Arnold and Marvin are here from last year.

About half of the campers had already arrived on Sunday, a full day early.  I met a few of them the next morning as we got settled in.  My first task, however, was to return my car to the Hertz office in Toulouse.  It was a beautiful day and I thoroughly enjoyed the drive along narrow country roads, bordered by bluffs and deep ditches.  I sped by rolling hills dotted with giant marshmallow rolls of hey and sloping fields afire with a million brilliant sunflowers.  Every now and then I’d pass through a quintessential  French country town with wonderfully cramped streets and a cluster of crowded, stone buildings, rich with the patina that comes only with genuine antiquity.  Eventually the country gave way to some larger towns and then the auto route that allowed a rapid approach to Toulouse. (more…)