First day's walking, May 17

Hello, everyone.

As promised, another installment on the Camino del Norte this year.

Y'all may remember, last year we started out in Irun and spent the first night in San Sebastian/Donostia. This year we started out in San Sebastian, repeating two days' walk from last year, instead of either starting where we left off--Deba--or where we had started--Irun.

We crawled out of our beds in the pension in San Sebastian and got moving about 6:30 or so. We didn't eat there, but we had gotten a couple of apples to eat on the way, because pretty much nothing is open at that time in most Spanish cities and towns.  Just call it part of the pilgrim's sacrifice to go without coffee until later in the day when cafes and bars are open and you are in the vicinity of them.

 Looking back at San Sebastian, around 0700. The weather you see here was pretty much the weather for the entire day.

 On the trail between San Sebastian and Zarautz there is this welcoming little spot. It's done by a local Camino supporter out of the goodness of his heart. There is a little sign in book, there is a stamp to put a sello on your credencial, and there is a bit of water and a chair if the pilgrim is in need. Thank you, Camino Angel!

About noon we walked through Zarautz. We didn't stop for lunch, because we were only about 5 km from Getaria and wanted to press on. And we were looking forward to the lovely promenade walk between the two towns, with its shell themed railing and water views (with chilly breezes but this time no rain) all the way from one to the next. As y'all can see, the tide was out. It rises quite a bit here if that green line is reliable.

I did get a blister that day, because I had tied my shoelaces wrong, but other than that all was fine. And there was tape and gauze in my kit already. Preparedness is good.

Training report

Hello, everyone.

Training report, and shoe comments:

Monday we did 6 miles on the Hike and Bike. Today (Friday) we did the whole monte: from the parking lot all the way to Bentsen State Park and back again. We're calling it 9.75 miles. Or 10 if we want to just claim it! (about 16 km)

Weather was fine: clouds with spots of sun, temperature around 70, wind. As we started walking about 7:45 there were few bikes until later on.

Watched a flock of six or seven Roseate Spoonbills flying over head, in a straight line, probably heading out to find breakfast.

The mesquite trees are in bloom and smell very nice as one walks by.

Scads of mosquitoes next to the walled subdivision that the trail curves around approaching the state park entrance. Those folks need to go on a standing-water hunt!

When we finished, about 10:35, I had a hot spot on the bottom of the foot. Probably need to track down something like Leukotape. (Or at least some kind of tape that neither comes off nor squashes the adhesive through the tape fabric onto my socks. That is near-impossible to get out again!)

I'm liking most of the things about the new shoes. One thing I don't like is that the second top-of-opening hole pair is gone. I used that second pair of holes with the pair that's still there to secure the heel-lock knot so my toes wouldn't hit the front of the shoe. The new hole alignments mean the lock knot is lower and squashes the top of the foot. (Medium to high arch issue) Going to see about adding back the hole that is gone.Should be able to just drill it out, right? And add some Fray Check to secure the opening? What do y'all think?

(See picture of the shoe on the highlighted post, I'm changing to the new-shoes post for that today.)

Training report: 1st 3 days

Hello, everyone.

Friday we went over to the Mission Hike and Bike Trail and walked 4 miles. (Approximately 6 km) Took approximately 1 hour. (The link goes to Trail Link, who claim a total one-way length for the trail of 4.8 miles. But if you park at one end and go to the other and then go back to your car, it's pretty near to 10 miles. And there are mile markers here and there for shorter walks.)

Saturday we went to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and climbed the rope bridge twice and the tall hawk tower once. Possibly a mile in walking, plus the climbing.

Today we went to Bentsen Park and walked the main loop and strolled up the ramp of the hawk tower. Probably 4 miles.

Not much in pictures for the three days--the birds aren't in the mood to pose. And camera-hunting the birds takes up time without giving fitness benefits, so since we're trying to get back into walking shape we're doing more moving and less sitting in front of bird blinds and feeders.

Shoe report: the new shoes (Merrell with the Vibram Mega grip soles) are working out well, and when they get their new insoles they will probably be super-great. 😊

Sock report: it looks like liner socks--size Medium--for me. The medium thickness (size Small) socks last summer were a major contributor to toenail blisters. 😒 The thicker sock fabric between the toes meant that the toes needed more space in the toe box than they had. The thin liner socks are good. The thin running socks are just about the same thickness as liner socks, so I'll try them out on, first, the 7 mile loop at Santa Ana and, second, the 10 or 14 mile long walk (Hike and Bike the whole way and back, possibly with a loop into Bentsen, or twice around the 7 mile tram road at Santa Ana) sometime in the next month or so and decide if they go or stay. Injinji liner socks took me through Portugal in 2015, in a hot year for walking and only a few tiny heat blisters appeared. I don't know why I thought I should mess with success by trying out a new type of sock.

New hiking boots!

Hello, everyone.

As y'all know, we were forced to cut short our pilgrimage walk last summer. We did learn, however, that our standard-Vibram soles didn't cope well with wet pavement. In fact, both of us fell on that last wet day of walking.

