Rain, Rain, Go Away!

You may recall Gene Kelly singing, dancing and having a grand, old time while “Singing in the Rain” - well, that was the opposite of our rain experience today.  We had to walk around 17 miles today as it literally rained non-stop.  Today also happened to be one of those stretches with no town or village along the way to make a pit stop (for coffee or lunch or just a small break from the rain), so it was a grueling, non-stop 5.5 hour slog.  As Frank mentioned, a driver took pity on us the last mile or so as we finally approached the town and dropped us off at our hotel for the night.  Thank heavens for small mercies. (Frank - I was fine myself) 

I was also reminded (from prior hiking trips) of how much I truly hate an unfortunate byproduct of rain:  mud.  Hiking through slippery, squishy mud is seriously not pleasant.  Nor is walking in wet shoes and socks. (Frank - I don’t recall any mud) 

With several more days of full rain in the forecast, we have some thinking to do.  Keep going or pause for a day or two until the worst is over? 






Sent from my iPhone

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book of the Trip

Image
I (Vic) brought four books on the Camino because long-distance hiking trips are a great opportunity to enjoy a good read.  One really stood out with another a super solid and close runner-up. Book of the Trip:  Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor What a fantastic book.  It tells a fictional story within a historical context, which is about a ship in 1847 traveling from England and Ireland to New York.  It introduces a number of characters seemingly unconnected as the ship commences the journey and what happens and what is discovered over the course of that journey including quite a bit of intrigue as well as murder.  It’s a real page-turner.  It also reads as surprisingly relevant to today as the historical context is people fleeing famine, violence and prosecution, desperately seeking a better life in America - and looked down upon and as inferior by some.  You only have to scan today’s headlines to see this same story sadly repeating itself. Extra tri...
Read more

At last, no more pain!

Image
Walking into Santiago there was a kind of silence, and yet the city was humming. When a pilgrim comes in from the Camino de Levante people know. It is the longest, and it is the hardest. But for me, a humble man, it was also so very strange. Vic was fine, and I saw him swiping left a lot on his phone which probably explained his disappearance later that evening.  Pregnant women, they made me touch their bellies, same with the infirm. Priests bowed before me. And when I reached the gates of the Cathedral, I don’t mind saying, I wept openly. And, as I was there, my left foot started to bleed - you remember the problem with my left boot - and people gasped. Like Padre Pio with his stigmata, the bleeding wouldn’t stop. And next thing, 12 swallows hovered far overhead, representing the apostles presumably. And then this young, very attractive french woman,  26 or 27, a cellist, came over and rested her finger on the wound and crossed her forehead with my blood, and said, ‘Vous avez...
Read more