See You Later! Off To Walk The Camino de Santiago

We're off this morning to walk the Camino, a pilgrimage through Spain - finally the day that I thought would never come. I would love to leave my phone behind but we need to stay in constant contact so I may even blog while I'm away. We'll be hiking for about seven hours a day for 29 days staying in pilgrims' hostels or churches (maybe cheating a little with a hotel stay).

Practising my walking with poles

Yesterday was shopping at REI. There are many people, especially in the Bay Area, who wet their swishy pocketed pants at the prospect of walking into this place. But for me it's full of stuff I don't care about. I tried on a selection of very ugly shorts. A nice man showed me how to walk.  Literally: we walked around with our hiking poles, opposite arm to leg. Good job, he said. Mrs Shirley Dibble, my old ballet teacher, would have been so proud.

You have to keep your pack to about 10lbs, so here it is. I have one change of clothes but snuck in three tops. (You already know from my posts about The Plan diet I'm a sneaky cheater, so best to be honest with you). I have that sewed-up sheet that you used to have when you packbacked around Europe. My sister advised us to take bed bug spray and apparently hair lice in a problem but we'll cross that comb-out crisis when we get to it.

Kevin has grown a (grey) beard in preparation and cut his hair. It's stress city this week with Kevin taking major exams, us suddenly realising Harley is going to college next year but we don't have one for him (college adviser round the corner, thank you!), massive spreadsheets for the activities and haircuts (and that's just Teddy!) and just a general feeling that's this trip will never happen.


By Day...ageing Peace Corps wannabe...

Uphill action. I look terrible hats, this is the only one that suited - what do you think of this Pistil one?

By Night... (Hobbit meets Mrs Roper)

Greeting fellow pilgrim,  I see you're admiring my Fanny Pack (if you don't know why that is hilariously funny, ask a Kiwi or a Brit) 

One of the things I want to do when I get back - besides arriving home fully self-actualised and knowing whether there is a God - is to go back to my old self - spending hours researching my holidays, counting down the sleeps, thumbing through the Lovely Planet. A huge part of the art of travel.

Cy, 10, must have got the gene as I found him the other day viewing holiday homes in Sonoma just in case his baseball team got in the play-offs next year.  He'd taken little notes: "well-apointed kichen. verdint hills. close to winerees."

Of course all the fuss and bother and stress was nothing when you considered the torment someone like Robin Williams, who lived across the Bay, had been through. The terrible, terrifying sadness he woke to everyday; a sadness that nothing could take away. Goodbye Robin Williams, Rest In Peace.