Traveling with Joe

I’m trying to get into the habit of turning on my FitBit Watch and letting it run all day long.  If I do that it will map the trip and give me the stats on the day.  If I don’t post anything else, I hope to at least post a screenshot of that each day.

It’s 4:00pm here and we just got in from what was just under a 15 mile day with a climb.  I hope to Blog later but, if not, here’s what we did today.

******************************************* 6 hours later

Now it’s almost 10pm and I’m going to duck out, yet again, from any real Blogging.  Before I go though I want to explain.

As you’ve heard me explain (rant) they eat late in Spain.  However, our guide, Jorge, was able to find a place tonight that would feed me at 7:30pm.   I was enjoying the tail end of my dinner when most of the rest of the gang showed up with Jorge around 8pm.  I had already eaten but was content to drink wine and chat.

I don’t think you could have assembled a more eclectic group of people.  June, from Texas reminds me so much of my “no Bulllshit” relatives from the South.  Margaret from Canberra, Australia is classic Australian (and that would take a Post or two just to explain what that means but she is charming), Margarita from Italy is smart and pretty and funny and I get a sense there’s a lot more there than what we’ve been exposed to yet (This is her 3rd full Camino).  Then there’s Marji & I.  We also represent opposite ends of the spectrum but after decades of being in the same family we seem to have a good repertoire,  Add into this Jorge, an incredibly worldly, charming Spanish guy in his 30’s and you end up with something you couldn’t plan in a million years but we just sat around a table for a few hours chatting and laughing and now it’s way too late for me to dig into anything new.

I’m starting to feel a little bit stretched.  I just have to acknowledge that by this time in October I was barely functioning.  We have a member of this group who has gone down hard after each day.  I think she will pull out, much like I did last time, but these are long, hard days and the “creative” side of anyone can’t just be yanked out of a tired, sore, wine soaked bag of a body.  I HOPE that over the next few days that I will continue to get even stronger and perhaps just situationally it will get easier to write.  I do have a lot of stories assuming they don’t get over-writeen by all of the new material that surfaces daily.

I will post two pictures from today.  This is by no means the end all explanation for why you would choose to walk 1,000,000 steps (Yes, the Camino is one million steps) twice in 6 months, but just try to imagine the peace and solitude you get from walking for hours with no cars, no planes, no noise at all except for the sounds of nature and being surrounded by this.

March 18, 2015

Joe Jeter

Today’s FitBit Statistics