summer Archives - Nadine Walks

“Going Back Again”; Thoughts on Repeating Travel Experiences

February 19, 2018

The older I get, the more I keep learning about myself.

I thought I would have had at least the most obvious things about myself figured out by now- I am, after all, well into my 30’s and while I hopefully have a lot of life left to live, I’ve also been around the sun a few times now, enough to know some basic truths.

Like… I still really like the color yellow. And giant pandas and wearing flip flops and listening to the Beatles. At my core, I’m optimistic and friendly and always try to see the best in people. I really like people, but I’m also an introvert, so I can’t be around them all the time.

Stuff like that.

But then there are the things that should be obvious, and when I finally pick up on my own patterns it’s like something had to smack me over the head to make me see what should have been apparent years and years ago.

There was this day when I was out for a walk, it was probably 3 or 4 years ago, and it came to me in a flash, this realization, this truth: I love trees. And I had always loved them, I have very distinct memories of riding my bike around my neighborhood as a child, and always making a point to notice my favorite trees. And the magnolia that grew in our backyard, how I would marvel every spring at the petals that would seem to burst into bloom overnight, and if I looked out my brother’s bedroom window the view would be nothing but those pink petals, it was like magic. And more and more examples of things like this but it wasn’t until recently that I actually realized: ‘Oh, I like trees.’

Bear with me through this meandering introduction to what this post is really about; it’s been a long day. (Or, maybe, it’s just been a long winter and I feel very out of practice with crafting a blog post).

My thoughts have been on traveling lately, as I look ahead to this summer and try to figure out what I want to do and where I want to go. Here’s what I do know: almost inevitably, I’ll be headed back to Europe again.

I say ‘inevitably’ because, while there are other places in the world that I’d really like to travel to, I’m still very drawn to Europe.

And of course I am! Because when it comes to things I love, I’m a repeater.

Maybe there’s a real and technical term for this, but for now I’ll just stick with ‘repeater’. I repeat experiences, I go back, I return… and I love doing this.

I think the psychology of this is really interesting, but I’ll save that for another post. For now, I’m just struck by how often I’ve repeated experiences in my life when I could have been off trying new things or going to new places, and it’s like it just now occurred to me that this has been a pattern for a long, long time. And so maybe it does make some sense that I keep returning to Europe, that I keep returning to the Camino, that I keep returning to my writer’s retreat at La Muse, that I keep returning to Paris and to France.

Another trip to Paris

Maybe this predilection was set for me as a child; when I look at my very earliest experiences of the joy of returning to a place, I think of the beach vacations my family would take every summer. We’d load into our station wagon (three kids across the back seat and we all dreaded being in the middle), and drive 10 hours down to North Carolina- just above or below the Outer Banks, I’m not quite sure exactly where we were- and we’d rent the same beach house and spend a week with my extended family.

I adored these trips, and one of my strongest memories is the mounting excitement I’d feel as our car crossed the bridge over to Emerald Isle, as we’d approach our rental, as I’d walk in the door and run around the rooms and look for all of the familiar things. The couches! The sailboat mirror! The spiral staircase! The room with the bunk beds! It felt like another home, and returning there felt a little like being home. And there were the reunions with the people I loved, too: my cousins, the girl next door (whose family rented the same house at the same time every year just like us, and we’d write to each other throughout the year- “Remember the 10th!” we would always sign off, and I still remember that beautiful day when the waves were calm and the sun was warm and at 11 years old we couldn’t imagine anything more perfect).

So, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time- settling into a place and learning to love it. The physicality of it, the features, the feelings, the people. And because of those beach vacations, this tendency is linked strongly to travel. When I experience something beautiful in some ‘other’ place, I form a connection with it, and I am drawn- strongly- to return.

My summer trips have been following a pattern lately: a long walk, and then several weeks at La Muse. Or La Muse, and then a long walk. And that’s going to be the case again this summer. La Muse is already set, this will be my fourth time there, and the third year in a row that I’ve spent my July in the hills of the Montagne Noir in southern France.

Why do I go back? The feelings I have as I sit in the Jeep driving up the winding roads towards Labastide are the very same ones I had as a child when we’d arrive at our beach house. I look for all the familiar landmarks in those hills, I look for the sign saying that we’ve arrived, I look for Homer and I look for my friends and I suck in my breath when I walk onto the terrace, I breath the air that smells faintly of chestnut trees and lavender. I’m going to be staying in the same room this summer as I did last summer, and this feels like a sort of home to me, a room that- for a moment- is all mine. A place I can return to where I feel so happy, like the best version of myself.

And it’s not just La Muse. I thought to write about all of this tonight because, as I plan out my summer, I’m also trying to decide on which Camino I might want to walk. I was starting to feel rather committed to trying out a new path- the Camino Aragones (a 165km path that crosses the Pyrenees to the south of St Jean Pied de Port, and links up to the Camino Frances in Puente La Reina). This would be a great option, given my time frame- travel days not included, I have 7 days to walk after my stay at La Muse. And this would be a new experience, the path is supposed to be beautiful, the pilgrim infrastructure good, the Camino spirit strong.

All of this, and yet, I think I might want to walk the beginning of the Norte again.

It’s a thought that’s been nagging at me, and I keep pushing it back, telling myself that it’s too soon to repeat a path, that there are too many new ones out there for me to try, that there’s no point to repeating something again so soon. I walked the Camino del Norte from Irun to Oviedo in 2015 (and then finished the rest of the route in 2016), so it’s only been a few years. And if I’m being honest, I could easily repeat any of the walks I’ve done since I started this Camino thing (including the long-distance treks I’ve done in Scotland and England), so why am I feeling so drawn to the Norte?

