Return +2 Weeks

Date	13 Aug 2025 ( Thursday )
Total This Camino:	243 miles
Total All Caminos:	1859 miles
Total Lodging:	$ 2310
Total Airplane(s):	$ 1427
Travel Insurance (Larry):	$ 360
Buses / Trains / Taxis (Deb & I):
Total Buses / Trains / Taxis:	$ 415
Total Food:	$ 1761

Random Thought of the Day

Another Camino de Santiago under the belt. ... or should I say under the feet?
240 miles through northeast Spain from the Mediterrean Sea (south of Barcelona), through Cataluna, Aragon, Navarre and La Rioja.
Started with a river delta, through rice fields, over the Sierra de Pandols, and into beautiful towns and cities like Zaragoza and Logrono.
Visited castles, cathedrals, cafes, campos and walked many a calle.

Notable memories

Visited my mother's grave yesterday. She passed last October, now going on 10 months. She wanted a natural burial ... from dust to dust, literally. No formaldehyde, no casket.

She was gone so this was my first camino in a long time where I did not have in the back of my mind, thoughts about losing someone while walking the Camino. It was a relief that did not come guilt-free for feeling free from impending death.

(This time last year I was walking with thoughts of my mother's declining health. In earlier years, she would cheer me on with questions and interest. Last year, I am not sure how cognizant she was that I was overseas, walking a couple of hundred miles along Spain's north coast.)

On the Camino del Ebro, I thought about how relationships with parents can be strong or weak, effective or destructive, filled with angst or caring.

This year I thought about the good times and the bad times, the supportive times and the supporting times, and mostly I thought how I would never again share my good moments, good thoughts and good times with her ever again.

My sister went with me to visit her natural burial site. It was covered in wild flowers that were foot-high and knee-high and crotch-high. I had to step carefully over the unmanicured ground. That was part of what made it natural. My sister verbally guided me to the approximate spot. It kind of aligned with some path-marking poles and was perpendicular to a nearby shade-bearing tree. 

After some brushing aside of the wild growth, I found her marker. I really had to look hard to find it, flat in the ground, less than an inch high - completely and fully overgrown. When I cleared the stems of the plants from the buried marker, I realized what was feeding their growth, what was nourishing their life, what provided the energy for them to grow.

 I told my sister how I did not like being without a parent.

Mostly I thought about how I missed her.

Rio Ebro in Logrono

Meaningful Moment

My son is the source of my drive and my star on which to steer when I am headed in the wrong direction.

The other day he pointed out how I returned from the Camino del Ebro, and jumped right into 37 different things.

He pointed out how I should take a break, not schedule so much, not schedule so tightly. 

He was right. 

So instead my son, my grandson and I threw the softball around in his backyard. I threw fly balls and caught line drives. I dropped some, caught most and had fun.

Then the three of us went in the pool on this hot afternoon, and chatted about managing life, digging on music and taking time to chill out.

I also told my son that he was right ... about taking time out for stuff.

Concatedral de Santa Maria de la Redonda

Reflections

In all of that, not once did I see another pilgrim, nor hear of other pilgrims on the trail. The reason is clear. July is a brutally hot month in Spain. The temperature reached 90+f on most days, and about one-quarter of the time, it reached 100+f.

That necessitated the biggest change in our hiking practices. After only just a few days of reaching our resting place around 2:00 pm in high 90’s, glaring sun in 0% shadeless, cloud cover, we changed our routine to a 4:30 a.m. wakeup with a 5:30 a.m. walk time. That way we reached our lodging usually by noon when the temperature had only reached the high 80’s f. 

Such an early start time did bring a huge benefit. As hard as it was psychologically to routinely arise at 4:30 in the morning, we had time in the later part of the afternoon to explore the towns, villages and hamlets through which we hiked.

We spent more time among the locals that way. We could join in at community pools while they refreshed in the brutal heat. We could sit in sidewalk cafes as the sun lowered in the sky. (It never set because that was around 10:30 p.m. and we were already in bed.) We could visit churches and castles and playgrounds and street-malls. We stopped for “gambas al aljillo” - shrimp pan-seared in garlic and olive oil. 

In the early morning, we walked along the banks of the Río Ebro while the sun first lightened the horizon, and later would skip its way from behind the hills to pour light down on the Ebro’s bends and twists and flowing water.

What the Problem Is

I can't get over how much I don't like being schedued to do something with someone at some place at some time.

On this Camino Ebro, I had literally no sense of the clock, except to be done hiking by one p.m.

I did not think about social obligations or volunteer-related obligations or medical appointments or having enough time in the day to balance tap dance practice, spanish practice and german practice.

Yet one of the biggest tasks that I have had since being back was filling up the calendar with dates and times for my two German classes at Oasis, my tap dancing class, my writing class, my spanish class at Osher, my Irish Literature class and then my Advanced Spanish class and possibly an intermediate German class at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Then I need to fit in five hours a week at the YMCA, plus time at home for physical therapy. I want to play pickleball, to hike and to run an 11 minute mile and on other days, go for 2 miles at a slower pace.

And to give back to my community by volunteering in combination with a homeless shelter, an animal shelter and to work with veterans.

And thers is simply not, not, not enough time for all this. 

And I am not ready to give up on being on the Camino ... not ready to go back to life pre-Camino ... not ready to live like I was.

This year, this time the feeling is lasting longer and runs deeper. I don't know why. But it is keeping me from moving on.