CRUISING TO THE LAKE

Everyone is up except the Italian, who is no doubt sleeping off last night’s grog.  His French drinking companion leaves a sticky note on the door.  We chat for a bit with a couple from Perth before setting off towards the Autostrada.  After all the recent mountains today’s scenery is flat and wide open, becoming quite industrialised once we join the motorway.
We are making good progress until the first toll station.  Ali puts in our ticket and payment card but the card gets stuck.  There is a babble from the speaker so Ail presses the help button and tells them the card is stuck.  Seconds later the card spits out like a bullet, landing under the van.  Then out comes the obligatory ‘pay-later’ till roll, the barrier goes up and we are on our way.
Roadworks and scores of trucks around the north of Milan means the two vans get separated.  We stay in lane one as trucks overtake, waiting for N+G to catch up with us but next thing they are way ahead having gone into lane three to speed past the convoy hiding us from view.  After a text message to them we catch up and resume our own mini convoy.
The next toll works as intended and we leave the motorway for the last 10 miles of our journey.  It has cost €18.30 for just over 100 miles of smooth, fast toll road.
At some point during our journey today we pass a milestone,  or more specifically the 50,000th mile we have travelled together with Mary*Lou.
We exit a tunnel and immediately turn off, remembering we had missed this exit last time we were here, then see the blue of Lake Iseo as the bottom of the hill.
We check in at Camping Covelo with the same warm welcome we enjoyed on our previous two stays here.  Our pitches are second row just back from the lake’s edge.
We chill out for the afternoon watching ducks and paddle-boarders on the smooth azure water.  As dusk falls various little lights appear around many of the vans and lights twinkle across the water from the far shore.