I’m not sure, but I don’t know that I need an answer. I think with a lot of things in life- and especially with a Camino- it’s important to listen to whatever is calling you. And I think the only reason that I’m hesitating is because it is, yet again, another experience that I’m going to be repeating.

I’m curious what all of your thoughts are about repeating experiences, especially as it relates to traveling. Would you return, again and again, to a place or a city or a country that you know you love? Or would you feel like it’s more valuable to always travel somewhere new and different? Does it depend on what you want out of the experience?

If I do the Norte again, I’m sure I’ll put my own unique twist on it, something different than the last time I walked. And I’m sure that the entire experience will be different- with any luck, my first day out of Irun will have good weather and outstanding views, something I missed that first time around (oh, the rain and the fog, and the wringing of socks in the middle of a field). My plans aren’t set- I still have months until I have to make any decisions- but I’m really leaning towards walking part of this path again. And right now, it’s putting a smile on my face. It feels right.

Sometimes that’s all we really have to go on, isn’t it? Just a feeling, some push in our gut that tells us we’re on the right track.

And I can see how this is important to me, to the person that I’ve always been- the one who likes giant pandas and magnolia trees and beach houses with spiral staircases- that the return to a place I love allows me to fall into an even richer experience of that place, a deeper connection, a return to my best self, a reminder of where I’ve been and maybe even where I’m going.

Yes, a reminder of where I might be going. A yellow arrow, a marker, to guide me along my way.

Paris of My Dreams

August 4, 2017

I arrived in Paris in my hiking clothes: long green pants that zip off at the knee, a t-shirt over a tank top, my good socks, my sturdy and quite worn in shoes. I wore my pack, too, and over my right shoulder was a small duffel bag, all the extra clothes and items I’d needed for the writer’s retreat I’d just left.

I felt just a little strange, and nervous. My walking stick, which I’d carried for the last 34 days, had been left behind at La Muse; tucked away in the corner of a basement room where, hopefully, I might be able to find it again. My loaded pack felt heavy, though it was a weight that I had gotten used to just weeks before, as I hiked through the Chemin du Puy. Already, I was out of practice.

But I wasn’t in Paris to be a hiker or a walker, was I? I thought that maybe I was here to continue my writer’s retreat but I wasn’t sure about that, either.

All I knew were, well, three things:

1. I missed those full days of walking, and part of me wished that instead of a week in Paris, I had organized a week long trek somewhere new and exciting.

2. I missed La Muse. I missed Homer and the way he would bound up to me and then bound away, dancing in a circle when he knew we were going for a hike. I missed, already, my room with the big window and the view of the mountains, I missed the friends that I’d made, the little writer’s community we’d formed.

3. I love Paris. I really, really love Paris.

But why was I spending a week in the city, alone? What was I going to accomplish here? I already know Paris, at least I know the things that tourists know: where to get a hot crêpe and what the view from the top of Notre Dame looks like, how to find the room with the Van Gogh’s in the Musée d’Orsay and how to open the door of a car on the metro.

I’d spent time in Paris at least a half dozen times during the year I studied abroad in Toulouse, and in the last 4 years, have spent between 1-4 days in Paris every summer. It’s become a regular thing, a mandatory swing through Paris when I’m in Europe. Sometimes all I have to do is buy a baguette and walk down the streets of the Île de St Louis and come upon Notre Dame and stare up in wonder.

Now I was in Paris and I had an entire week and I wondered: am I going to continue to be in love with this city? Am I going to become restless? Will I wish I were somewhere else?

Here are the answers: Yes. No. No.

My days in Paris didn’t exactly have a routine, though I suppose in some ways, little ways, they did. I’d wake up between 7 and 8am, though sometimes if I was awake in the 6 o’clock hour I’d roll out of bed and walk onto my balcony to see if there was a good sunrise. Several times, there was.

Once I was up for good I’d spoon some coffee into the little stove top expresso maker and then take a shower, toweling off just as the coffee was ready. There was a small fridge in the “kitchen” of my place and on my first day I’d stocked it with some essentials: yogurt, fruit, cheese, meat. I’d have a small bowl of yogurt with my coffee and flip through a guidebook and come up with ideas for the day.

Around 9, sometimes earlier, I would set out. The city is quiet in the morning, even at 9 many places are just beginning to think about opening, the tables start to go out in front of the cafes, brooms sweep leaves and trash off the pavement and sometimes I’d pass men or women hosing off the sidewalk in front of their shops. Trash trucks drove up and down the streets, bottles would crash and shatter as recycling bins were emptied.

Usually, the first thing I’d do was stop for another coffee, or a croissant. I found a few cafés that weren’t traditionally French but featured pretty decent coffee, and a few cafés with mediocre coffee and a lot of French charm.

After coffee I would always head off somewhere, walking through the streets, never using the metro (not in the morning, anyway). I went to art museums: the Musée d’Orsay, Espace Dali, the Musée de l’Orangerie, the Musée Rodin. I explored the arrondissements, the neighborhoods: the 5th, the 3rd, the 14th, the 17th, the 6th and 7th, the 3rd and 4th, the 20th. The Latin Quarter, St-Germain, Montparnasse, the Marais, Montmartre.