Recently I saw an ad from REI talking about a newer version of Vibram: Mega grip Vibram. It's supposed to be more stable on wet pavement and rocks. After running the phrase through the ever-handy Duck Duck Go search, we figured it was worth a try. It couldn't be any worse than the old shoes, after all! The pilgrimage trails in late spring aren't expected to be any drier in future than they have been before.

Here are pictures of my new boots:

 From the side, it looks pretty much like the old ones, except for the color. It's still mostly dirt-colored, but then it's going to be going through dirt. I'm fine with dirt colored shoes.

 A look at the sole. The sole shapes seem to release mud better than the old ones. At least, the valleys appear to be wider or shallower than before so there aren't a load of rocks already imbedded from the first couple of walks in them.

The folks at the Camino Forum were saying that the Merrell people had made the toe box a bit roomier. I think they're right! My toes are grateful, too. But now it's time to experiment with lacings and socks. Here the upper criss cross has been omitted. This made increased room over the arch, but after the change the heel-lock loops were loosening. I have added a simple twist knot at the top to stabilize the heel lock knot. Y'all can see that the lace is going under the side of the lace before the actual knot so my heels won't slip and the shoe will hopefully not allow my foot to slide forward on the downhills.

I have stepped on wet sidewalks with no problem at all in these. Complete confidence, even though wet sidewalks can be a problem even when level. And DH was wearing his old shoes and felt the slip. I think I'm in love with the Vibram Mega grip soles!

New hiking socks!

Hello, everyone.

The old hiking socks, both the 4 pairs of gray liner socks that walked through Portugal and the new 3 pairs of "original weight" socks that started to walk the Camino del Norte, were feeling confining on my toes lately. Maybe they shrank--well the gray ones had been subjected to the automatic dryer at least once and probably have. Certainly the original weight new ones were making my toes noticeably wider inside the boots.

And I'd gotten some toenail stuff going on the first day of the walk from Irun. (They're growing out but they're still a wee bit weird.) I got to thinking about toes and toe boxes and socks, and realized that this pair of boots is at the upper bleeding-edge limit of the old socks' size. That number is not at the very edge of the next size up, however. This seemed like a thing to try out.

Behold the new, size Medium, Injinji socks: one liner (gray) and one "lightweight".

They have each gone for one neighborhood walk. (That's pretty much all that's happening until DH gets his foot cleared for action.) They've also gone through the washer and then been drip dried. *Always drip dry hiking socks!* The darned things shrink.

They were comfortable and didn't get all bunched up inside the boot. More information may come later, after they get more use and longer rambles under their belts.

Body pillows

Hello, everyone.

With DH being laid up with Da Boot, we’re learning new things without getting out as much.

Da Boot has rigid plastic on the bottom, and metal splints along the sides. It weighs a bit. And when DH would move in his sleep, his other ankle would get clobbered by Da Boot. Sometimes it got hit so hard that a scab resulted. This is suboptimal sleeping, to say the least. I thought of all the ladies I know who have used a Body Pillow (about 5 feet long) to support their legs and hips during pregnancy. They all love the things.

So I bought one, and also a washable cover for it. Then I was faced with getting the cover onto the (long, long) pillow. After trying a couple of ways, this was what I came up with.

1       With the end zipper open, crumple up the pillow cover sides into a donut, trying not to twist the cover. This will be a little bit like getting ready to put on one leg of a pair of pantyhose. 

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2      Insert the end of the pillow into the bottom of the cover, which is next to the top because of the crumpling.

      

3       Pull the sides up over the pillow, switching from side to side as needed. 

4      When you have it up to the top, zip the cover and place it into the ready position for use. (pic of pillow on end of bed)

The Body Pillow is much more popular now than it was when it came home. It protects the other ankle very well and supports the injured leg into the bargain.

If any interested readers have found another way to get that long bag onto the long pillow, please feel free to chime in with a comment. 

First real day of walking

Hello, everyone.

In the last post, we arrived at the albergue in Irun.

Once there, laundry was done, and hung on a line on the balcony. User tip: if it's already 5 pm, your clothes may not get dry before bedtime. Also, they do have a second balcony there, if the first one is full of clothes. (Drying laundry on the balcony is normal in northern Spain, nobody thinks anything of seeing it.)

We wandered out after a bite to eat. We should have found a grocery and gotten water bottles and maybe some nuts, but we were tired and didn't think.

The next morning, we set out. The trail leads up a very "nature-y" way to a chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe, then goes left and into the hills. Not that the previous walk leaving the city was flat! But it gets hillier. We were fortunate enough to have dry conditions for this.

These are a sample of the "road" surfaces we walked. There were some actual asphalt surfaces as well, with no shoulder, but those didn't get photographed. These are as wide as actual car-type roads because occasionally people drive on them. And some parts had been improved with a load or three of coarse sand. (Thank you, somebody!) As y'all can see, one's eyes need to be kept peeled. (That's "be alert!") Also, no matter if it does seem that one can go at a good pace, those rocks aren't quite as far apart sometimes as they look. More so on the places with ancient paving stones. I got toenail blisters on this day, either on this part or in the afternoon. I have now learned that just because it seems like the toes are sliding around in the boot a little, that doesn't mean you should tighten laces. In my case, had I loosened the laces and slowed down things would have been better.

