Are we there yet?

Our third day walking and we hurt a little all over and a lot in certain spots. Jill has blisters and I just have aching legs. As we approached Astorga on our last mile, a young Asian hiker asked me if I was alright. I must have been walking like an old lady. I wanted to ask for a piggy back ride the rest of the way but thought better of it. 

When we hit the outskirts we were revived by the elixir of Spain. 

This alburgue is not the finest. It is old but not quaint, a little too vintage. We will survive. Our German roomie Hubert will be a legend in the near distant future. I think Jill has a secret crush. 

These are Hubert's boots. Can you smell them?

The Tale of Two Alburgues

Hubert's bed 

Laraine's bed

  

   Last night we stayed in a five star alburgue. Clean (they had us remove our shoes at the door), literally zen music playing in the background. It was small and so delightful. 

     Tonight in Astorga...yikes!! A cool looking old Spanish house. But we go upstairs to the room (which is hard because we just hiked 10.4 miles), and I sit down on the lower bunk and can see through the floor boards to the entry below. All making me wary...but hey it's an adventure. So I put my fitted sheet on the mattress that has been treated with permethrin...(glad I have it). But all is still well until...

     Hubert the German enters...puts down his stuff close by...still ok...but he starts stripping down...grunting heavily as he does so...stop Hubert stop...pulls off his boots...smelly...but at least there are open French doors and a balcony he sets them out on. Pulls off his shirt...stop Hubert...please for the love of all that's sacred...stop...no now it's his shorts...he's down to his wonder wear...Laraine and I studying the walls...you could have at least been young, thin, and attractive Hubert. And Hubert is off to the showers...

      A few minutes later I'm off to the showers...sure wish there were men and women separated, because I'm next to Hubert. At least they are little separate rooms...but I can hear Hubert singing, and groaning. I'm thinking it was a hard hike Hubert...and trying not to think any deeper than that. 

     In the shower I decided I can't go one more day without shaving my legs or folks will question me and Laraine. It's hard to bend over and shave your legs in a narrow stall (and a tired sore back), but Hubert's singing, moaning, and groaning urged me on...I was trying to remember that Hubert is a free agent and can choose for himself...

      I finally made it through...dried with my micro terry towel (kind of like a sham wow...and I'm really shiny:)...I come back to my delightful sagging mattress and there is Hubert...napping on his bed in said skivvies. 

     Tomorrow night I'm choosing the joint. 

Blisters and happiness (you can't have one without the other)

    Just finished day two of walking. Day one 13.8 miles and blisters. Day two 8.7 miles. Very sore feet (I really thought I was prepared...) but we finished walking by noon so we can rest and restore. 

    The country side is beautiful. Spaniards are farmers. Every direction I see fields and irrigation ditches. We've met nice people from Hungary, Iceland, New Zealand. Last night lying in bed there was a couple in the next bunk speaking Chinese (or some oriental language), and another speaking German, and a French guy behind me. 

    We are staying in a cool alburgue, much smaller than last night. To get into this village we walked over a rock bridge built in the 1300's. 

     Kim's mother took a terrible fall and broke her hip and wrist and gashed her mouth. I feel so badly for her suffering. And I feel so badly for Kim. And to top it off coming home from visiting his mom, right out of Monticello a deer ran in front of him and hit my car (at least it wasn't his beloved mustang...that might have sent him over the edge...)

     So if you see the sweet boy Kim, give him a hug...he needs it. All I can think is that Pearl was big into adventures and she would be happy for me taking this one. I remember when I first met her she owned a GMC Jimmy to take grandkids jeeping in the canyon lands...she'd absolutely love this hike!!

     So life is blisters and happiness...buen camino!

More Leon

An apple pastry and the chocolate caliente to end all hot chocolate began our day. It sent a chocolate shiver of delight down my spine. 

We toured the Leon Cathedral and the Cathedral, walked the streets and ate a fabulous dinner at about 8 pm we joined a long queue to hear a free organ recital in the Leon Cathedral. The performer was a world renowned organist named Ton Koopman. He played all Bach which I thought I didn't really care for. Now I'm a Bach lover. The sound blew my mind. The cascade of notes made my heart race. I especially loved he bass notes that growled forth like a tuba was pulling them out of hell. I could feel the notes vibrate in my chest. As we listened the brilliant stained glass windows gradually darkened with the sunset. After thunderous ovations, he played one then another encore. I will never forget this concert. 