And more. I walked everywhere. I almost don’t want to write this because it seems absurd, but on two separate days I walked 20km through the city. 20km! Around and around and around.

But I used the metro, too, I love the metro. Even in the summer when it is hot down there in those winding corridors, when the smell is so distinct, it’s a smell that screams to me: “This is Paris. THIS is Paris.” But the metro can take you anywhere, and on the streets you will always find one, there seems to be one at every other turn.

I went to bookshops, and I bought books. I read books, too, in back rooms of the cafés, with a noisette or a flat white (the coffee that is taking over Paris, apparently), and I’d sit and arrange myself on a wooden stool and I would open my book and read.

A few times, I met up with friends: for dinner in a bistrot, for a picnic by the Seine, for a glass of champagne to celebrate my birthday. We shopped for picnic supplies in La Grande Epicerie, a place I’d never been to before and I went back two days later to pick up food for lunches or dinners on my balcony: double crème brie, eggplant and yogurt dip, octopus and prawns and mussels marinated in olive oil, crispy baguettes, fresh raspberries.

I discovered new places: a covered market where I bought hot fries in a newspaper cone, a street market that I walked up and down three times, just to watch the vendors and listen to the sounds. I bought a bottle of wine from a little shop, a chunk of cheese from another.

Parks and cemeteries and canals and squares: I spent a lot of time in outdoor spaces. Jardin du Luxembourg (twice, because it was a 15 minute walk from my apartment), Père Lachaise (twice, because the first time I got turned around and had to leave to meet a friend before I could find Oscar Wilde’s grave. I’ve seen it before- two or three times at least- but it’s like a visit I have to make whenever I’m in Paris. I’m not even sure why, because I’m not a particular fan of Oscar Wilde… I just know that I have to do it). And what else? The Canal Saint-Martin and the Promenade Plantée, the Place des Vosges and the Place de la Contrescarpe. Parc de Belleville.

So many things, all of this and more. But I also spent time in that little apartment of mine- for afternoon catnaps and a glass of wine in the evening, sitting on my balcony and looking out over the rooftops. At 10pm, and again at 11 and again at midnight, thousands of lights on the Eiffel Tower flash and blink, the tower sparkles for 5 minutes and I could see it from my balcony and every night I was home I would stand outside and watch.

Home. That apartment and even Paris, a little bit, began to feel like home. My friend Alex, an Australian writer I’d met at La Muse last summer, moved to Paris in March. She signed a 6-month lease but always intended to stay for at least a year, and when I talked with her about it, her eyes started to shine. “If I can swing it, I want to stay for at least 2 years, maybe 3.”

I asked her a lot of questions about what it had been like to move to Paris, to live in Paris, if the language barrier was a problem, if the cultural barrier was a problem. She told me about a French course she took, how she connected with other expats, her favorite things to do, the site she used to find her apartment.

And I began to dream. What if I could do this? I have an entire life somewhere else but the thing is, I’ve been dreaming about Paris ever since I was 20, from the moment I first laid eyes on the city. And Paris, after all this time, is still a beautiful dream. It’s the city of my dreams.

7 different people asked me for directions during my week in Paris; some of them were tourists but some were French, one- an old lady- might even have been a Parisian. I could only give an answer to one of them, a French guy, and I answered with a smile and with an assurance. I’d understood his question, I knew where we were and where he wanted to go, and I could give a response, in French.

After a week in the city I was beginning to feel like I knew where I was, where I was going. Could I ever have more time like this? More than just a few days, more than a week? Could I live here for a few months, half a year? An entire year?

In my dreams, yes. And if I continue to write and work and aim high and big, if I take chances and with a little (or a lot) of luck, I might just be able to live out my dreams.

But, that’s one of my castles in the air and it’s a beautiful one but for now I’ll be grateful for what is right in front of me: the magical week I just spent in a city that I love, the work it took to get myself there, the chances that I’ve already taken in life, the persistance of my dreams for where they’ve already taken me.

And Paris will always be there. Whether for a few days or a week or a month, a year or a lifetime; it will always be there.

You Get What You Need: Day 5 on the Chemin du Puy, Les Estrets to Aumont-Aubrac, 8km

July 17, 2017

Today, I only walked 8km.

This was all according to plan, but I have to say that initially, I was not pleased. 8km? That’s less than what I typically do after work when I walk around my neighborhood. And this was a day on the Chemin!

But I was doing it out of necessity. One of my previous posts mentioned the trouble around Nasbinals, the town that was hosting a road race for hundreds or thousands of people who had taken all the hotel/gîte rooms.

So my solution around this was to do a really short day, and stop in Aumont-Aubrac, where I had been able to find a bed in a gite. And the following day, I would walk 35km to make up for the shorter day. Now that was the part of the plan I liked: a long day, a physical challenge.

8km, on the other hand, would pass by in the blink of an eye. I tried to linger- I really did- I savored a second cup of coffee, I took a long time lacing my shoes, I was the last to leave my gîte in the morning.

And as I walked, I stopped to take photos and to try to enjoy the view. But my feet felt restless, and I was distracted. When I arrived in Aumont-Aubrac, what in the world was I going to do? I was going to have the entire day at my disposal, I was all alone, and all I really wanted to do was walk.

I was deep in these thoughts when suddenly the boy in the red shirt with the big pack appeared at the side of the trail. There was no avoiding him this time- he started walking just a pace behind me- but I wasn’t in the same mood as the day before. I decided that I might as well say hi and try to be friendly.