This in various permutations was the morning. We did descend down tiny paved lanes and steps into Pasajes/San Juan (also called Donibane I think) about noon. There is a little tiny shop on the first plaza you come to with a full chiller of water bottles. After almost chugging the water, we got onto the little water taxi-ferry and rode across the harbor to the other side.

Once across, we wandered until we found a bar and ate bocadillos with cafe leche for lunch.

Update on things learned so far

Hello, everyone.

This is a small update on things we have learned since the forced end of our walking this summer. Three lessons so far:

(1) Wet rocks are slick.
(2) There are more than one model of crutches. They are not functionally equivalent.

The crutches (muletas) the pharmacy in Spain had

 The Spanish crutches only go up to about the elbow. (I have no idea whether the more classic form below was also available. Maybe I should have butted in and asked the doctors to write a note describing the recommended model? but that might have yielded what we got anyway.) All of the patient's weight is on the hands. The cup like shape at the top, which is just above the elbow in use, is only to keep the crutch straight. DH found it extremely uncomfortable. Making them more so, the pharmacies had nothing like athletic tape or handlebar tape or tennis racket tape to pad that hand grip. It's just unadorned hard plastic.

Crutches from a pharmacy in Texas (more expensive but not high priced)

The Texas crutch is not unaltered--when DD2 got it from the pharmacy while we were flying in, she also got a package of "crutch pillows" which makes them more comfortable to use--the pillows are on the top where it goes under the armpit and on the hand grip. Not wonderful and great, y'all understand, but more comfortable. Also appears to me to be more stable as the torso is involved in bearing weight and steadying the stick with this model.

DH saw our own physician for his recommended 1 week followup and now he has a "boot." (This is a removable gadget, which comes in various types, to immobilize the foot or ankle. This one goes all the way up to the knee.) The boot is more comfortable than the previous splint and when he is allowed to begin putting weight on it, the rigid sole will also help.

The doc says that when everything is healed, DH will be able to walk on trails again.

(3) There will be a set of hiking poles for DH, as well as the set I use, when we resume our interrupted pilgrimage. You may not need them for 9/10 of your pilgrimage, but on the day you need them, they pay for themselves.

Time is rushing up at us

Hello, everyone.

I had promised to say something about the socks that are going with me on the Camino del Norte.

Here they are.

A blue, a white, and a pink pair.

As y'all can see, they are all toe socks. (Injinji socks, actually)

Not everyone is suited to these socks. In my case, in 2014 I walked in regular hiking socks. Even aside from the boots being about a half-size too small for the job, the socks were wrong for me. My toes were all over each other and there were loads of blisters.

In 2015 I took some regular socks and Injinji liner socks--with the same boots. (New insoles though!) The shoes did not accomodate double socks. They did go well with just the liner socks. They weren't too thick, I had almost no blisters, and my feet were happy campers.

Now it's 2017 and I  have new, larger boots. Thus the new, regular-thickness Injinji socks.

New hiking socks!

Hello, everyone.

The Birthday Angels sent me a new pair of socks to walk in.

I had such good results walking in Injinji socks in 2015 that I'm sticking to them. They got their first walk this morning--4 miles on the Hike and Bike, with weight. They feel great!

Thank you Birthday Angels!

Another picture from the Camino Portugues: Fresco at Tomar Templar Castle

Hello, everyone.

As long as I'm revisiting the (large) stock of pictures from the 2015 pilgrimage, I thought I'd put up  another one.

This fresco (I don't think it's a framed painting.) is in the chapel at the Templar castle in Tomar. It depicts the second Glorious Mystery of the Rosary, Christ's Ascension into heaven.

You will note the feet suspended in the air, with angels in attendance. This is actually one of the more standard old-style ways of depicting the Ascension. It's found on Eastern icons as well. The crowd of exclaiming people has their backs toward the viewer, because they're not the point of the operation. Their purpose is to direct our attention to the rising, vanishing feet, the open entrance to heaven, and secondarily to the angels.

Socks

Hello, everyone.

I was trolling around through the photo files on the computer, moving food pictures to "cooking" and flower pictures to "flowers" and I came across one that I don't think has been discussed here: my new favorite hiking socks.

My toes have always wanted to crawl on top of each other and rub. This makes painful, hard-to-bandage blisters. But these socks, which I wore almost non-stop on the Camino Portugues, solved that.

This particular pair is the Injinji Liner sock. I was still wearing the same boots as in 2014...with new insoles...and after trying unsuccessfully to wear two pairs of socks, abandoned the outer pair and just wore these. I had 4 pair of them! They did accumulate ticky-tacky from adhesive tape on the front of the soles...it was really hot, and the adhesive tape tended to melt the glue out onto the sock. It didn't matter. These socks kept the toes from making the kinds of blisters that had been so difficult the previous year.

