GR5- Day 26 - the Shapes of Water

all photos : phone camera (actual camera was hiding from the rain)

10.05
I lost a day to the rain. Day 25, Brin-sur-Seille > Dieuze, washed away in a downpour that just wouldn't quit. I stayed in Nancy one more day, sleeping in the dark grey light, watching the entire LoTR trilogy. Noble old Chatouille the cat slept by me, content, and I felt hey, at least he's enjoying the company.
So when I left on Friday, May 10th, I was more than itching to walk. I took two buses to get to the field town of Dieuze. It was market day and the teashop was full of seniors bussed in from the neighboring villages to shop and meet and talk; I drunk in the caffeine and the social energy, then saddled up and left.

The Universe stretched, dawn fingers all frosted, parted the clouds a bit and said : hey, welcome back. Here's a stork. How large those birds ! A stork I guess is about as tall as the familiar grey herons, but much thicker, more... solid. Google tells me a stork is about twice the weight of a heron. They stride in the fields, redlegged soldiers looking from grubs - and only reluctantly take flight, body bent, neck down, beating the air like they're climbing a ladder to the sky. I'd end up seeing more than thirty storks that day. The lady at the pilgrims' inn told me that the weather had warmed up so much, storks didn't bother crossing the Atlantic in the winter anymore, they just overwintered in the South of France, sometimes in Spain; and they flew up higher North, and West, in the summer. Alsace doesn't hold them all.

Today I'd cross the 'Pays des Etangs', 'Land of Lakes'. 'étang' is strictly speaking closer to 'pond', but the term doesn't denote ponds (although the forests and paths were full of those) but actual lakes, dug and filled in the Middle Ages for pisciculture. The land folds, here and there, rippling under the pressure that created the Vosges, and the lakes pool in the folds like water on a tablecloth. I was a little disappointed that the path would once again be so flat, and through yet more countryside; I wanted to start with the Vosges already. The rain came back, of course it did, and beaded on the little raintents I draped over my poles. My spirits lifted at intervals, with the storks, with the round eyes of curious cows that would trot a while alongside as I went; with the glimmer of the ponds, and with the enthusiastic salutes of a troop of young conscripts, off on their own march with much heavier packs than mine and big smiles on their faces.

I detoured off-GR for about 2K because the lakebound village of Tarquimpol seemed cute but wasn't actually on my path; I went over a fold before Fribourg and there they were : silhouettes of the Vosges all blue in the distance ! Straight East. My own path would wander a bit South, and they'd stay with me for a couple of days, round spines like dolphins just over the next wave.

Water. Water everywhere - pouring, drizzling, squelching, lapping, rolling free or held, thick and tamed, in the canals I'd follow for about seven miles. Mud, so heavy underfoot. Live your life in cities, come outside, and you can still tell : here is water, here's where it went. You'll notice heat; and cold and humidity and the bliss of being dry. Wind; the quiet of no-wind. We're no better than this. Scratch that : we're still that good.

It was a long day's walk and I was highly looking forward to the last 2K to Landange. The young baker in the general store at Gondrexange slipped an extra pastry in my bag when I said how far I had walked already, and where I was going. It was very welcome when it turned out that roadworks blocked my way and the GR route was modified with an extra +5K. That made a 35km day, 38 with detours.

Welcome back.