It turns out that he wasn’t French afterall- he was German and his name was Sten, a name that means ‘stone’. Even though he could speak English we spoke in French, and I found that I didn’t mind. In fact, I kind of enjoyed it: our levels were pretty evenly matched, and it was so much easier to speak with him than with a native French speaker. We both made mistakes and often had to search for the right word. He spoke slowly and I could understand him easily.

Sten had to catch a bus in Aumont-Aubrac at 9:40am; he had already walked a couple of the upcoming stages so he was going to skip over the sections he had already done. This meant that he had to walk fast in order to catch the bus, but I was able to easily match his pace. It felt good to stretch my legs like this, to move quickly down the trail, to talk easily with the person at my side.

The only downside of walking with someone like this was that I arrived at my destination by 9:20am. We went to a cafe and Sten bought me a coffee, but before I knew it he was standing and shaking my hand and saying how nice it had been to meet me, then was running off to catch his bus.

I watched him go, and then smiled. The interaction had been just what I’d needed, just enough to shake me out of my loneliness over saying goodbye to Hilary, enough to bring me back into the world of the Chemin. And as I sat in the cafe, I watched as people I knew filtered in and out. They came over and said hi, Pierre sat with me while he waited for Stephanie, the young Quebecoise girl. Katherine, a blond German women who had been in the samegîte as I had the night before, talked to me about how out of place she’d felt at dinner. “Really?” I said. “You looked so comfortable.”

“I wasn’t,” she replied. “I try to speak in French but it’s really hard.”

Eventually they all left, on to other towns and other gîtes (most of them had found beds in a gîte that was a bit off the main path of the Chemin. I’d tried to get a bed there as well, but had been too late).

I walked around the small town to get my bearings. It wasn’t a large place, just one main street with several restaurants and shops, a main square full of cafes, a church, a park. I found a boulangerie and bought a sandwich to eat for lunch, I stopped by an epicierie to load up on snacks for the next day.

In the park I settled into a picnic table in the shade, opened up my guidebook, and mapped out a plan for the next several days. I made phone calls too (this was one of my least favorite parts of walking the Chemin; calling ahead to book gîtes meant that I not only had to talk on phone, something I don’t even enjoy doing in English, but I had to speak in French which was still kind of nerve-wracking).

I looped through the town a few more times and then around 1:00 decided to see if I could get into my gîte. I was suprised to see that the door wasn’t locked, and that in the hallway on the bottom floor was a note that said to leave my shoes and pack downstairs, and then go upstairs to see which bed I had been assigned to. The hospitalera would be by in the evening to take our money and stamp our credentials, and in the meantime there were notes and signs all around, instructing us on what to do.

The gîte was perfect. Sometimes on the Camino and on the Chemin you get just what you need, and this had been happening to me all day. The place was clean and bright and modern and spacious. We were in a narrow apartment building and the gîte was spread out over three floors. Above the entryway and downstairs hallway was a floor with a sitting room and the kitchen, along with a couple of bedrooms. And the floor above was where I was staying. There were several rooms up here, too, and I was staying in a room with four beds. Since I was the first to arrive in my room, I could have my pick of beds, and I discovered that my room was actually split into two spaces. One had three beds, and another- behind a curtain- had one bed and a little desk by a large window. It’s like it was meant for me! Maybe it was.

The bathroom was large and clean, there was a rack to dry my clothes outside on the small balcony (set up in the sunshine), there was a fridge where I could keep my fruit and yogurt, there was an outlet right next to my bed where I could plug in my phone. This was gîte paradise.

The rest of the day was slow, relaxing, restorative. The other three beds in my room remained empty, the other pilgrims never showed up. The hospitalera, when she arrived, was so kind and helpful; she gave me the names of other gîtes along the way that she thought I might like, and gave me some advice about the trail for the next day. I met another pilgrim who was also staying in the gite- a guy from the Netherlands who had been carrying a big guitar down the trail. In the afternoon he played for us, slow Spanish flamenco music, the sound filled the rooms and floated down the hallways and out the windows and I was so relaxed I almost fell asleep in my chair.

There was no demi-pension at the gîte so in the evening I went out to one of the restaurants nearby. I wanted something simple so I ordered a goat cheese salad and a glass of wine and I should have known that my salad would be anything but simple: there was the goat cheese over toasted bread slices, yes, but also tomatoes and corn and carrots and peppers and lardons and grilled onions and slivers of garlic.

After dinner I walked through the town again, just to stroll through the streets and stretch my legs before bed. I found my way to the church, stained-glass glowing, empty pews, a line of lit candles and I added my own, giving up a small prayer of thanks for the day, for getting what I needed, for feeling renewed and refreshed and ready for what would come next.

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And there goes our shuttle; Day 4 on the Chemin du Puy, Le Sauvage to Estrets, 21km

July 14, 2017

Here is the image that stands out the most from Day 4 of the Chemin du Puy: standing next to a small chapel in the middle of nowhere, waving our arms wildly at the shuttle hurtling down the road, watching as it passed us by without even slowing down. This was Hilary’s ride back to Le Puy.

But let me back up for a minute. We started our morning in Le Sauvage, eating breakfast after nearly everyone had already finished and headed off for the day. We were in no hurry because Hilary’s shuttle wouldn’t arrive until 11:10am. We would have to walk just a bit- 4km- to the place where the shuttle made its pick-ups; usually shuttles come to the gites, or some central place in town, but since we were in the middle of a field and the only roads were gravely and sandy, the man at La Malle Postale (luggage delivery and shuttle service) told me that the pick-up was 4km away, at the Chapelle de St Roch.

