France Bound! August 29, 2012

    Well, a quick lunch near the Knoxville, TN airport, I boarded a plane that left at 2:30 pm to Paris, France, via Washington D.C. and Montreal Canada. Then on a high speed train to south France. 23 and a half hours after I boarded the plane, I arrived in the small town of St Jean Pied de Port. A very beautiful tourist town. I stayed at the Gite Ultreia. It is a private albergue. I chose to spend two nights in St Jean to adjust from the jet lag. When I awoke on Friday, August 31, I was glad I waited another day. At 4 am, it was raining so hard outside. I felt for the other 5 people in the room I was sleeping, for they were gearing up to start the Camino. I stayed out of their way so I went downstairs.
    Downstairs I got there before the rest and figured out where everything was. I was finished eating when the group started to come downstairs. I felt kind of useful helping them locate the coffee cups, jelly and toast.
    I had to be out of the albergue by 8 am for cleaning, so I took my stuff to my next albergue, L'Esprit du Chemin. They were cleaning there but allowed me to store my stuff there. So now it was explore St Jean time!!!

    I roamed around and saw a very beautiful, quant town. The folks were friendly even though I spoke very little French. I didn't get arrested, lost or starve! I went back to the albergue around lunch to see if any of the "Last Supper Crew" had arrived yet. We nicknamed the last meal we were having at L'Esprit du Chemin as our "last supper" as the people we used to be, before the Camino.
    I spent the afternoon, roaming around with some of the gang and we got to know each other a bit. The only way we knew each other was from the Camino forum. The forum is a great place to gather information from folks who have walked the Camino before. There you can seek advice and plan what is right for you.

    Well, the dinner was outstanding and we all shared why we were walking. The next day would be an early start with promise of good weather!
    I tried to keep the blog updated, but due to the lack of internet and sometimes phones, communication was difficult for me. So, I decided to write the blog when I returned.

The rest of The "Last Supper Crew" on Sept 1, 2012 early start

Here is a link to some of my photos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_JhXUjKfkE

Try To Update

    Well, it is about 56 hours until i get on my flight! I will try to update my blog as I can. I am taking a journal and writing in it each day. However, I am not taking any electronics (except ipod and camera). No phone, ipad, or computer. I will depend on what the Camino provides for me. An occaisional Albergue with a computer, public phones and maybe a library. If I have time, I will update the blog and maybe a picture or two.

    When I get back, I want to enter my journal into my blog. We will see how this goes. No frills or luxuries along the way. Back to basics!!!! A lot of things to ponder, past, present and future.
The Way has a way of changing one's life!

Buen Camino

Will The Packing and Preparation Ever Stop?

    Well, it's 3 days until my flight to Paris, 6 days until I start my walk on "The Way of St James". When I first decided to walk the way, I started reading all I could about the routes, the weather, the history and forums where pilgrims past, present and future posts their knowledge, experiences and opinions of the best routes, equipment and places to stay. Literally, thousands points of data to sift through and decide what will work for me.

    Most of the information shared on these forums is accurate, but what works for one person may not work for everyone or me. You just have to give it your best guess, pick one and try it out under simulated conditions and make a final decision as to take it or not.

    I ended up buying, NEW backpack, poncho, socks, shoes, underwear, T-shirt, shorts, convertible pants, new first aid kit, sewing kit, waterproof stuff sacks, i-pod, guidebook, sleeping bag, small keychain flashlight. I bought these for 2 reasons: lightweight and fast drying. Both reasons very important. The weight is self explanatory, when you are carrying all your belongings you must live with for 42 days on your back for 500 miles, you want your pack to be as light as possible. The second is fast drying. Well two reasons for that, while walking the way, you can't pick the days you walk and sit out when it rains. So, if you get wet, you want to dry off quickly. Also, every evening, you have to do that day's laundry and you need it dry by the next morning. Even though, most albergues ( places to stay) have clotheslines, with the number of other peregrinos there, space may be limited. I'm carrying an extra set of boot laces and clothes pins. The boot laces will double for a clothesline and spare bootlaces.

    So with only 3 days before I leave, you would think I better have the list finalized and packed! Well, last night, I thought I had. Then a quick look at the weather of North Spain, realising I will be going through the mountains sometimes in early morning, I added to my pack, a pair of light weight gloves.

    Today, I'm going to unpack my pack, compress the clothing/stuff sacks one more time and carefully repack to make sure the pack is as compact as I can get it because I am carrying it on the plane. I want to make sure it will fit in the overhead storage.

    Once I get to St Jean Pied de Port, France, I will organize and repack it. It will be important to have certain items easily accessible like my poncho needs to be quick and easy to pull out of my pack. You don't want to unpack your whole pack to get to certain things like, poncho, first aid kit, food, etc.