Leon!!!

        Twenty four hours travel...twelve and a half hours sleep (Laraine claims I snore...)(I have a terrible cough)...a wonderful day walking the streets of Leon...touring an amazing cathedral and basilica...a divine meal...life is good. Tomorrow we move on. 

Leon

After cooling our heels for 4 long hours in the Madrid train station we knew two things. 1) we both needed sleep and 2) the Madrid train ticket office is in dire need of a customer service overhaul. When our train finally arrived it was wonderful. It is modern, runs very quietly and we reached a speed of 150mph for a while.   When it slowed a bit we saw saw beautiful country including snowy topped mountains and miles of beautiful farmland. There were also beautiful groves of trees among the fields and swaths of red poppies and something purpley blue that looked like lupine. 

When we arrived in Leon we took a taxi to our hotel, even though it was fairly close, not trusting our sleep starved brains so find it. Good thing because it was a crazy ride through narrow streets honking pedestrians, kids playing wall ball and other cars out of the way. We never would have found our cute little hotel, tucked only 100 yards from the Cathedral. 

After a good meal and people watching in the square we finally went to bed, waking up 12.5 refreshing hours later. 

My friend Rainy Flake

     It's 1:18 a.m. And I can't sleep because I'm beside myself with happiness thinking about my adventure. 

     I want to tell you about my friend Laraine. Her dad and my mom are brother and sister, and we've been fast friends since childhood. 

     I am the oldest girl of nine kids, and she the oldest girl of eleven. We were raised out of town, on nearby farms, and had about one million cousins. Our mothers greatly depended on us to help with the day to day mountain of work that it takes to maintain large families. But still, any chance we got we were playing in the wash, in the canyon, anywhere and everywhere. 

     Laraine is one of my best 'tender mercies' of my earth life experience. I love her dearly. I'll tell just two quick stories that will help you understand. 

     I married very young. At age eighteen I had a baby. When the baby was a few weeks old, my twelve year old sister, Janet, was hit by a pickup and killed instantly while riding her bike home from a softball game. 

      Of course this was a traumatic devastation to our family. The night of the funeral, I was laying on the sofa in my parent's living room alone. I felt so heartbroken and emotionally hashed, I remember wondering if I would die also just from pain. 

     Laraine came over and lay on the other sofa and we started talking...telling stories about Janet and our growing up days. We started laughing about some of Janet's cute antics. The more we talked the more we giggled and suddenly I felt this very calming hope surge through me that life would go on, could go on. And that even with a broken heart you can still laugh. The two emotions can exist simontaneously. That experience was...because Laraine helped me. 

     The next story happened several years later. My husband and I were attending BYU and our fourth child, Jackie, a four year old broke her arm badly and needed surgery and pins. I had to smile because when she finally came out of the anesthetic, her first shaky words were, "let's call Laraine."

      She knew exactly what to do when in a tight spot. Call Laraine. 

      Laraine is smart, witty, talented, spiritually strong, deliciously irreverent. But my favorite thing about her is she can ALWAYS make me laugh. Needless to say...I quite adore her. Man my life must be charmed to have a friend that knows me through and through and still likes me. 

     And now I get to go on a most amazing adventure with her. 

     Here we are at my wedding reception...the beginning of another amazing adventure. 

Confessions of a Walker

     I've been a walker my entire adult life. I have a three mile route circling Snowflake that I've treaded literally thousands of times. But I'm so excited to go on this walk I can hardly breathe. This morning while walking I was thinking what I'm hoping to accomplish walking in Spain that I haven't accomplished walking in little, old Snowflake, Arizona.  

     For one thing Spain sounds much more exotic than Snowflake...maybe magical transformations of thinking can take place. And while I am hopeful for a bang up kind of experience...I thought about my continual walks, my continual morning pilgramages. 

     Most walks are at 5:30 a.m. because I work full time. So in the winter that means layers of clothes as it is often below freezing and my walks begin and end under the stars. 

     This is usually how walks go down. My alarm goes off and I groan inwardly. I count backwards from 10 promising myself that at zero I will roll out of bed. The counting repeats several times and I scan my mind and body quickly hoping for a justifiable, really good reason to not walk. But then my more rational self clicks in and I remember that I'm always happy when I walk and that on really crappy days at least I can say I did that one good thing. 