I’d made the shuttle reservation before leaving for France, and then confirmed it in La Malle Postale’s office in Le Puy at the start of our journey. So I wasn’t really worried unil we we met a couple who were also lingering over breakfast. The woman told us that they were also getting picked up by the shuttle- at 11:20- but their pick-up was at the gîte.

This seemed a bit strange, and Hilary and I laughed about that fact that she was going to walk for an hour, only to be picked up by a shuttle that would most likely be taking her right back to where she’d started walking an hour before. But we shrugged it off and walked on, and finally the morning was cool and almost crisp, the path running through a forest track that was quiet and peaceful and beautiful.

We got to the chapelle an hour early, and had plenty of time to eat snacks and for Hilary’s to rearrange her bag, and to sit and talk about the last few days of our journey together. As 11:10 approached we gathered our things and stood as close to the road as possible. We waited, and waited, and I didn’t start to get really anxious until about 11:15. The minutes ticked past and finally, at 11:20, we saw a white van approaching.

“That must be it!” I said, but the vehicle didn’t seem to be slowing down- in fact, I swear it was gaining speed as it drove past. We waved frantically and I’m pretty sure some of the passengers must have seen us but the driver just stared straight ahead, and we watched as the shuttle faded from view.

I immediately got on the phone with La Malle Postale’s office and didn’t even attempt to speak in French as I explained what had just happened. The guy in the office put me on hold as he made a call to another driver who was out in our area, and luckily, in about 5 minutes another shuttle came by and pulled over to pick up Hilary.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened- later, Hilary told me that the driver of her shuttle said that she was lucky that the office had called him and that he was nearby. That first shuttle was the one she was supposed to be on, and it was clear that the driver had no idea he was supposed to pick someone up (although, two girls on the side of the road waving their arms wildly would have been a good tip off…). Something must have gotten mixed up with my reservation, but with an email confirmation AND an in-person confirmation of the date and the time of pick-up, I have no idea what the mix-up was.

In any case, after a long hug and holding back some tears, Hilary got on the shuttle and I watched as it drove away. And man, did I feel strange and alone. It’s worse than the feeling you get when you leave your walking stick behind: it’s like a vital part of my pilgrimage was no longer with me, and I would have to figure out how to carry on without it.

I wasn’t even totally alone just then- a few minutes before Hilary got on the shuttle, a young guy in a red shirt and large backpack had walked up to the chapel and was taking a break there. After Hilary left I saw him lingering but I waited until he packed up and moved on. I was in no mood to meet someone new or try to speak in French or anything else. I just needed a little time to be on my own and to miss Hilary and to adjust to Phase 2 of my pilgrimage.

To be honest, the rest of the day was… off. I didn’t feel particulary strong as I walked, the day grew hot, I was indecisive. I passed through a town that felt abandoned and strange, and even though I was hungry and needed to pick up something for lunch, I walked past several open cafes, not wanting to go inside. I sat in the shade by the church, knowing I should take off my shoes and rest for awhile, but I felt restless. I saw the guy in the red shirt again and still didn’t want to even attempt to say hi.

Eventually I got myself a sandwich and ate it on bench in the shade just outside of town, and then I kept walking, and the day continued to be off. Right on cue, it seemed, dark clouds suddenly rolled in and I was walking at a bit of elevation and without much cover. I was so focused on the clouds and listening to the rumbles of thunder in the distance that I took a wrong turn and got myself off of the Chemin. I think I was happy to be on a path that was heading away from the clouds and towards a patch of blue sky that I didn’t realize I was no longer going the right way. But the Chemin is well marked and after awhile I realized I hadn’t seen the red and white striped waymarkers for quite a long time. Feeling defeated, I turned around and had to trudge back uphill, towards those dark clouds.

I saw one bolt of lightening and that’s when I got scared. Several days before, Mario had warned me about getting stuck in a thunderstorm and now here I was, alone and off-track with a storm brewing. I found the most tucked away spot that I could and crouched down and waited for awhile, unsure of what else to do. Was it safe to keep walking? Was it safe to stay here?

Finally, when I hadn’t heard a rumble of thunder for several minutes and it seemed as though the clouds were beginning to move away, I started walking. I found the Chemin, I continued on, and as luck would have it, not 10 minutes further down the trail was a shelter made of branches and sticks! There were wooden stumps inside and a sign that welcomed pilgrims and I hunkered down in here until I was sure that the threat of the storm had fully passed.

I was actually fairly close to my gîte and arrived after only another 30 minutes of walking. I was staying in another beautiful spot: a large stone building with a big lawn and plenty of space to hang laundry. There was a cozy space inside to sit and read, and you could “order” a drink and the hospitalera would bring it to you from the kitchen. I was sharing a 4 bed room with two other women, and even though I was probably the last to arrive in the gîte, I still had time to shower, wash my clothes and have a glass of wine before dinner.

But dinner was difficult without Hilary. I think I was feeling sad that she was gone, and suddenly self-conscious about speaking French. I was sitting at a table with such nice people-Pierre, who I’d met the day before- was there, so was a young girl from Quebec, and two brothers, and the kind women I was sharing a room with. But the French was spoken so quickly, the voices jumbling together and it was so difficult for me to keep up, to understand what was going on. I felt isolated, sitting at the end of the table and hoping the meal would be over quickly so that I wouldn’t have to keep feeling so awkward, and out of place.

