Rolling With the Punches

I did not get bacon for breakfast this morning. Nonetheless, the hotel breakfast was worth waiting till 7am for, and the extra hour of sleep was nice too.

Many things in life, I've decided, are about perseverance. Getting my CPA license was one of those things. My academic-type friends tell me a PhD is the same. I'm beginning to realize that most things worth having in life are like that. So is the Camino de Santiago.

Today was the second of three days over 18 miles each. If we can make it to Santo Domingo de la Calzada tomorrow, we get to stay in a Parador, and then we have a few days of no more than 14 miles. I'm hopeful those days will give us a chance to rest more and rebuild after what has proven to be a fairly grueling first week.

Dad's blisters were still quite painful, so we intentionally set a significantly slower pace today. In Logroño, after six miles, we took stock at our morning break. Dad said he thought he could keep going, so we did not have to leave him in a hotel to catch up with us at some later point.

Logroño is beautiful, with a fantastic 10th century bridge crossing the Ebro River (picture attached), though we found it quite humorous that the route into town takes you by the public crematorium, which ominously had it's furnace going this morning. Just generally unsettling you know?

Leaving Logroño, you walk through city parks and a nature preserve for about four miles, so we took another rest break about midday there to rest our feet and four Dad to doctor his feet. We discovered that even his blister had a blister, so once we got that taken care of, he felt much better, and we picked up the pace a bit, even though the next stretch was a climb. Frankly, I think that much of Dad's blister trouble stemmed from the fact that he had been changing socks, insoles and shoes at every break, trying to find the combination that would be comfortable. I'm not sure anything is going to be comfortable to walk in for 18 miles. So, I've started referring to Dad as "Imelda Marcos."

The afternoon climb, through vineyards, took us to rather an amazing sight. This stretch of Camino itself is not very pretty - you walk along an access road of a main highway bounded by chain link fence. Over the years, though, fellow pilgrims have taken whatever they can find and made crosses and placed them in the chain link. There are literally thousands of crosses (Crosses?) of all shapes, sizes, and materials. We walked along the fence full of them for nearly 15 minutes.

By this time it was getting hot, so we stopped in the town of Navarette to have a bite to eat from our supplies, rest our feet, and continue on. The last five miles to Ventosa in the heat with little shade, though pretty while walking through vineyards and not so pretty when walking next to the interstate, were brutal.

I used to think the coolest thing about the Spanish countryside was that you can almost always see Spanish towns a long way off because of the lay of the land and how towns are built. That was when I traveled Spain by car. On foot it's awful, because you see the town you are staying in at night and think, "Oh, it's not that far off." so you walk another 15 minutes, look up, and you would swear the town hasn't moved.

Even worse, sometimes you will see a town, and you can't wait to get there, because that's your rest break, then you get behind a hill or the road twists and you walk for a while and you know how far it was to the town and it seems like you ought to be there by now but...no town. Pretty soon you've degenerated to " Where is that $&@*^% town". I know that kilometers are only 0.6 miles, but sometimes, I swear it's the other way around.

On the other hand, I have never been more genuinely thankful for shade in my life. The Camino does tend to make you appreciate seemingly mundane things. Like hot water. Or a mirror. We finally got to Ventosa this evening, found the albergue (which is REALLY nice, and the host is amazing), and were then informed that there was no private room for us. So, we are in a room with three girls from Mexico and a young man from Germany, who for some reason kind of reminds me of Bryan Scott. The facilities are very nice, but it's kind of like being at camp. Common bathroom, shower stalls, bunk beds. The upshot is that it only cost us EUR 8.5 each, including free Wifi.

So I went to get cleaned up after my walk today, and of course I picked the one shower stall with someone in it. Honestly people, lock the door. It's not rocket science. So I went to shave at the sink. No hot water in the sinks. Only in the shower. No mirror for shaving in the shower. So I shaved cold. I don't trust myself without a mirror.

When you are walking through the heat for 18 miles, you'll do anything to let your mind wander, so I started thinking about life, and what if anything I would do different. Once I got past the obligatory "I wish I had these cars..." conversation, I began to do some serious pondering. I didn't reach any conclusions...yet. I am still cogitating. But I did decide that in everything, I should generally be quite thankful, and content, without becoming too self-assured, self-absorbed (yes, I know I'm an only child) or complacent.

Finally, it turns out that Mom and Dad don't know the words to any songs apparently, and they managed to violate flagrantly all three rules of singing on the Camino. I realized that my earbuds for my iPod are at the bottom of my backpack. Sigh. I've also discovered that when you walk 18 miles in the heat, everything either becomes really annoying or really funny. Dad's singing, loudly, was the former (I was already walking 100 yards ahead). Mom asking me to hand her a bottle of water, then asking me to hand her a different, identical bottle of water because for some unknown reason she didn't like the first one, was the latter. I think if we hadn't laughed, we would have cried.

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't thank everyone for the comments and encouragement. It's great to know that you all are following along and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. I have not responded individually simply because by the time I post this I am usually so exhausted it's the last thing I do before sleep.