Day 26: The Pilgrim Dinner

Pilgrim's Dinner

Day 26: La Romieu
Statistics: distance walked 11.8 miles/ 18 km,  steps: 25,054  elevation climbed: 800 feet, sunny,70 degrees

Clive and Maya walk to La Romieu. Mom and Fletcher are dropping me off 10 kilometers from La Romieu. We drive to the end of a road and wait for them. Mom and Fletcher enjoy seeing the pilgrims start to walk by. After a couple groups of pilgrims walk by clive and maya arrive. We take some group pictures then we start walking. It's feels great to be walking again after 11 days of resting. Today is a test of 10 kilometers to La Romieu. It's a sunny day and we are walking through a beautiful countryside. It feels wonderful to be walking again.

We reach 8 km and right knee starts to become stiff on the backside. It's enough that I am forced to walk backwards for the last kilometer past a prune farm and an arboretum.

I reach the town and rest on a bench. After 20 minutes,the stiffness disappears totally. That's odd. I decide it's time to get some massage therapy for both legs and these stiff muscles. The information center recommends I talk to a nurse.

I mail some more stuff home weighing 1 kg and I ask mom to carry my walking sticks back to Boston. Which is at least another kilogram. So two packages and the sticks equal approximately 3 kilograms or 7 pounds. My backpack is 50% medical supplies and 50% cloths and essentials.

We decide to have dinner at the Gite. while make the appetizer. I will make the spaghetti and Mom & Fletcher will bring the wine. There's one other Pilgrim stayIng in the gite. I invite Claude to our dinner. He joins us for wine.

Claude is a retired chef from fountainbleu. He is
walking a couple of weeks. He is continuing where he stopped last year.s. He speaks good english.

During dinner The nurse stops by and examines my knee. She recommends going to emergency room tomorrow.

It's been 15 days since I last walked on the GR65. My knee swelling went down the first week. The pain in the inside of the knelwent away the second week. The only remaining issue is some stiffness in the back of the knee.

Tomorrow is the big day. Will the doctor tell me stop? Do I have to decide whether to go home, continue as a tourist only or slowly walk my way back into 25 km. Frankly, I expect the doctor to take the safe route and tell me to stop walking. Although no on says anything I
suspect everyone was thinking the same thing.

I go over to Mom and Fletcher’s hotel and drink wine and watch a beautiful sunset.
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