Mostly, I think I needed a little time to transition into this now solo journey, a little time to adjust to being alone and speaking French and needing to meet people and make friends. I tried to remind myself that it doesn’t happen all at once.

Sleep that night was restful, and in the morning the two women I was with agreed: the way to go was to try to stay in a room without men, to be assured of no snoring! (I know it’s no guarantee, but throughout the night we were all quiet as mice, and it was such a relief to get some sound sleep).

Stay tuned for the next post: no room at the Inn, so I need to come up with a plan of how to walk the next few days AND find a bed for the night.

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Oversleeping and Walking Sticks, Day 3 on the Chemin du Puy, Saugues to Le Sauvage, 19km

July 12, 2017

It’s not easy to oversleep on a Camino/Chemin, but Hilary and I figured out how on the morning of Day 3: share a room with 4 people who begin to get up and pack their things before 5am. Listen to them rustle around, bump into things, whisper in the small room. Finally fall back asleep after they leave. Realize, a little after 7am, that you’d forgotten to set an alarm and because there is no longer anyone else in the room with you, you sleep well past the time you’d intended.

7:15am may still seem early, but I can’t remember another day on any Camino when I’d slept so late. By many accounts, the time we started that day shouldn’t have mattered: we were walking 19km- so not a huge day- and we already had our reservation for the night. But there was one factor that did make this late wake-up a slight issue: the heat.

Somehow, we weren’t actually on the road out of town until nearly 9am. Packing up, eating breakfast (no milk for my coffee, grr), searching for a boulangerie, then an epicerie for fruit… and once we finally got moving, we were sweating within minutes.

“How is this possible?” I turned to Hilary, sunglasses already secured over her eyes. “It feels like we’re walking under a hot, mid-day sun.” I paused to catch my breath, and we weren’t even going up a hill. “This is crazy.”

Much of our walk that day was over a dirt track through rolling countryside and deep green forests. The stage wasn’t technically difficult, but the heat was oppressive, and made every step feel like we were climbing a mountain. We ran our buffs under cold water at every opportunity, we listened to music and show tunes to regain energy, and we stopped for breaks. We stopped a lot.

Our first rest was in one of those spots that seems utterly ideal: just as you’re truding along, wishing that the perfect rest stop could appear, BAM! There it is: a picnic table nestled in the shade. This particular spot had an added bonus- a perfectly straight, carved walking stick was propped up against the table. Hilary’s knee had started to act up and we’d been keeping our eye out for a suitable stick, and now here was one that seemed to be waiting for us.

We looked around for an owner of the stick, we took our time and rested and finally decided that either the stick had been left there accidentally- and by taking it with us we might be able to return it to its rightful owner- or the stick had been left there purposefully, for someone who needed it.

So we marched on, sticks in hand (I’d found mine sometime on my first day- crooked and with some sharp bits and at that point I wasn’t sure if I would keep it or not). More cows, more countryside, and then our second rest stop, a beautiful lawn with cold drinks and umbrella-covered tables and puppies running around. One playful guy got a hold of Hilary’s sock and for a long time refused to let go (he also grabbed onto someone’s walking stick- clearly this dog was meant to be on a pilgrimage).

More walking, more resting, and finally we entered the home stretch- a slight uphill section through a forest path that opened up onto a wide-open field in the middle of hills and forests. It was here that the path wound though patches of wildflowers and down to a massive stone complex; the only building in sight (aside from a lone cottage). This is where we’d be staying for the night, in the Domaine du Sauvage.

The day before, one of the men in our gîte told me to look up the history of this place and read all about it in English so that we could understand exactly where we were staying. Hilary and I tried, but all the information we could find was in French, and it was difficult to understand and follow. About all I could gather was that we were in a massive farm building, whose granite stones had probably weathered hundreds and hundreds of years of history.

Despite not understanding where, exactly, we were, the place still had a powerful and special feeling about it. Maybe it was the sweeping sky, so vast; maybe it was the thick, anciet stone walls; maybe it was that there was nothing else out here, just this large building that was here for us, for the pilgrims on their journey, all of us arriving by foot like we’d been arriving for so many years.

We settled into our room, again waiting for a free and open shower. Once all my chores were done I headed downstairs to the main room/bar/restaurant area to try to make a few phone calls. Hilary would be leaving the next day and I hadn’t thought much beyond these first few days of the trip, the part that I was sharing with her. I needed to chart a course for myself, at least for the next few days, and I needed to call ahead to the gîtes I hoped to stay in, and make sure I could reserve a bed.

But right off the bat, I ran into a few problems. I couldn’t get a cell signal anywhere on the property (everyone else was having this problem too) so I asked a man behind the bar if I could borrow the gite’s phone. Another pilgrim was already using it; she had a notebook and papers spread across a table and was sitting with two other pilgrims, shaking her head with a frown.

“Everything is full!” I heard her say, so I hovered nearby and then starting asking questions. It turns out that she was trying to make reservations not for the next night, but for the following one- Saturday- and she couldn’t find anything. There was a big race being held in Nasbinals, a medium-sized town where many pilgrims ended their day’s stage. I’m not sure how many runners were registered for the race, but I heard the number was in the thousands. Not only was everything in Nasbinals booked up, but so were all the gîtes and auberges and hotels in all of the surrounding towns and villages.

