So Today Was A Much Better Day. Just Walking Slowly Through The Woods Listening To The Sound Track Of

So today was a much better day. Just walking slowly through the woods listening to the sound track of Into the Wild and feeling very relaxed. I could get used to staying at hotels.

Checked into another hotel a few days ago in Germany. It was even better than the first one, mainly because the minibar was stocked with these cute, tasty, and tiny bottles of wine and chocolate. Guess what I ended up having for dinner... Also, the ashtray sign makes a bit more sense when you know that there's a balcony the size of the room connected to the room. But it's neater taken out of context. And the initial photo is Chanel eating a dental dog bone in the bed. She jumped up there the second she got it, and I think she's unsure of whether I approved or not. I just patted her on the head, and then went and had a long shower.

Jakobsweg (Camino de Santiago) from Bingen am Rhein to Worms. So far, not impressed. The last three days have all started out the same, with me finding the Jakobsweg and following it for a few hours before getting lost. It is very badly marked, and most of my initial ability in following it stems from lucky guess work. The arrows point in random directions, often making none or very little sense when there are more than one choice of road to take. So whenever I get lost, I have given up backtracking and have just started walking south, using Google maps to plot a route. Yesterday this resulted in having to cross a small ditch between two fields, as well as forcing myself through a couple of natural hedges. Cuts and scrapes on my bare legs. But at least I didn't have to walk along any highways, or be led around in random snake patterns by whatever morons were designing this #$@&%! trail. Nobody will ever get any use out of that trail, because it is so terrible marked. It just seems like a lot of time and money wasted. Okay, this wasn't meant to be a rant. I guess I'm just spoiled by the Rheinsteig. While the Rheinsteig also did redundant snake patterns, they were along beautiful scenery and with tough climbs. It was always well marked, and the trail was beautiful and upkept, without being along highways or through busy city streets. So now I'm making my own path. So far, interesting and I might have to look into downloading the maps onto my phone, since I'm using a bit too much mobile data. I have 3GBs for 30 days, but I've already used 2.1GBs in 18 days...

Today we crossed the Rhein.

Mostly because I was fed up with mountains (hills) and my legs were really sore. But also because I wanted to walk along the Rhein river instead of just forest. And it was beautiful.

We crossed the river with a small ferry that only cost €0.70. Pretty okay. Luckily it lasted less than a minute, because Chanel was shaking the whole way.

I decided to stop at a camp ground, despite not having walked as far as I had planned. The sun was hot, and we were both lazy. We had had a lot of breaks, and every time Chanel curled up in my lap and slept, not even bothering to inspect the area like she usually does.

So now I’m sitting in the sun in front of my tent, drinking ice cold beer that only cost €1.60. Chanel went to sleep as soon as the tent was set up (and we had bought beer), and now she doesn’t even lift her head when people walk by. She opens her eyes briefly, then goes back to sleep. I think she’s enjoying the privacy of the tent as much as I’m enjoying my beer.

Considering that it looks like the trail has been cut clean out of the rock, I’m going to insist that what I’ve been unsure of whether to call mountains or hills, are mountains.

Also, how did the rock end up looking like that? What kind of machine did this? I’ll have to remember to ask the Germans. I’m sure if I asked my parents they’d tell me that it’s a bird or lizard specific to the Rhein area that cuts the rock like that in order to lay its eggs in the cracks. They’ve always liked telling ludicrously bullshit stories when asked stupid or meaningless questions. I have to admit, I do the same sometimes.

Despite the boring weather, it's hard to beat the place where we're camping tonight on beauty. That's Chanel's football at the lower right corner. It's in a net I made so I could strap it to the backpack. It was the first kind of toy I saw her enjoy, and since then I've only seen her get excited over sticks being thrown and footballs. She will prefer someone else's ball over her own. I had to chase her around a big field once when she found some kids brand new football and of course proceeded to bite into it. She seemed to find the chase simply fantastic, so it took me a while to retrieve their ball. Then I put it up a tree, between three branches, where the kids would be able to see it, and went towards our own ball. When I came back, the ball had fallen out of the tree (I thought), and the whole thing repeated itself. This time, though, as soon as I had put the ball up the tree, thinking I had pushed it firmly in place, Chanel ran up the side of the tree, bopped it out with her nose, grabbed it and ran. I finally got it so far up the tree that she couldn't reach it, and even though I got her to play with our ball, she'd still sometimes return to the tree and look up at the new ball, trying to solve the riddle of how she could get at it. I took a couple of pictures of Chanel and the ball tree, but they were on the phone when it broke, and hadn't been uploaded to Dropbox. So you'll just have to imagine it :)