Beating The Rain and the Joy of a Fritatta Sandwich

8 June 2016

A short (17k) and vigorous hike today kept us just ahead of looming thunderclouds, which broke into a steady rain just as we hit our agriturismo around 3:00 p.m.

Farewell to Madonna Fornelli

It was another glorious walk -- most of it without the specter of rain, through woodland trails and across open passes; always in view of the highest mountains of the Appenines.  I know both Cliff and I are thankful for our pre-hike training as we both feel strong and quickly recovered at the end of each day despite the demands of the terrain.

If there was a highlight for me today, because it was another truly wonderful day full of beauty and sensory pleasures, it was the frittata sandwich packed into our lunch bags.  Delicious eggy goodness made better with the addition of a young Italian cheese on chewy thick farm bread -- yum.  Silly, maybe, but without revealing my highlight, I asked Cliff and the frittata sandwich also was his highlight.  And why not?   The food in Italy -- even the simplest -- is made with a passion for ingredients and the desire to please the palate.

Tonight a cool evening breeze is drying our sink-washed laundry at a nearby window as I type this quick note knowing there is no internet, and so no posting until tomorrow.  We'll settle in and take advantage of an early night to read and rest-- tomorrow is advanced in our trail notes book as a demanding day.

Buono Notte!

As for the question of the day: Who would you like to be reincarnated as?

For me, in 2016, my answer is Slavomir Rawicz, the man whose memoir is "The Long Walk." Rawicz was the ringleader in the escape of  seven prisoners from a Soviet Labor Camp in Siberia in 1941.  The group traveled thousands of miles out of Siberia, through China, across the Gobi Desert, across the Himalayas (and Tibet) into British India to be free. The strong determination to live free seems such a noble passion to me that I would choose to experience the extreme challenge and horrors of the trip to know the one-mindedness of the pursuit. And for you, who would you like to be reincarnated as?