Hmm. I borrowed the phone and made my reservation for the next night and decided to worry about what to do on Saturday later.

Dinner that night was much better than the awkwardness of the previous night, in Saugues. Earlier that evening I’d met Pierre, a French man who had just retired and was walking to Santiago. When Hilary and I found seats at an empty table, Pierre asked to join us. Two older French women also came to the table, along with another American- Stephen, from St Louis (he would be the only other American I’d meet on my trip).

It was a good group. There was a mix of French and English, and a lot of laughter and hilarity. And the meal was another good one (as they all would be): vegetable soup, a beef ragu and potato casserole, a cheese plate with three different selections (the sheep’s cheese was the best), an almond cake (that I couldn’t eat because of my nut allergy but I heard it was delicious). Bread, of course, and wine.

Hilary and I stayed up to watch the sun set; we ate gummy candy and compared notes on the day and I thought about how much I would miss her when she left the following morning. Even though I’ve been doing these Camino’s and treks mostly solo, it had been such a joy and so much fun to be with my cousin. There was so much laughter and encouragement and odd moments and joyous singing and shared misery and I wondered what this trip was going to be like without her. I was happy to be entering into a new phase of this pilgrimage, eager to tackle some big days and capture that pure feeling of freedom that only standing totally alone under a big open sky can give me… but I was suddenly nervous, too. I hadn’t even said goodbye and already I was overcome with such a bittersweet feeling: that happiness to have shared something big and amazing with one of my favorite people, the sadness with having to say goodbye and continue on alone.

But that’s been such a big part of these Camino experiences for me, hasn’t it? Being together, being alone.

We couldn’t hold onto the night forever so we gathered up our notebooks, collected our laundry that had dried completely in the hot sun, and tip-toed up to bed.

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Why is it so hot? Why are we still going up? Day 2 on the Chemin du Puy, Combriaux to Saugues, 17km

July 9, 2017

Even though I’ve done this walking thing many times before, it still takes a few days to get into the rhythm of the pilgrim life. I woke up on Day 2 feeling a little disoriented; our room had been hot during the night, and at some point in the night I had flipped myself so that my head was at the foot of the bed, and closer to the window. Once we woke up, we had to tiptoe through the other rooms with sleeping pilgrims in order to get to the bathroom, and we packed our things as silently as possible

And then downstairs to another pilgrim breakfast in France. These breakfasts would all look the same: coffee or tea or hot chocolate, bread and butter and usually at least 3 flavors of jam (many of them homemade), yogurt and sometimes fruit. Once I had a fresh croissant brought over from the boulangerie two doors down (this wouldn’t happen until nearly the end of my trip, and oh what a good morning that was!). I really loved the breakfasts on the Chemin, bread and butter and coffee are my preferred breakfasts at home, too, and it was such a treat to come downstairs every moring and have a spread laid out for us. Unlike on other Caminos, I never had to walk before my morning cup of coffee (well, actually, I had to do this on my very last day but you’ll have to wait for that story).

So after fueling up and rearranging things in our packs, Hilary and I headed out for Day 2. The morning was soft and beautiful, and the beginning of the walk was stunning: we were headed into the hills, climbing above the clouds and looking out onto views that stretched over the countryside.

There was another beautiful view that I loved seeing France, but one of a different sort than the sweeping landscape: the WC. France nails it with their public bathrooms; not only would you sometimes come upon a little shack in the middle of the trail (usually not much more than a toilet, but it’s still a good option), but in so many of the small villages and towns you would always see a sign pointing you towards the nearest WC. Some of these toilets were, ah, quite adventurous, but I appreciated them all.

Our morning was wonderful, and despite the increasing heat, Hilary and I were both in really good spirits. After about 5 or 6km we stopped in the small village of Monistrol-d’Allier for a coffee and a snack; this would be just before starting a long and diffficult ascent and fueling up seemed like a good idea.

We ran into Mario, our French translator and fellow pilgrim from the night before, and he told us about the amazing sandwiches the cafe could prepare for us to take along. He held up a wrapped sandwich that was roughly the size of his head. “Local goat cheese with a carmalized onion and fig compote,” he said. “You don’t want to miss this.”

Hilary and I were both already a bit loaded down with food; we’d picked up Babel cheeses wrapped in wax that could last the journey, as well as little sausages and a loaf of day old bread. Suddenly, our lunch options didn’t seem so appetizing, and we made what I think might have been one of the best decisions of the trip: to buy the sandwiches with fresh and local ingredients. (Later, we spread out on the grass for a long picnic lunch and those sandwiches were, indeed, the best sandwiches I’d ever tasted. It helped that we’d walked a long day and were hungry, but then again we were also in France, where the food truly is top notch).

Our packs now even more weighed down, we began our ascent. The guidebook we were using (along with all the French) was the Miam Miam Dodo. It breaks down each stage into detailed sections and shows either a green, orange, or red line (going up, down, or flat) to illustrate the difficulty of the grade of the route. Green is easy, orange is tougher, red is difficult. And very quickly, we came to regard the red line (especially a red line going up), as the enemy.

We began a nearly 4km stretch of ‘red up’, and remember, this was during the European heat wave. We were drenched in sweat within minutes. We criss-crossed on the trail in order to find tiny sections of shade. Water breaks were only taken in the shade. The buffs came out, and for the first time on any Camino, I discovered the momentary delight of running the buff under a cool stream of fountain water, then wrapping it around my head.

