Happy 4th of July!

I arrived yesterday pretty much on time to Marseille, which is a fairly easy airport to navigate -- so I found Jim right away in baggage claim. It was hot but not oppressively so. The drive to Monteux took about 1 hour, mostly on an auto route. Got myself unpacked and we had a quick dinner of olives/cheese/bit of pate with bread, then salad greens with a bit of roast chicken (they do really nice rotisserie chickens at the supermarket in town), and lemon tart for dessert – with pale, pale rosé wine (as Nancy and I have determined on previous trips, the paler the rosé is the better, so the darker rosé is not as good). I was still starving from missed meals and the time shift so a good meal hit the spot.

The gifts I got on etsy were a big hit (art deco sterling silver zebra pin for Nancy, and a 1950s/1960s French kitchen/bar towel for Jim – all cotton with block prints of fish, mussels and lemon slices, all in white and various shades of blue).

I really crashed once it hit about 10pm, slept until 5/6am but woke up due to jet lag, then fell back asleep until 11am! The temperature really dropped over night so I’m very thankful that I brought my fleece, leggings and socks! It’s much hotter during the day, so you have to have layers to deal with all the shifts in temperature over the course of the day.

Got up and went for a walk out northeast of town, out into a farming area. It was a little dicey because there was almost nowhere to walk in places so you really had to listen for oncoming cars – they use diesel so they are very quiet – defintely not a place to walk with an ipod on! A driver going toward town actually stopped me to ask for directions, too funny. Had to tell her I don’t speak French and suggested she drive toward centre ville. Did some stretches and yoga with my new travel yoga mat that weighs 1 pound – I’m glad I didn’t pay much for it ($10) as it is pretty slippery, but it does the job for most basic moves.

On my way back from walking, I met Bruno, the new manager of the municipal campground. The old manager, Christine, retired recently, which is too bad because she was a very sweet woman. Nancy and Jim have known her for almost 20 years, which is how long they’ve been coming to this campground. The other major change at the campground is a very good one – they’ve extensively rehabbed the shower/bathroom building. The old building was actually pretty nice in the scheme of things, but this is much better – the shower stalls now have an internal sliding door so you can keep your clothes and towel dry in the outer part of the stall, where there’s a mirror and a sink – so basically everything you need is in one place and very logically laid out. All the fixtures, sinks, and toilet stalls are new. And they’ve put in a washing machine to supplement the hand washing facilities. The dishwashing area has also been rehabbed. So it’s much improved.

Finally the campground now has free wireless, but only in one corner of the campground directly adjacent to the manager’s home near the entrance. Not the most convenient but it’s free so c’est la vie! The internet location is about a 2 minute walk from our campsite, which is on the back edge of the campground in a fairly sheltered area, which is good since the very strong Mistral winds were really blowing for the 2 days before I got here.

Had a lovely late breakfast of earl grey tea with lemon, croissants, lemon yogurt and cavaillon melons, which were a gift yesterday from our reserved but friendly neighbor Matricio. Had a much much needed shower.

Surprisingly, it sprinkled lightly early this morning for a few minutes, then again later this morning and we got a little downpour for about 5 minutes. We had to hurriedly bring in Nancy’s sewing machine from its outside perch in the shade. Despite the rain, you can hear men playing bocci ball in the town park adjacent to the campground, and earlier there were kids playing on the new campground swing set. The campground is about half full, so it’s pretty quiet.

We’ve decided to have a “camp” day, no major adventures, catch up on sleeping and reading, do some sewing, etc. I’m really enjoying the ereader setup for reading on my laptop. No extensive adventure plans yet but we are definitely going to revisit the iconic Senanque abbey with its big lavender field located not far from Monteux, as well as the other two famous Cistercian abbeys in Provence (Silvacane, which is near Senanque, and Thoronet, which is much further east and inland, not too far from St. Tropez and Toulon). Nancy and Jim are very excited to see all of three of the abbeys (known as The Three Sisters), as am I. We will probably see Senanque and Silvacane on the same day, but Thoronet will require a drive so we will presumably see it on a different day.

Have a happy and fun 4^th of July! As it turns out we will be here on July 14^th, which is Bastille Day, the biggest holiday of the year in France and their “independence day.” So we are planning to figure out something special for that day for sure.

A few photos of the campground and our campsite here.