Three Weeks to Go: The Maxims of Preparation

Three Weeks to Go

Date	3 Jun 2025
Total This Camino:	0 miles.
Total All Caminos:	2353 miles
Airplane	$ 1360
Travel Insurance	$ 360

The Maxims of Preparation

Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense had a maxim about using military intelligence to plan a military operation:

1. You know what you know.

2. You know what you don’t know

3. You don’t know what you know

4. You don’t know what you don’t know.

My partner and I are once more into the breach for another through-hike in Spain.

In January of 2025 with none of the precision of a military campaign, we started the whole decision making process for our fourth Spanish adventure.

Maxim #1: “You know what you know”

The very first decision is “When?”. We want to hike / culture-dive for a month. I can go any time of year because I’m retired. My partner, with her job in a university, is - without exaggeration - never free during the fall and spring terms, whereas during the summer she has much more but not unlimited flexibility. 

Given what we know about schedules, the timeframe is obvious. We fly out the last week in June for a 30-day adventure (including two days for international travel).

Maxim #2: “You know what you don’t know.”

The second decision is “Where?”. There are over 20 pilgrimage routes in Spain. Some run from east to west, and some run from north to south. 

What we generically know is that Spain is unbelievably sunny and hot in July, the north is cooler - whatever that means - than the south, and that relative to all the walkers, some very small number of pilgrims die from heat stroke.

The decision is clear. Stay to the north. With that in mind, we choose the Camino del Ebro, starting on the Mediterranean Sea, south of Barcelona and walking west - inland. Of all the choices, it is the best we have.

Maxim #3: “You don’t know what you know.”

In any operation, lodging is important to a good night’s sleep, which is important for alertness and critical thinking in order to maximize the next day’s movement on foot and minimize errors in route recognition due to a lack of situational awareness. 

While carrying out more research for the very inexpensive publicly-supported  municipal-provided beds, I find the desired information in one of my browser bookmarks. Turns out I had already spent several hours locating sources of information, and simply forgot that I had what I needed. This happens when the incoming information exceeds the capability to process it. 

And finally, Maxim #4: “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

We are experienced through-hikers in Spain; I have 10 Caminos de Santiago under my belt, and she has four. I believe this is the maxim that will get us … due to overconfidence. 

In most of the towns, villages and hamlets, where we will be stopping, no one speaks English. It is a blessing to be able to ask for directions when we are lost or find a bar for a coffee when we are tired or learn something about the area where we are sleeping.

So how do we prepare for what we don’t know that we don’t know it. 

We both speak Spanish, not fluently but good enough. So for the unplanned for, unexpected for, unanticipated for situations, the Spanish soap opera - “Una Maid in Manhattan” is stretching our aural a-u-r-a-l capabilities, and the subtitles are exercising our rapid-translation skills. “Una Maid” is the typical convoluted romance story of a good woman and single mother of modest means who meets a good but lonely and rich single man. They fall in love but because of fate and the evil intentions of others, they fall out of love, fall in love again and out of love again and so on until … the story ends. So far we have seen about thirty episodes and only have 120 episodes more.

We still have a lot more to do, but using these four maxims, we feel combat-ready, battle tested and eager to engage. Very shortly, we will hear “Bienvenido a Espana!”