After time has passed and you look back, try to relive moments in your mind; recreate people, places and events, it often feels like another life. Even one lived by another person.
Going through old photographs can have the same effect. You look at yourself then. Compare that image to the now and wonder “Is that really me?” Of course, every second of every day brings on a subtle, unseen change. Not only of the exterior, but interior too. We are never the same person twice.
The days on the road have the same affect. Never the same. A new day takes us further away from the ‘Türkiye experience’. Without videos, photographs, this blog and Mary-Ann’s journal we’d already be hard pressed to recall many places and events. Nomadic movements constantly focus on the future. Blur the past.
Day 69 – Tonight’s stopover at Camping du Sevron à Saint-Étienne-du-Bois, revives a memory. Buried deep within our archaic archives. It’s a cute little site with its boundary lines dictated by a snakelike Rivière le Sevron. We recall from when, we have no idea, of staying here when the bank overflowed. One caravan was saved from launching in headfirst by the expertise of the owner and his rocking quad.
It now has new young owners; a table tennis table and a swimming pool – no better way for a couple of nomads to end the day.
Day 70 – We break our journey to tonight’s Camping Municipal, Rives de Marne, Vouécourt. Like a couple of robotic lawnmowers, we go bump about the small town of Gray. Bounce around its narrow streets, with no idea where each leads. Blindly taking a short cut here, or there.
On the way back to Beastie, I stop and snap this rock fountain. Need to get something off my chest – again. Hopefully will. Must be an ‘old fogey’ thing. In almost every town we have ever visited there is at least one fountain pumping day and night. Gray is no exception. Energy crisis? What energy crisis?
Beastie spends the evening with a bunch of lookalikes a few feet from the Marne. As our after dinner walk reveals.
At 7am, this peaceful looking church, turns deceitful. For a solid three minutes it announces the start of a new day. Fine if you’re already up. We’re not. But we are awake – NOW!