Camino 2025 starts tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I will start out for Spain. From Madrid, I’ll take a train to Zaragoza. I’ve decided to spend a full day there, just to decompress a bit before walking. The last time I was in Zaragoza, walking on the Ruta del Ebro, I had been bitten by bed bugs and spent my afternoon washing clothes, spraying the bag, fun things like that. So it will be nice to have a rest day there, though I know I will be chomping at the bit to get walking!

For more than 20 years, I have used the same horribly banged up and now filthy backpack. It is no longer made, but it is the pack I adore. I bought a new Osprey a few years ago, but at the last minute just didn’t want to change. So it has been sewn, duct-taped, and re-sewn. BUT — thanks to my sister, I got an unused, spanking new Mountainsmith Ghost pack on E-bay. The $100 price was a steal!

Tomorrow off I go with a new pack, but an old body. More than on any other Camino so far, I am acutely aware of my aging body and uncertain about how it will perform. I have followed along with other peregrinos in my age bracket and know that flexibility and acceptance are the coin of the realm. The important thing for me is to be on the Camino, and if I can’t go as far as I hoped, so be it.

Off tomorrow on a 6:00 am flight from Champaign.Read more