Of course, since then I've acquired a larger sized boot. Probably could wear the regular Injinji hiking socks now. But this year it hasn't been in the cards for us to go on the Camino again. (Wipes away a tear. Sniffs.) But soon! Soon! We hope that next year we will be able to take the pilgrimage trail again. And I intend to wear socks like these when we go.

Rabacal: a municipal albergue at the end of a forested walk

Hello, everyone.

We walked from Alviazere to Rabacal, for another 20 mile day (30 km) and arrived at the first municipal albergue we'd encountered on this trip.

The bedspreads--please note, there were actual beds! with sheets!--were purple. The wifi didn't work in the albergue, but we found it at the cafe during dinner. I was very tired, so I had the first thing on the menu that looked easy to eat. Scrambled eggs with goat cheese for the win!

The albergue was in the cultural building with a museum, but we arrived at pretty-much closing time and left long before opening time the next day. We had enjoyed comfortable walking weather and were glad to rest at the end of the day's walk.

Resting feet, dumping out rocks. Those little green ferns are stickery!

Walking path

"You are NOT lost, pilgrim!"

Shrine in honor of St. John the Baptist

Botes are ready!

Hello, everyone.

I think I mentioned that I had to change out the new insoles. They were too high for me at the arch. (Snapping sensation inside the instep, not good.) Switched to the Dr. Scholls Womens Work Gel insoles, yes these are the same ones they sell at HEB and Target and so on.

I also got new shoelaces: paracord! Orange! Maybe I can pick out my botes without so much cross-eyed confusion now:

The odd lacing is to lessen squashing of the top of the foot. I may change back to more conventional lacing on the bottom as we go, it's too soon to tell.

The paracord shoelaces come in a raft of colors, both bright and dull, and these were bought from the Amazon Sgt. Knots listing.

Other little bits about the Miami trip

Hello, everyone.

There were a couple of other little things I wanted to share with y'all about our trip to Miami for DD1's graduation and GS1's baptism.

One was a restaurant that we really enjoyed. It was called Latin2000 and we stopped there, in part, because we could see that it was popular. We went in and discovered that this was a place we could bust out our Spanish in. (My parents could use their English, too.) I had a burger like thing that was called something like Cubana Frita: beef and sausage patty, with cheese, shoestring potatoes, ketchup and maybe some onion. It was pretty good. I learned from DD1 later that the shoestring potatoes in a sandwich is a local thing. (They call it "potato sticks" on the menus.) My sweetie wanted to have a Tortilla Espanola ( potato and egg Spanish omelet) but he accidentally freaked them out. He asked for a "tortilla with ham, nothing else." They made it on the spot for him, egg and some ham bits, but no potatoes. I told him that his order was why he had no potatoes in his tortilla. But, really, their willingness to make it the way he asked for it is a good thing. Their Iced Tea came in cool promo cups and I took a picture of one:

The other thing I wanted to share with y'all was our experience on the way home. We were pretty tired of being on the road by then, so we skipped pretty much all sight-seeing. The first night on the road back was in Alabama, at the La Quinta there. It's right by the highway, and it's one of the most pleasant La Quintas I've ever stayed at. The lady gave us directions to the nearby grocery store, a Publix where we acquired excellent sandwiches and a bottle of wine, and she also was ready with the change when I needed quarters while doing wash. The room was clean and pleasant and roomy, too. So I give this La Quinta a Star for doing it right.

 On another subject, we're prepping to go on pilgrimage again, as you may know, and I finished a top to wear while walking:

This is orange trilobal nylon for the main fabric (you can see that it's a little bit see-through) and the piping is reflective piping. I am hoping that it may be useful when we're walking around sunrise in Portugal.

The plan, to the extent we have a plan, is to walk from Lisbon to Santarem, where there is a church that had a Eucharistic miracle some centuries back (look it up on Sacred Destinations.com) and then to Fatima. After that, we're thinking of catching a bus ride from Fatima to Tomar, which at one time was the world headquarters of the Knights Templar, those famous protectors of pilgrims, and see the Convento de Christo there. Then walk on to Porto--sample the famous wines--and walk to Santiago de Compostela. After we pay our respects to Saint James--possibly the scaffolding will be gone from the Porto da Gloria now so we can touch the sculpture in the doorway--we'll most likely catch a train to Madrid and go back to the Prada art museum. I have hopes to take pictures of details of one of the works there, Bramontini's "Risen Christ", and use them to make a picture to hang on my wall.

I'm not normally a fan of art museums, but the Prada, and the convent Real Descalzadas last year, have made me more aware of the value of viewing the art. (Also viewing the great numbers of works in their proper places--religious works hanging in churches--opened my eyes.)

If there is confusion in the posting in the next several weeks, it is because we're on the trail. We hope to use DH's Kindle Fire to take some pictures and post them to the blog while we're traveling. The rest of the photo goodies will wait until we're home.