   It may seem like I have put a lot of thought and effort into planning this. It is my nature to plan things down to minute details and I have been criticized for being so nit-picky since my retirement. Well, working in Radiation Protection for 27 years, where other peoples health and well being were at stake, there is no room for mistakes, even small ones. It is hard to just turn off the switch after many years of paying attention to small details!

  One of the things I am going to work on The Way, is letting a little of this perfectionism go in my everyday life. During this walk, I will wake up, eat, walk, wash clothes and start it all again tomorrow. along the way, I hope to meet and share all the scenery with interesting people from all over the world and come away, humbler, wiser, and a lot fitter.    Buen Camino!





T-Minus One Week and Counting!

         Well, it is exactly one week until I catch my flight to Paris to start my trip to walk Camino de Santiago. It was a beautiful morning, very unseasonal for East Tennessee in August. I awoke to temperatures in the upper 50's with an expected high in the low 80's. I hope that this is proof that global warming is not a fact.

    I decided to do a trial run, a dress rehearsal to see if the load in the pack was properly distributed and practice making the necessary adjustments to it. It is a new pack that I have backpacked with a couple of times, but with full camping gear in. This is the first time I have tried it with my "Camino" gear in it.

    I set out to do a 10km walkabout, I chose to do pavement, since the route is nearby. I made the walk at a very relaxed pace, and had to adjust the straps very little on my pack. I had to tighten the waist strap once and the top strap once. The pack seems to be packed properly and well balanced. Even at the leisurely pace, two pit stops I still walked in 2  hrs and 7 minutes. I think this may still be too fast and with the Pyranees on the first day, I think I won't have any problems going too fast! lol

    The only issues I had was a couple of "hot spots" on the balls of my feet. No blisters but it is an area of concern for me. The coming week I will experiment with lacing and foot lubrication to see if I can eliminate this issue.

    One week and counting, WOW!!!!!! Can't believe it is almost here. Still have a little work to do!!!
It will be here before I know it. When I first started planning, it seemed forever away. Then after a month of planning I felt I was ready. Now with one week away, the doubts creep in as to if I'm really ready. This always happened to me when I was planning a big race, this is so much different than those races I have done in the past. I really want to go and smell the roses and meet my fellow peregrinos!!! Reading that my forum buddy Nathan and his son made Santiago de Compostella today, just fired me up that much more. Congratulations to them, I hope their Camino was everything and more what they expected.

Buen Camino!!

     Well, I'm 13 days from starting my walk on the "Camino de Santiago".  Ten days until I fly to Paris. The picture is of my pack that I will be living out of for 42 days! It weighs right at 15 pounds. It has just about everything a body "NEEDS", there are some creature comforts there too. In it, among other things are my sleeping bag, poncho, extra pants ( convertible, the legs zip off and make shorts), 2 shirts, a wind suit, 3 pair underwear, 3 pair of socks, a first aid kit, including sutures for wound repair if needed, flashlight, and sewing kit.

     My trip will start with a flight on August 29th to Montreal, then on to Paris.I will arrive in Paris at 0830 Paris time on the 30th. Then I ride 3 trains to a small town in south France called St Jean Pied de Port  (Saint John at the foot of the mountain pass in French). I will arrive at just after 8 pm and stay at a private house Gite Ultreia. There I will rest a day and gather last minute supplies, i.e. food, water etc. The last night in France, I will be staying at L'Esprit du Chemin, a hostel set up by a couple Arno and Huberta for Camino pilgrims. There on August 31 the group will have "The Last Supper". It was my idea to call it that because it is the last meal we have as who we are now, before the Camino changes us. It caught on so much, that a patch was designed and people all over the world are ordering them and sewing them on their packs. I will get mine when I get there.

    On September 1, a group of pilgrims ( peregrinos in Spanish) will leave St Jean Pied de Port. This first day(s) will take us over the Pyrenees mountains up to about 1450 meters or a little over 4700 ft. We will cross over into Spain in the Pyrenees. Not very high but the climb is over about 20km (12 miles). Some of the peregrinos will stop for the night in Orrison about 10km or 6 miles, while others including myself ( hopefully) will continue the entire 25 km (15 miles) to Roncesvalles ( Valley of Thorns). This first day will be very challenging and probably the most challenging day of the entire trek as far as difficulty.

    The other challenges will be blister prevention and the constant pounding on the body carrying a pack day after day averaging 25km (15 miles). That is a half marathon everyday. I have allowed enough time to stop in some of the cities and villages to sight see and rest. I anticipate the entire journey will take about 35 days.

    Right now, I'm fighting the wait!!!! Packing, repacking, trying to weed out any unnecessary equipment. I'm sure along the way, I will cull some stuff and probably pick up some stuff. By the time this pilgrimage is over, I hope to be humbler, wiser and fit!!!!

Buen Camino
Snake