The Camino Calls Us Back Yet Again

We have our plane tickets and our new Pilgrim Passports. Jake's favorite dog and house sitter has agreed to take care of him. He is wagging and barking for joy. So we are off again, leaving Sunday May 20 for about 3 weeks on "The Way." We expect to see more Americans this year, in the aftermath of the Martin Sheen-Emilio Estevez movie about it.

This will be our 4th Camino walk. We have walked the full distance across Spain to Santiago. This time, we return to France and the first segment of the route, from Le Puy en Velay to Figeac.

We hope to complete 150 rigorous and scenic miles. That would leave us 'only' about 200 miles unwalked on the 1,000-mile trail.

We bought new backpacks and a few new items of gear and clothing. We selected a few items we will leave behind to lighten the load...no razor this year, fewer shirts, apps on our phones instead of flashlights, a compass, and Kindles. I'm even going to try a blogger app, although thumb typing a post seems not too practical.

We have maintained our training schedule of about 100 miles of walking a month since the first of the year. A few weeks ago, probably not enough weeks ago, we added our packs to our walking. Today we did a bit over 8 miles with fully loaded packs. I decided I'm not as ready as I wish I were.

But it is amazing to have the chance to try another section of this magnificent route. We will keep on blogging about how we're doing and what we're seeing and experiencing.