I am personally also hoping to encounter many opportunities for adoration: Capilla del Santissimo, they call it in Spain, places where I can sink into the wonder of contemplating Jesus face to face. I did it in Rome, at the Cahpel of St. Nicolas in St. Peter's Basilica, and it was really the high point of the trip for me. I did it last year in Santiago de Compostela, where I sank down into the kneeler in the Cathedral and gave inarticulate silent thanks for bringing me through all the foot problems and weather and lessons in trust. I hope to do so again.

Just because...

Hello, everyone.

While I haven't gotten photos from my camera to DH's Kindle yet, I have wirelessly gotten them into my own desktop computer.

Opening blossoms on my Queen Victoria Agave

My buddy.

Gaillardia

Psycho Cat

 We walked yesterday afternoon--yes, the heat of the day!--for about 5 miles. Got where we were going in just under 2 hours, plenty hot. Sat in pool for about half an hour afterwards. But it was a pleasant walk overall, on a collection of mostly subdivision streets all the way.
Gear conclusion I have reached: the Spenco insoles I got are just not right for me. I kept having odd and uncomfortable feelings inside my soles. Yesterday I switched them out for the Dr. Scholl's Work Gel insoles that I had in my schleppy tennies. This was a great improvement.

Training progress, what there is of it

Hello, everyone.

We have been quite spotty on our walks lately--waiting for insoles to arrive in the mail does that, I guess.

DH's insoles are still en route. My new ones arrived on Friday.

New insoles for boots. Also a pair of sox!

I was a little worried when I saw that they are labeled "wide" as my heel is narrow and my toes probably medium. But I pulled the old insoles out and these are the same dimensions in the length and width. Plus they have a heel cup that fits my foot.

Took a 4 mile walk yesterday with these socks and the new insoles. (That's about 6 1/2 km. for anyone counting in metric.)

Insoles in place--I had to loosen almost the entire lace on each boot to put them on.

Rose at a subdivision entrance, right by Bentsen State Park. One of the Austen rose hybrids?

Retama blossoms. This tree grows in places with lots of water and accepts a certain amount of poor drainage. I would think twice about buying any house in an area called "Retama View!"

Part of the Hike n Bike, between the bridge and Bentsen park. Road on right is W Military Highway, a trail once used by Gen. Zachary Taylor to patrol the US-Mexico border.

Silly nanny sign of the day: Bentsen State Park. It's a nature garden. It's outside. OF COURSE there are snakes in the area!

 The feet felt fine after the four miles. Next walk will be with the new insoles and the Injinji toe liner socks--which are thicker than pantyhose and I would say they do nicely as just a sock. Keeps the toes from rubbing so they don't blister in between the digits.

That next one will be a longer walk than 4 miles, as last year I didn't find out problems with my first pair of boots until we did a 10 mile walk. Four miles just isn't enough to find any problem that will develop with walking, in my opinion.

Rain! and then chores

Hello, everyone.

I am delighted to say that we got about 2 inches of rain from this last spell. My sweetie went out to pull the dry cornstalks the next day, and the fire ants chewed him up one side and down the other. The ants had not only put their nests in the corn patch, we also found them crawling around on the corn cobs when we went to pick them. Darned ants.

Yesterday we let the chickens have a long walk and sicced them on the ants. Don't know if it helped or not, but it made us feel a little better about the situation.

And last night I bumped my toe--the toe that was really, really purple on the trail, and has lost its old toenail--in the night and it hurt all over again. I'm beginning to wonder if when I dropped the cutting mat edge-on on that foot, I might have broken something. And I'm trying to get it well enough to get out walking again and do some hiking, now that cooler weather is arriving down here.

Speaking of chores, today was our day to add another coat or two of varnish on the doors. (We do it every couple of years, when the weather is the right temperature and not too wet.) The doors always look so pretty right after the varnish has gone one, with the wood all shiny and reflecting the light. The wood lasts a lot longer this way, too.

Progress report on the beading: The completed Delica cross was strung onto a strand with assorted Preciosa beads (black fire-polish, purple oval-ish) and other black and pearly beads to make a necklace. Then, inspired, I made a pair of earrings to go with it. Is it still increasing the simplicity of life if when using up the bead stash I end up having more stuff in the jewelry box?

The second of the Cross of Santiago projects is started, the one made from Preciosa seed beads. The background is black, the main color of the cross is red, and the highlights are blue and gold.

Starting the second cross pendant in the fat part, so the shape changes are all decreases. This was recommended by various beading sites on the web, so I thought it would be something to try out.

The Preciosa seeds act like they're a lot of little ballerinas on point, trying to stand still in a line. They want to angle this way and that way, as the sides don't have a flat part to rest upon. I went with blue and gold for the accent colors this time--have no idea whether the blue and gold are also Preciosa brand, but they're more square in form, so probably not.

I'm of mixed opinion whether to write this off at the top as a lesson learned--forget using these beads for peyote stitch--or hang in there to the end. On one hand, the red and black really make the blue highlights stand out. On the other hand, I'll probably have to back the pendant with something else, like maybe a piece of felt, or it will be too floppy to use. And it's really easy to get the count off with the beads trying to slide out of place.

