You Can Check Out Any Time You Like...

Today turned out to be a pretty easy day.  We only had 10.7 miles to cover, and we left at 6:30, to take advantage of cool temperatures.  There was only one bar open as we left town, so we took advantage of the opportunity for a cup of coffee.  The bartender there confirmed what we had noticed for the last few days: there do not seem to be many pilgrims at the moment.

There is not much to tell about today's walk.  We crossed a Roman bridge as we headed out of town and the walk was flat and along the edge of a highway with only one little town where we stopped for a cup of coffee and toast to break the monotony.

The terrain is flat, flat, flat but way off to the North, just barely visible in the heat and haze are the mountains that separate us from the old Kingdom of Asturias, where Pelayo began the Reconquest of Spain in the summer of 722 by resisting the Moslem overloads and retreating to a cave in the mountains with 300 men and holding off the Moslems for three years.  287 of Pelayo's men were killed before the Moslems gave up and went home.

We will have to cross those mountains before we reach Santiago, but not yet.  

We arrived about 11:15 and hat to wait a bit for our room to be ready, so we sat in the bar and had a bit of tortilla española and a coke.  An old man wandered in and spoke to us, so we struck up a conversation.  He told us at first that he'd never heard of California, then let us know he was joking.  It turns out his oldest son lives across the street for Madonna somewhere near Hollywood.  Even in the remote northern parts of Spain, in a town of 200 people, you can't get away from the Hotel California, it seems.

Dad arrived on the 2:13 train from Sahagun, and we've enjoyed a leisurely lunch and a siesta. Mom and Dad have gone out to see if the grocery is open on a Saturday afternoon to scare up some snacks.  I'm working through the "Song of Fire and Ice" series by George R. R. Martin.  It's pretty good reading.

I have a new appreciation for washing machines, having done laundry in the bathroom sink for two weeks now.  Maybe I can make this a reality show, instead of "Gym, Tanning, Laundry" my Camino mantra can be "Walking, Pastries, Laundry.". Or not.