July 7 – 8, Saint-Dizier to Autigny-le-Grand
Friday morning was chilly and rainy – at 9:00 we called the lock keeper to see if our package had arrived – it had not. But lo and behold – about 15 minutes later Ben arrived on his bike with our package in hand – he called the firemen for us and they were there in 20 minutes, had the prop and nut on in another 20 and we were off and on our way. We didn’t get too far because Dave had taken such a liking to Ben that he invited him to have dinner with us so we had to spend another night in St.-Dizier. Ben had the afternoon off and actually offered to take me shopping in his car to find a fabric store. As wonderful as that offer was, I just couldn’t subject an 18 year old young man to fabric shopping with me so Dave and I went off to the grocery store and did our provisioning. It was a grand grocery store – frozen individual Coquille St. Jacques in the (real) shell, a dozen escargot in sauce in a disposable aluminum escargot pan, rolls of frozen herbed butter for escargot, and all sorts of stuff.
Ben joined us at 6 with a bottle of chilled champagne! We drank the champagne and went to a small French restaurant in town. Dave and Ben had a wonderful veal dinner – I had (guess what?) escargot in macaroni. It was the first time I had escargot in with pasta and it was tasty but nothing so far can compare with the escargot we had in Reims which was served in a garlic cream sauce – it is my intention to duplicate that some night when we are having artichokes as I think the sauce will do extremely well for both; we have the escargots, we have the ingredients for the sauce – now we just need to get some more of those artichokes. I hope they have a long season because they are just tooo good. Anyway – we had a lovely evening. Ben wants to earn to perfect his English – he says it is very important in his field to speak English, although he admits that most French don’t think so. We will see him for one last lock in the morning but hope he will join us for a visit later on in our travels.
Saturday morning we left St.-Dizier (finally) at 8:15 and traveled until 5:15 – a long day going 27km and through 11 locks, these locks averaged 4 m (about 13 feet). You’ll be glad to know my lassoing skills have vastly improved. Here is a visual – look at the height of your ceiling, a standard ceiling height is about 8 feet; then imagine adding maybe 50 percent in height to that and see yourself throwing a rope around a bollard up there; it is better to imagine this while you are having coffee in the morning rather than in the evening after you have had cocktails because then you will have no doubt that you could do it. Better yet, put a large oatmeal box, or for some of you – a Glenlivit box, on your roof and try to lasso it with a 1 ¼ inch thick nylon rope with a 4 foot loop at the end. If you are planning to visit us, I suggest you begin this exercise right away.
Today we had a new experience of passing under narrow bridges that had to be cranked open (up) for us; again we crossed over the top of the river that runs alongside of the canal. The canal was much prettier here than it has been so far. We pass little villages, pretty lock keeper houses, gardens, fields and lots and lots of fishermen. Fishing in the canals is a great pastime here; sometimes the fishermen are alone, sometimes they are in groups sitting under huge umbrellas. Dave tries to speak to them in sign language – he points to their fishing bag and a big gesture they mostly respond by laughing and showing that their fish are very little. It is always a joy to go up in a lock because there is often a surprise at the top. When we go in, of course we can’t see what is at the top until we are there. Every lock has a lock keeper house, some are unoccupied but some have enchanting gardens, pretty lace curtains, pens with goats, chickens or whatever. There was one lock today that had a garden of chickens running freely and a dog and a cat just sat there and watched; one had a garden with a sole banana palm growing in a circle of marigolds. It is like a little gift for getting to the top of the lock.
Many of the locks today had water rushing over the front of the lock on the inside. They looked like a mini Niagara Falls and I felt like I was on a journey on the Maid of the Mist. The lock keepers today were very gentle with the water and let it in so slowly that it was like being in a baby’s bath; sometimes they let the water in so quickly that it is like being on a roller coaster ride and you never know what to expect until it happens.
We tied up in a little village, Autigny-le-Grand. We were too tired to even get off the boat and go exploring. I worked on my stenciling (the head in the aft cabin), fixed dinner (cornish game hens roasted with vegies, artichokes, and bread baked with olives inside), and we played a game of Scrabble (Dave won!). Tomorrow we begin again at 8:30 but are only going a short distance to the town of Joinville (2 locks and 6km).