Another random photo from the Camino:

From Logrono, Our Lady with cherubs. Probably an Assumption statue.

Just a few thoughts

Hello, everyone.

I will have an update on the shell beading project soon--have scanned the interwebs and discovered ways to do fringe. Also, expanding on the fringe for the Autumn Leaf amulet pouch on a web site (slips my memory just now) I have sketched a design for the fringe at the bottom of this square pendant with a scallop shell. Bonus points: I can use some of the blue enameled crosses that I have lying around in my (large) bead stash.

And one more thing--
When my sweetie and I first felt the pull of the Camino de Santiago, we didn't know what it would be like. What it would involve. And the depth of the roots that is would grow into our souls. Every day I think about the Camino--what it was like. What I wish I'd done a bit differently. What I'd do now if we were doing it again. (Not quite the same as the previous.) What routes I'd like to walk if we are so blessed as to go again.

Not only do I miss the good foods we discovered in Spain--ham cones! Pulpo a gallega with pan! Gambon al ajillo with pan! etc. etc.--but I have begun to make my own baguette bread so we can eat some of the wonderful foods we ate one the Camino, and during the days at the end when we were exploring and waiting for the date of our return reservation home. (No, I'm not recreating the airport food from the 1 day flight series that turned into a 3 day flight series.)

And periodically, like a growing crystal that is discovered by a gem hunter, I find a new lesson that the Camino has taught me.

It's not only the urge to have shells everywhere. The urge to create jewelry of shells and Crosses of Santiago. The every-morning feeling that it's time to walk, even before the alarm goes off.

The Camino de Santiago takes root in a pilgrim. I'm still a pilgrim. I don't think I'll ever stop being a pilgrim. And that itself is probably one of the lessons of the Camino.

Just after the stairs at the entry to the city of Santiago, studying the map of the city. I never felt sorry for the bicycle pilgrims until tha tlast day, when I witnessed them toting their bikes down the stairs alongside us. But at the bottom, they got to ride again. We walked the couple-three miles from those stairs to the center of the city on our feet.

This was another of the approximately 2200 pictures we took on our pilgrimage trip. :-) Enjoy.

Camino de Santiago Walking Equipment: After Action Comments

Hello, everyone.

I woke up this morning before the alarm with my mind thinking about what I would say on this subject. Why disregard inspiration? The pictures of our museum visits in Madrid will still be there tomorrow. 

Some things I took and how they worked out:

My Kindle: I'm very glad I had my Kindle. Books I used on it were: airplane novels (re-read a couple I had on there by Jack Campbell;) Kelly's Guide to the Camino de Santiago (this wasn't just a map book, it had directions to the albergues in the villages and other useful information;) Gitlitz & Davidson's _The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago_ (wonderful, informative book--I bought the Kindle version because the paperback we had already purchased is too, too heavy.)  My Kindle is not the fancy Fire version with the internally lit screen. It's one of the classic models that requires external light. My son gave me a 1" long tiny flashlight which I attached to the zipper pull on the case.

Headlamp style flashlight: Not useful for me at all; shipped it home from Leon. I did see a man using it to go through his pack after bedtime once. The rustling had kept me from falling asleep right away.

Boots: I had the Merrell half-height ladies' boot, purchased at REI.com, in a half size larger than my usual tennis shoe size. I didn't realize this when I bought it, but this boot is a water-resistant style. It didn't keep out any water on the day of flooding rains. Nothing could have that wasn't a pair of fishing waders! But it did keep any moisture inside the boot with me from evaporating out. Like, say, sweat. Of course it had trouble drying out when it was soaked, but I could have helped that along if I'd had a clue. 

This was the second pair of boots. The first, in my regular tennis shoe size, gave me mauve toe on our first 10 mile training hike. But it didn't slide on my heel! This one had room in front, but it slides on my heels sometimes. Female feet, feh!

Shower sandals: I had bought a pair of cheap rubber flipflops at Wal-Mart. They are thong-style. The paint on the top surface began to peel off and stick to my foot toward the end of the trip. The thong gave me new blisters when I wore them all day long while tramping around Pamplona. If I were buying new sandals today, I'd buy a pair that doesn't have the toe strap, so I could wear them with socks. That way if things were just impossible (I am thinking of the day of floods here) I could take the boots off and hike in the sandals. When I wear rubber clogs to to gardening, if I get wet and have no socks, I get blisters. When I wear socks with the clogs, even though the socks get wet, I have no blisters. You absolutely need to have shower shoes of some kind, since you really don't want to go barefoot in the albergues. Too many feet with too many possible fungal spores! As you can tell if you stand downwind from the shelf of Botes. ;-)

Tummy meds: I took Pepto-Bismol. I also took Loperamide generic gel pills. The Pepto is my go-to answer to the bloating that turns into trouble if not attended to. You can take it when you feel the bloat starting and it will help fairly soon. The Loperamide you really need to take the night before. But how do you know in advance that you will need it? The airport in Dublin had no anti-diarrheal stuff at all in the airport shops. (This fact mystifies me still.) The Spanish pharmacies have never heard of Pepto Bismol and don't have anything similar that I was able to find. And I asked for it by the generic name: bismuth whatever-whatever. 

