Day 71: Stage 58: Campagnano di Roma, 25 km, Rain, 18°

Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall!

          - The Rainy Day' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And it did! Almost for the entire stage. We stepped out the door and the rain started. I decided to gear up and quickly put on my light Gortex rain gear. Rob decided to stay as he was, but we both knew that he was going to get wet😅 We had already put our pack covers on. The rain wasn’t too heavy, but I’d looked at the radar and I had a pretty good idea what was coming. 

We made the decision to not take the longer 3.4 km variant loop out of town which avoids the highway traffic. So we set off, first with a little climb. 

Just 52 kms on the highway. Hmmmmm? The VF is 71 km. Oh well, I’m in no real hurry🙂

As we arrived at the highway the rain of course picked up. The road corners were very tight so with my lights flashing we jumped back and forth across the road through the traffic to avoid facing oncoming cars on the  corners as there was no way they could see us. Dark, wet and limited visibility. We kept this up for 2-3 kms until our pain came to an end and we were off the road. Phew!  But, we’d saved walking an additional 3.4 km!

On to some side roads. We didn’t really want to many trails today, mostly the side secondary roads and parts of busy roads. We commented that it was a good thing we had sun yesterday because we were on so many narrow dirt tracks. For sure it would be muddy through those areas today. When walking in the rain I find one has to rationalize that they are better off than the other person so that the rainy experience can be throughly enjoyed😎 

At some point we both put our earbuds into our ears and turned on music. As the rain intensified we both realized that all you can really do is put your head down and gut it out. At least the music sounds great and lifts one’s mood! Of course because we have different paces and also because I dance a little (ok, a lot) when I listen to music while walking we ended up walking much of the stage separately. I’d resisted listening to music since Rob arrived because I kind of know the outcome.😏

Rob with a green pack cover, me with the red. Agsin, my boots stayed pretty dry. A minor miracle if you could see their condition. I had a bit of trouble walking up the first wet paved hill today because the bottoms of my shoes are pretty well done. Something over 1600 km on them now. They’ve provided me with wonderful service!

Rob eventually changed his mind and put his rain jacket on. Sort of like closing the barn door after the cow gets out!😂 But he refused to put on his new rain pants!?

We had to follow along the side of an auto strata, but the music basically drowned out the big trucks that were flying by.











The sheep dog guarding the various flocks started to move towards me, and could’ve come out onto the road right when I was passing by, but stopped to make sure I was moving on. I distracted him from Rob who slipped past almost unnoticed. 







For Saiorse who took her family to Ireland yesterday. Now just an hour behind me! 



Then the clouds began to lift and there was an actual horizon! 



My camera began to make regular appearances again. 

Fall is definitely coming this way. 



I think this would’ve been a beautiful stage if the countryside had been visible. Of course I’m not complaining because I’ve had so little rain over the past 71 days. A minor miracle! I’m very thankful for that as I love walking in the sunshine. I’ve developed to best tan lines!! 

A funny moment today when a husband and wife drove up beside me. I thought they were going to offer me a ride into town, but instead in some very broken English they asked if I knew where the dogs were kept. It took me a minute to figure out what they were asking about until I finally remembered that we had walked past a kennel about a kilometre back where there were dozens of dogs barking. So many dogs barking that I could hear them through my headphones. It finally dawned on me they were looking to pick up a dog from a kennel. Really, all they had to do was get out of their car and listen.😑

Then very suddenly the town just sort of popped out on the hill above me. There was a short steep climb up, as always.





The classic moment. A dog and a cat. Who will make the first move?



We went and had lunch in a small place and waited for our accommodation to be ready, about an hour and a half. You might recall that I had to quickly book a replacement as the place and originally arranged suffered some fire damage when there was a fire in the neighborhood. Turns out that we ended up with a nice little apartment again tonight and we have been out and shop for groceries and will yet again make a nice meal. 

Arranging breakfast!

We made inquiries about breakfast tomorrow morning in a bakery just up the way I found these huge slabs of chocolate they had just made with hazelnuts. We only looked.

Of course the sun is out now. Our laundry in our gear is all hung to dry and I believe that we will see no more rain on this trip. Weather forecast as we head to Rome and while we are in Rome I’d very good with temperatures of up to 25°. I am a happy guy! 

Two more stages to go! Certainly some mixed emotions playing through my head as I walked in the rain today. More about that later. Now it’s time to go get a shower, shave a little and try and figure out how to open our bottle of red wine. Who in Italy doesn’t have a corkscrew when renting out a place? There’s been a corkscrew everywhere, except here😂. I think I’ll head out across the road to one of the restaurants and see if they are prepared to open the bottle for us. Honestly, in Italy, no corkscrew?

Update: I went into a wine shop and they had a corkscrew! Big surprise! I just realize that I forgot to put in the coffee pic today. Not that it’s a big loss. So overrated.🤣