Quarter Year

From Poitiers, I headed south to Limoges, then turned east to Clermont-Ferrand, then headed south again to Le Puy-en-Velay. Before I got to Le Puy two things happened, it started getting dark and there started to be snow. I didn’t realize it, but I was driving down the center and there was snow the whole way. As it got darker and snowier, the little towns that I was passing got more and more shut down. The hotels had no lights on, so I just kept driving. At around 10pm, I had passed the point of no return and really couldn’t stop and find a place because there weren’t any that were open and I didn’t want to waste the time driving around to find a cheap one.

I started to consider options of where to sleep. Many of the truck drivers pulled over into the picnic areas and slept, but I didn’t know if this was the safest option. My other option was to sleep in a town, where I would risk being seen by passers by. I decided on the latter option and started looking for a town that had a public parking area where the back ends of the cars were darker and a little more secluded than the front. I passed many good options, but was still wide awake, so when I got to Aubenas, I was absolutely exhausted and set on making it work. I found a darkish parking area at the base of the old city, one which held a massive fortified castle of course. I could see the illuminated castle from the front and side windows of my little car-hotel room and from the rear, there was a view over the valley lights, off the cliff on which I was parked. The wind was blowing so hard and I had to double check that the car wouldn’t be blown over the edge. I had also seen a sign for -4 degrees on one of the signs I had passed. Still thinking this wouldn’t be a problem, I curled up in the back and went to sleep with all my clothes on and my rabbit fur hat over my eyes.

When I went to sleep, I was warm and happy, but when i woke up an hour later, it was so cold in the car that I couldn’t even breath the air without a little pain. It didn’t take long after trying and failing to find a way to comfortably breath to decide to keep moving.

I started again around 1am and drove until 5am, this time stopping just after Aix-en-Provence on one of the side of the road picnic area rest stops, which is actually just a little road off the main road with no ammenities or anything or even parking spots. I backed the car under a tree and this time I draped a seat over the front seats and over the back seats, making a little tent above the back seat. This hid me from anyone looking in and it also kept my warm body heat in.

Here, I slept easily for three hours before it got too bright to sleep. It remained warm the whole time, despite rest of the car being freezing. When I got up, I realized I had parked on the edge of a vineyard and the grape vines, which you could see for miles were all covered in snow. The sky was white and it looked like a whiteout.

I kept driving, determined to make the olive farm before lunch. I didn’t quite make it. I missed my exit and ended up in Monaco and had to drive back through Eze. I was so frustrated that I actually yelled in the car. When I heard how annoying I sounded, I stopped. I was still really irritated, but as i pulled back onto the coastal road towards Nice I checked myself, saying aloud, “Oh poor you, you HAVE to drive through Eze, you HAVE to look out over the Mediterranean for an extra 20 minutes, what a rough life you have.” Then I was fine.

I got to the olive farm around 12:30 and parked in front of Claude’s. I knew Mike would be eating at Margarite’s house, so I used the time to brush my teeth and change my clothes. I was just about to walk up to find him and he started walking down the hill. He was dressed in a red plaid flannel shirt, jeans and work boots (coincidentally the same outfit he wore to be a lumberjack for Halloween) and he looked so much bigger than I had remembered. His shoulders made him look like a giant box and i likened him to Sponge Bob.

It was so good to see him and we chatted for an hour straight before I laid down to take a nap while he went back to work.

I had mixed feelings about being back on the olive farm, which I’ll write about later when I have a little more time (Mike is impatient to get on the road this morning), but I just wanted to say that I made it, we’re together, all’s well.