I knew that too much wind might scuttle the flight, and there was no "Back-up" date.  We wandered down the back alley to the road leading to the Etherington estate.  As we trucked down the lane to their place, a car met us.  It was two sisters from Georgia that were to join us on the flight.  We rode the last few hundred yards with them, and talked about what we had experienced so far.  At the launch site things were stirring as the gondola/basket was being hooked up and the balloon was being rolled out.  Elizabeth handed us all our official Ballooning In Tuscany  caps and passed out a jacket or two to keep the party warm.  The houseguests and interns were getting the launch ready and preparing coffee.  We held the envelope open for the fan to inflate it, before the flames heated the bag for it to rise.  All along, Robert kept making a call on his cell-phone.  He was checking wind conditions.

Yes, I had flown kites in this exact same wind, and knew that the BEST CASE SCENARIO would be a drag landing, and it was probably not going to be safe to land at all.  The "FailSafe" time arrived, and Marsha, bless her courageous heart, was already in the basket ready for launch.  Robert called off the flight, and we started to let the air out of the real balloon and the emotional one that the passengers had filled with our hopes of a view of Tuscany from above.  We were a little disappointed that there would be no flight but we got our caps, and more coffee.

The Etheringtons were the ones that would be losing a days income to the wind.  Around the kitchen table, we talked of travel and we all expressed a bit of the beauty that got us here to begin with.  It was a wonderful morning, and we still had breakfast up at Il Rondo to look forward to.  We got a ride back up the hill and had breakfast with the Biking Brits.  Marsha and I then wandered the town and scratched our heads about how to spend the next two days in Tuscany.  We were playing it all by ear, and started thinking about renting a car.  It was sometime after noon that we were asking Katya (The hostess at Il Rondo) what she knew about car rentals.  This was not easy.  She spoke very LITTLE English, but she had done the same thing that I had done in high school, slept through Algebra, but learned enough French to survive.  With 3 languages amongst us, she made arrangements to take us to Torrita di Siena at 2:30 to rent a car.

We met a mynah bird and got our wheels.  The company that rented us the car agreed to take us to the train station in Sinalunga on Friday, after we returned the car.  It has been a few years since I have driven a stick shift.  Marsha's level of confidence in me never changed.  "Do you know what you are doing, Craig?"  she asked.  "DO YOU KNOW HOW DO DRIVE A STICK?"  She and Tammy Wynette were standing, or at least sitting, by their man.  This was the first time I thought of Princess Grace and which mountain road would be a fitting resting place for my Princess' emotionally-supportive corpse.  I ground a few gears, and we started to look for a laundramat.  My conclusion, after two days of seeing the most beautiful country side is:  There are no laundramats, at least ones that one can find.  One should go with their first response, and get detergent and wash a few things out in the sink and hang to dry.  We were traveling in a part of the world where there isn't the transient class that doesn't have their own laundry facilities or friends or families with the right machines.

I had done this in the past and somehow the fact that we saw so many laundry facilities in Paris, it was assumed that they would be everywhere else.  They weren't!  I eventually washed out some of my shirts and Marsha's tops and hung them on kite line in the bathroom.  This is my travel resolution.  Pack lighter, Wash clothes by hand as needed, and accept that it ain't Kansas with Whirlpools and Maytags at every turn.

We decided to eat at Riccardo and Katya's that evening.  Pizzas were ordered and just to confirm that we were getting tomato on the ham and mushroom pies, the order was restated by the co-pilot,  Princess Marsha, whose confidence never flagged in others' abilities to get things right.  Actually the pies were REORDERED.  The pies were good, simple tomato pizza, no other toppings, but excellent.  We indeed got tomato on the pies.  As Katya was putting them together, she opened the door to the courtyard and bent to the herbs growing outside the door.  She cut these and brought them in and put them on the pizzas.  It is hard to imagine how good this simple preparation could be.  Giovanna had brought a plate of gnochi over to feed the kids, even though they run an eating establishment.  This place is where the twenty-something crowd stopped for a beer or coffee in the pre-dinner hours.  What a great place.  What great people.  

As the night wore on, we wandered over to see if the Biking Brits had finished their gastronomic experience for the evening and were going to the bar for coffee.  The men felt that a grappa with the coffee was a good idea.  Katya always puts a cinnamon smiley face on the foam of your cappuccino.  Amazing touch.  The grappa is like Slivovitz or Alma, grape rocket fuel.  Smooth taste with a grape back taste.  It warms the body and soul and separates the women from the serious drinkers.

Our new British friends were moving on to their next town in the morning and I offered to throw the bikes in the boot of the car and drive them there.  They passed on the offer and I think we passed them on the road as we were exploring the countryside the next day.

A Note About The Dogs

In Pompeii we started seeing a lot of very docile middle age dogs that wandered the streets and seemed to belong to no one.  They wandered in and out of cafés.  I started photographing them, even with only the Clié camera as we saw them.  We heard that Italy had gone to a microchip implant dog registration system, and some families could not afford the fee, so they Liberated their house pets.

The dogs were not a nuisance or threat or problem in any way.  The old adage about it taking village to raise a child has some application here.  The town was being protected by these housepets without a job, and the dogs were being cared for, as they slept and wandered through their lives

Remove all doubt to email me.

craig@alldoubtrodgerson.com