7/28 Mouthe to Chapelle des Bois

I envied Nick his ground for a bed after this night! Nothing worse then a crappy mattress. Down at breakfast things were simple - a baguette with a choice of spreads, coffee or tea, warm juice in previously opened bottles. My inner ability to go with the flow braked when I opened the honey to confront a dead fly. Time to leave....
The day was overcast and cooler - a relief predicted by the weatherman but at bit a of fizzle from the deluge promised - and that was fine.
We walked up to town and picked up lunch supplies - nice little tourist town in summer but apparently more so winter with much cross country skiing.
Back out of town we found ourselves down wind of a freshly manure sprayed field - the shitsen veld revisited and we suffered along at quick pace for a good twenty minutes.
The route climbed gently off the road into the woods. We'd seen considerable wood cutting in the area- really all along the GR way back north. But the wood stacking was vigorous /epic even here. We had seen cutting and stacking actively over the last few days. But coming down the road to a junction, we encountered a wood stack of jaw dropping proportions. 15 feet or more high and 75 long it dwarfed us. Mouthe has the nickname "little Siberia" for the record cold temperatures sometimes recorded there - -41C on one occasion! I suspect there is considerable wood burned in the winter. We hiked out of the woods reaching hilly pasture suggestive of glacial moraine. It was Saturday and hikers and cyclists were out desire the sprinkles. But then. These were a relief from days past. We entered Chauve Nueve as the sprinkles grew more serious and immediately heard our name called from behind - there was Nick on the hotel terrace having a coffee. We joined him and the rain fell hard. We looked at the hotel and it was clearly the better choice over the previous night and not at all a difficult walk further. After our drinks and some brioche, we all moved on. Not far out of town we walked by a huge ski jump facility of international repute. The route then stayed in green pastures or in the woods beside it which stretched as a verdant corridor essentially all the way to Chapelle des Bois. The walk was easy and very pleasant. We arrived in town at our Gite which was very walker oriented and very comfortable indeed. There was even a sauna but I didn't get too it. Right next door was a bar restaurant where Nick settled in. My gut was upset probably from breakfast but they had Guinness which is more like food really so I joined him for one and invited him to dinner. Nick sat with us along with a Belgian couple on holiday, Lieven and an American- Gregory Viscusi- a journalist for Bloomberg news stationed in Paris. He was a great person to talk with and what a neat way to catch up on the world after a few days without Internet or weeks of really caring! Another segment completed it was a good birthday as well.