Pain meds: We left with 2/3 of a bottle of Bufferin. We ran out. The pharmacist had never heard of buffered aspirin. She sold us packets of Ibuprofen powder (really strong stuff!) to drink with water. Later on we got a tube of Ibuprofen gel for my sweetie's feet. This stuff is good, but they don't have it in the States. For some kind of equivalent here, you have to see a doctor and get a script. We bought Compeed while we were over there. This isn't sold at all in the US. (I have no idea why not.) It's a gel stick-on that you apply to the (unpopped) blister to protect it, make the pain go away, and help it start healing. In Spain you can get many, many sizes and shapes of Compeed. It works wonders for the top or side of the foot. Not the sole. On the sole it gets hard and is like walking on a shelf all day long. The gauze bandage with the stickum on the sides (fairly wide) that you cut to length, which was sold in the pharmacies, was good on the soles of the feet. I did cover it over with tape sometimes. (Adhesive tape) Scissors are useful and used. Take a pair that you can cut bandages with and trim toenails with. If you're taking a sewing kit, take another scissors that only cuts thread. (Unless you don't sew and don't care that you have to make three tries to cut the strand!) Speaking of sewing kits, you will be glad if you take a medium sized hand sewing needle and a bobbin of thread. You can repair your mesh laundry bag if you brought one--the mesh loves to let go at the side seams. I had a big needle but never used it. I had a screwdriver for glasses and needed it. You don't want your earpiece to fall off when you're three days from the nearest place to get a new screw.

Charmin To Go: I had about two-thirds of a roll of this on hand before we left, and I supplemented this with a three-pack of Camper's Toilet Paper from Wal-Mart. I am very glad I did. I put 2 rolls in my sweetie's pack and kept the Charmin container and the 3rd roll in mine. He sent his two rolls home in Leon. I kept mine. And since he didn't realize that it's a good thing to have, I took to saying "Charmin To Go for the win!" whenever I came out of the bathroom after needing to use it. Fellas, I gotta say this: we ladies have entirely different plumbing setups and surrounding areas, so we need to at least pat off every time we go. It's as important as being able to sit down is...though in desperate necessity we can hover, it's not fun. End of embarrassing digression. 

Socks: As I have mentioned before, socks became an issue for me. I took thick, soft, purpose-made Hiking Socks with me, and at the last minute I left home the Liner Sock pair that I had intended to pack because I was trying to get my pack weight below 20 pounds. (That is about 9.5 kilos for all you metric folk.) That weight includes the pack itself, by the way. So there I was with 4 pairs of socks, and when there was a washer and dryer to use, I used it. Mistake! All those "feels like buttah!" socks shrink like nobody's business when the hot dryer air and tumbling hit them. I should have taken 3 pairs of thin socks, most likely, and a pair or two of medium thick ones. They would have dried a lot faster (well, the thin ones would have) so I wouldn't have been all wound up on putting them in the dryer. The Altus socks I bought just before reaching Virgen del Camino are good, and I still have them. The Nike running socks that wick and are blister-resistant, that I bought at El Corte Ingles in Madrid are good and I wear them still, too. (They have separate right and left socks! And feel wrong if you put them onto the incorrect feet.) You can put a Liner sock inside of another thin sock if you need more fabric between your feet and the boot. You can't thin out a fat sock if your feet have gotten bigger than they were to start with.

Undies: I took the fancy Ex Officio panties, which are made of mesh. You don't want to sweat on your rump while hiking in these panties. They chafe. I wish I had taken my tried and true Breathe by Barely There ones--I can't even find this brand any more, but they're wonderful!--as I think they would have dried just as fast, and they aren't scratchy mesh, they're some jersey-like knit instead. Bras became an issue immediately. And I had taken two of the same model, a sturdy sports bra with Velcro-adjustable straps. The bra straps put up a territorial fight with the pack straps, hurt like the dickens, and were working on making a pressure sore on one shoulder. I had to quit wearing a bra. I can't say that "free-boobing" across Spain was the most comfortable thing I ever did. (And I'm not huge.) But I skipped the bra starting on about day 2 and didn't start wearing a bra again until we got to Santiago and I could leave the pack sitting by the bed all day long. Shipped one of them home from Leon, even. You probably want something with thin straps that won't make a miserable lump under the weight of the strap on your shoulder, but I don't know which brand or style to suggest. Anyone who has solved this issue is welcome to chime in in the comments!

