he was locked inside of the restaurant using the bathroom! There was a gite connected and I went there and with a chuckle the man who runs it assured me he has a key and opened up the restaurant from the inside. Cute story as we all laughed! 

 We hung around waiting for the grocery to open and afraid we would run out food again I might have over bought. 

Ice cream for all and we were off...

We go into the chapels and pray as a family, this was a beautiful one...

Always lifts spirits after visiting the grocery store...

We walked through an interesting small village with this pretty church and a delapitated building, looking in thru the door was this pizza oven which in one of my guide books I think they call a community oven.

This sassy rooster hung out in the street until I pulled out my camera and then played hard to get

One of our greatest treats was this small chapel, left open minutes away from where we would sleep...

We wrote notes in the book...

Michael and Gladis recommended their friends gite to us and said they might let us sleep there in their garden, and they did!...

...and who was there? Maureen and Frank!!!! Maureen came out to the garden  with a glass of wine in her hand for me- love her!!!!

Attached maps

I'm noticing Steve is back at home attaching some map to my posts, I'm not certain how the walking time calculations are figured, and how this map is saying how long our walks are however they are clearly VERY wrong! I have asked him to supply maps with a pin of our cities as we go from East to West and am not certain of the mix up. I would just hate for people to get the wrong idea of these walks, we are trying to change them.

One map said the walking distance was two hours and a half which is NOTHING like these walks represent. Typically we walk eight hours a day or so.

Day Five- La Roche Eglise to Les Estrets

This was one of the best days that any Camino could serve up! We stuck around for mass and got a very late start by Camino standards. We left at one, the sky was turning dark and the kids experienced their first Camino walk in the rain. They learned that the second you batten down the hatches for the rain that it will stop. The day was cooler, there were clouds, no major up hills and down hills and a nice breeze. We had a great walking groove. Everyone has blisters except Tristan but none of us seem too bothered by them. We stuck together pretty well, with a small exception. Reichen, Aynsleigh and I led the pack with rain gear on trying to get ahead to find a spot for coffee and to charge devices. Keeping a charge is difficult and getting WIFI access is almost impossible the way we camp vs staying in gites.

We came upon a stone building with this sweet sign...

Slightly chilled from the rain Reichen made me a cup of coffee and we waited for the rest, leaving two euros in a basket for appreciation.

The crew caught up and we were off.

We were thrilled to meet up with Maureen and Frank who have become our Camino family.

We passed another camper going all the way to Santiago as well, his name is Mark and he is a French warrant officer with little English. We walked for a bit deciding if we should all stay together for the night, he proposed a place and when we got there I was not really feeling it was the place for us, we were just about to say bye and move on when a van pulled up.

...actually this is how the kids looked when I decided we should walk on...

 A women started talking to Mark and he turned to me in broken English and said, " she wants to help you", I kind of froze as I didn't feel we needed help and feared we'd be signing up for some " dinner cruise" or something....

She hopped out of her van with the biggest smile and said she owns a gite in the town we passed but that she has a cabin a kilometer away that we could stay at for free. ..

She offered to drive us and I declined as we have a pretty strong primitive pilgrim mentality where, with our pack, we will walk every mile of what we can. She explained she has horses at this cabin. She shared a pilgrim, John-Michael, had asked her if she'd seen us which is why she stopped us.

We almost skipped to her property in glee. Her name is Gladis and her hubby is Michael...at the property horses ran free, a dog was in charge her hubby was waiting and so were her beautiful children plus a friend. We were at amazing peace, this was a special place on Earth... and on this property was a teepee where our heads would crash for the night. Reichen set up hammocks asking if their children wanted to stay with us and instantly a handsome horse came up to him for some loving. The boys spent another wonderful summer with Landry Academy and this year Reichen has been talking about horses ever since, they had some time riding and he really loved it!

Marc camped near by and showed the boys his top of the line, well prepared equipment. We all drooled over his Jet Boil, his equipment that lets you cook, we have studied these as we have been active reading AT blogs. He shared soup, sausisson, fromage ( cheese) and cookies with the kids.

 I didn't feel right about him literally giving the kids all he had but he insisted.

We slept great!!!!

....and if we thought things couldn't get better in the morning Reichen yelled," mom, tree mail". Unless you watch Survivor on TV you won't know what that means. It is yelled when the host suprised this starved castaways with food. Here came Michael with a SILVER PLATTER of hot crepes and jellies!

I love these two as if I've known them forever!

Amazingly they have an interest in North Carolina as they are really love Blue Grass music. 

About six years a homeschool mom reached out to me via email asking me a question. A few emails later I felt I had met a kindred spirit. We really don't stay in touch but about once a year we'll touch base as if we might be days away from planning a road trip to get the kids together. It ends up her hubby is in a popular band, she actually emailed me words of encouragement while we were in the airport for this trip. So imagine how neat it was for him to mention this band out of nowhere telling me they were his favorite. The bands name is Bella Fleck and the Fleckstones!!!! Holly, if you are reading, I found this the most amazing coincidence. I knew there was reason I felt you might join me one day for one of these walks...a sign maybe?????

Trail Angels Gladis and Michael we love you!!!! We will never forget you!!!! We welcome you to our home anytime....

We will see eachother again, I know it!!!