good days

The past 2 days have been pretty good. I picked up a travelling companion yesterday. The woman I mentioned last time. Turns out she decided to do some travelling 4 years ago and just never stopped (until she runs out of money, then she picks up a part time job for a while). Yesterday was temple 26, where I was given a pretty nice hand carved coral ornament and wooden お守り from a guy who made that stuff near the temple.
In the evening we camped out at a 道の駅, kind of like a rest stop. There ended up being 5 of us, myself, my companion, 2 henro on bikes, and a guy biking his way to kyushu then hopping a boat to Okinawa.
I was reminded of how nice the people of Shikoku are when a guy came to start getting the vegetable selling area we were sleeping in ready for the day. Instead of being angry that we were using his table/pallet things as beds, he just pointed out which ones he would use right away and suggested we move to the other ones and get a bit more sleep.
Today was a bit shorter so we hung out at a tourist center, which had a shower with hot water we were grateful for. Also the old lady selling fish there kept giving us plates of fish. Small fish that are grilled and then eaten whole (head, tail, and bones included). She also gave us a bunch to take with, so I'm eating some now with dinner, and will likely be eating them all day tomorrow.
Tonight is a wooden shelter near temple 37 with a guy I've run into a night before and my companion for the past couple days.