Thin, lightweight, quick-dry shirts: One would have been sufficient. I had a long-sleeved "fishing shirt" that had straps to keep the sleeves rolled up and also a short sleeved one. They're not hot, really, but they don't retain any warmth at all on the cold days. And spring in the Pyrenees is not like spring in Texas. It's about 20F degrees colder! Or more. We plant our tomato sets in February in South Texas, and we don't need to put caps on them. The days are generally warm then. (Sometimes we have a late frost and cover the transplants for a night.) In May in Spain, we saw new tomato sets in the gardens and they all had clear caps on them to build a little warmth in the day and keep the frost off at night. You should probably look at the latitude of your home and compare it to the latitude of northern Spain when considering the clothing issue. I bought a fleece long-sleeved shirt in Pamplona at Caminoteca and it became my best friend for the next several days. The last week and a half or so, I didn't need it at all. But that is what happens when you walk during the change of the seasons.

You can see the pink fleece from Pamplona here. Also, the camera is hanging from my chest strap. The hat is tucked into my belt, with its stampede string looped around the strap. These are the zip-off pants. They were fine. By this time, I had begun carrying my water bottle in my waist pouch. I can't reach it when it's in the side pocket of the pack.

Jacket: I got a little don't-hit-me-green rain jacket from the clearance rack at the San Antonio REI store. My sweetie got the packs-into-its-own-pouch rain jacket from Sports Authority in the next town over from us. We layered these over our other shirts. Sometimes over more than one shirt.

You see the green jacket here, and the sticks. This was on Day One, the Route Napoleon. The pants are a pair of gray exercise tights, that got a hole in the back of the leg when I sat on the grass that day. They were PJ pants after that for a while, and then I tossed them.

Hat: I got a green hiking hat from Amazon and my sweetie picked up a bone-colored fishing hat from either Academy or Sports Authority. We wore them a lot! They had adjustable strings, so we could tuck them up under our chins against the wind snatching them, and they were squashable if we wanted to fold them or stick them into the pack.

Pilgrim water fountain at Estella. My sweetie's camera case is much smaller than mine. He's wearing a "fishing shirt" and zip-off pants and his hat.

Climbing the 12-degree slope to the top of the mesa after Burgos. The "fishing shirt" with the sleeves rolled down here, the hat, and that bright green bit is the rain jacket, tucked behind as it got too warm. Stick in carry loop on pack.

Rain poncho: We both had blue taffeta rain ponchos, the kind that have extra length to cover our packs. They have hoods with draw strings. The taffeta rustles. When I have it on, and the hood up, I can't hear anything behind me. I think this was a frustrating thing for faster walkers behind me during the early days. (I often stepped to the side at the next wide spot in the path to wave the faster ones on. It's just neighborly, after all.) I wore my hat under the hood of the poncho to keep the rain off my glasses. That worked out well.

Leaving Roncesvalles, with poncho, hat, and sticks. The monastery had a molded-concrete walk leading to the path.

Sleeping bag liner: This was useful. I didn't always tuck myself into it, because it was a bag and I had to worm myself into it after getting into the sleeping bag (which unzipped) and then straighten out the sleeping bag afterwards. But it did serve nicely as a pillow, and because it had a pillow extension at the top, it covered the pillows on-hand in albergues. I didn't sleep on the pillows without something. Often I pulled th sleeping bag up enough to cover the pillow. Then I tucked my camera and waist pouch into the foot of the bag to keep the weight of the sleeping bag from pressing on my toes. (Purple toes make you think of things like that.)

Sticks: My sticks paid for themselves the first two days. But after that, I concluded that they were too much for me to coordinate and were slowing me down. I had to find firm footing not only for my two feet but also for my two stick ends. People differ on this issue. But on the first day, buffeted by the tropical storm force cross winds on the steep downhill paths, the sticks paid for themselves. I'm glad I had them, even though they spent much of the trip in their little carry-loops on the sides of my pack.

Camera: My sweetie's camera fit into a pocket. Mine didn't. I probably should have had one like his. Mine was basically a cube shaped blob in its case. You can see it sometimes hanging from my chest strap in the pictures. 

Batteries: I brought swap batteries for our cameras (one each) and if the charge ran low in a cathedral, we swapped out to the fresh battery. We then charged the empty one that night or at the first opportunity with the 3-outlet travel plug. (I got that from Amazon for about $7. And then I wrote my initials on it.) We only carried one cell phone and its battery, in case we should fall and break a leg or something drastic like that, and we didn't use it from when we left the US to when we got back there again. And because my touch screen Storm BB kept trying to turn on inside the pack--jostled by stuff--I took the battery out of the phone and kept them together in their Ziplock bag in the bottom of the pack. After the second time I had to recharge the darned thing. I also used the travel plug to recharge the Kindle battery. I just plugged the proprietary charger into the travel plug. My sweetie had brought camera cable (the USB thingie to get the pictures out with) but we shipped that home from Leon, too.

Ziplock bags. Yes! But if you use it for your travel-soap bar, it will get worn and torn from all the opening and manipulation at the shower. So have an extra. The groceries in Spain do sell sandwich sized plastic bags, but I didn't notice whether they have waterproof closures or not.

And this post is really long, so I'll stop here for today.