     So I roll out and dress. I wish I could claim I dress super cute, but it's only old sweats from my husband or son's discards and a hoody on my head to stay warm and keep me from having to comb my hair. It's not high fashion...(although my present shoes are pink:)

      I would say one of the best physical sensations of the walk isn't the walk but breathing the air. In a small town it's always an interesting mixture. So I step out on my porch and inhale deeply the dirt smell (dirt is the best smell under the heavens), sometimes it's mixed in with the silage from the farm down the street. 

       For a few short weeks in the spring its heaven smelling all the fruit trees in town blooming. And as I cross mainstreet and walk by McDonald's the smells coming from there are pretty enticing. 

      Sometimes I've walked several blocks before my brain comes to and kicks in and my think-thinking can begin. 

     Sometimes my walks are a continual prayer...pleading my cause, my life, my hopes and yearnings. Pleading for a burden to lift or at least shift. 

     Sometimes my walks are an angry rant. Silently yet loudly defending my point of view. 

     Sometimes my walks are a little cry fest. But the tears are cold in the winter. And only occasionally when I pass a fellow walker do I have to quickly wipe them away and smile. 

     Sometimes I laugh at things no one else would find entertaining. 

     Sometimes my walks are filled with deep and penetrating questions about the meaning of my life and all that I'm experiencing.  

     Sometimes the walks are rather numb and void. With no thread of a deeper thought process...just moving one foot then the next. 

      But always always as I return home I feel a little peace, a little resiliency, a little self satisfaction that I got up and walked the same old route that I've walked for decades. I really should get a new route. But that sounds kind of like too much work.  

     Here's a picture as I opened my back door to walk this morning. I wonder if Spain can hold a candle to this. 

A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma Held Down By a Rock

Last week as I walked, continuing my training for the Camino de Santiago, I found this note, held down by a rock on a bridge spanning the canal. I was intrigued enough to take a picture, but somehow didn't feel like I should read it. It felt so snoopy.

I thought about it as I walked, speculating about what was in it, thinking I would never know. 

I passed the bridge on a busy road a couple times during the next few days, craning my neck as I whizzed past in my car to see if the note was still there. It was.

This morning I walked again and this time, I picked up the rock, unfolded the note and read it, still feeling kind of sneaky and embarrassed, like I was reading someone else's mail.

This is what I found.

It was a religious tract from a Catholic believer.

The first paragraph is a badly written poem about believing in God.

The second paragraph explains that the Catholic faith alone produces miracles.

At this point my eyes were glazing over. The messages did not resonate with me. I am a life long Mormon who already has a strong belief in God and who does not believe that miracles are restricted to one particular religion. I have seen my own share of miracles.

But then I read the third paragraph: a quote from Mother Teresa. It rocked me to my core, articulating everything I believe.



Mother Teresa On Abortion in the United States: 

America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.

And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign." (Mother Theresa -- "Notable and Quotable," Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)

The Camino de Santiago is a Catholic pilgrimage, a route taken by the faithful to worship at the crypt that supposedly contains the bones of James, an apostle of Jesus Christ. People walk the Camino for a variety of reasons, many of them not religious at all.

But for me, everything in my life is intertwined with my faith. My home, work, recreation and the daily humdrum all is a part of a life that I believe is leading me back to my Father in Heaven. So I am enjoying the little irony of a Catholic missive, sent to a Mormon pilgrim, training for a route that will lead me to a grand cathedral in Santiago.

This journey is already getting good!

Canal Camino

It's flat and it's long. The canal near my home has been a handy place to walk for the decades I've lived in Mesa. I've rediscovered it while getting ready for the Camino. Early mornings are still cool but they won't be for long. 

Wildlife sighted includes ducks, gigantic carp, a turtle, depressed Mt View high school students on the way to 7a.m. "A" hour, and all manner of biking, running, walking fellow travelers. 

I've been practicing my Camino greeting - "Buen Camino" but so far all I get are dubious stares. I guess I better work in my accent. 

I'm a big girl now

My camino journey began over a year ago. I planned on doing the walk by myself...but when my best friend wanted to join me, I was happy. (My husband, kids, and parents were really happy.) 
May 26th!!!! I am ready to walk and walk and walk....AND WALK. I hope to walk away from some things and walk towards some things, come home a changed girl. Maybe I'm expecting to much...
Camino de Santiago here we come.