But despite the heat this continued to be a good day. Other highlights included: stopping in a chapel carved into the rock of a hillside, our first walk alongside a line of cows, a kind man resting in the shade of a tree who gave us cherries, the wooden carvings lining the entrance to Saugues- our destination for the evening. The day’s walk was only about 17km (but with the ascents and heat I wouldn’t call it an easy day), but it meant that we had time for long, leisurely breaks, and still arrrived to our gîte an hour before it opened.

But once we did get inside, we discovered that there was only one shower for 8 pilgrims (this, too, would become a theme of the trip). There was a lot of waiting around in our sweaty clothes, a storm rolled in and cooled off the air a bit, and once we were finally cleaned up we headed into town to explore and find some ice cream.

Dinner that night was, in a word, awkward. I don’t even know if it would have helped much if my French were stronger; the combination of people around the table was not a good one, and there were a lot of long silences. Then, when dinner was over and the owner of the gîte was trying to arrange a breakfast time, there seemed to be a tense moment. The group of 4 pilgrims staying in our room were pretty insistent on ther 5:30am start time (the only time I would see anyone leave this early on this Camino), and the owner of the gîte didn’t want to serve breakfast that early. There was a lot of back and forth that I didn’t completely understand, but it was finally understood that we’d all help ourselves to breakfast, whenever we decided to get up. (All the while, in the background a radio played 90’s soft rock and sometimes I’d just disengage from trying to understand the conversation and instead tune into Whitney Houston and Celine Dion).

Hilary and I escaped once dinner was over and headed back into town for a pre-bedtime glass of wine, and when we returned to the gîte we sat outside with the kind dog, watching the day’s light fade to black, strains of soft rock drifting through the air.

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The Next Summer Adventure: France! Walking and Writing and Drinking Coffee

June 6, 2017

I sat down to write a blog post but then realized that I wasn’t sure, exactly, what I wanted to write about.

I’ve finished recapping my Hadrian’s Wall walk, I don’t believe I have much to say about training or packing or preparing for a Camino that I haven’t already said before (well, that’s probably not quite true, but now doesn’t feel like the best time to come up with a new or original post on that topic).

There are still things to be said about my past Camino treks, and general thoughts about these pilgrimages and traveling solo and why I keep walking, but those, too, will have to wait.

And there’s still a lot left to be done with this ‘new’ blog format; kinks to work out, images to resize, figuring out how to add a ‘previous post’ and ‘next post’ button or link at the end of my posts (that’s a big one, and I’ve spent several frustrating hours accomplishing absolutely nothing on that end).

There are my projects, too! My book, which has sort of stalled out but is by no means forgotten or given-up-on. It’s more like… it’s in waiting. I think I needed a little break from the writing, in order to figure out what kind of story I want to be telling. Also, it’s just so hard to write a book and tell a big story and there’s been a lot of stumbling around in the dark over here. So I’m working towards more clarity with it all.

Tree and building in Ridley Creek State Park

Hike in Ridley Creek State Park (all images in this post are from walks/hikes/excursions that I’ve been on in the last month or so)

But other projects are (sort of) in the works, too. An e-book, much of which was written this spring. It’s not actually all that much but I liked creating the content: it’s all about ways to deal with the struggles of the sometimes unsettling post-Camino period. It’s about missing the Camino, and how we can hold onto our memories. It’s about how to begin to take a close look at a life that was most likely shaken up and rearranged out on the Camino, and what to do next. Unless I do a lot more with it this summer, it’s going to be a quick read with short chapters and simple tips. But it’s part of a larger idea that’s been percolating up there in my head for months now… and it’s too soon to talk much about it, but I want to deliver something more about this post-Camino time. There are so many resources and conversations about how to prepare for a Camino, but what happens when the Camino ends? Where are these conversations?

All of this is good and exciting: the blog, the book, the e-book and future projects and ideas… but there’s something else on the horizon, something more immediately on the horizon.

And that’s another walk.

Lancaster County

It came up quickly, didn’t it? Wasn’t I just walking in England? (I was certainly just writing about it, but even the actual walk doesn’t feel like all too long ago). But in exactly two weeks (and by the grace of God), I’ll be finished walking my first day on the Camino Le Puy.

This means that I leave for my big summer trip in a little less than two weeks, and oh man, how did this happen? A month ago I thought I was in pretty good shape, but inevitably, it happens: time slips away and it’s the end of my school year and I go to Phillies games and take weekend trips and suddenly my summer trip looms, large, before me. Am I ready? I ask this every single time. Have I been walking and hiking enough? (I’m so afraid that the answer, this year, is ‘no’. Maybe my Hadrian’s Wall walk could be considered good training but that was two months ago and other than the 4-mile walks around my neighborhood that I do pretty consistently, I’ve only had a couple good, long training hikes).

Delaware & Raritan Canal Towpath

And as always, there’s the mental/emotional/personal part of these travels. I’m returning for yet another Camino, my fourth in as many years. This will only be a partial Camino, two weeks on a route in France, but it’s still a Camino. I’ll be sharing the very beginning of the walk with my cousin, so, like the Hadrian’s Wall trip, this walk won’t be totally solo. But we’ll only be walking together for the first 3 days and afterwards I’ll be on my own, so I already know that the walk is going to have several different components for me. Some of it will be shared and some of it will be solo, but will I crave more time in the company of other pilgrims? Will I want to carry on by myself? Will I only meet French pilgrims and therefore be forced to speak in French?? (a thought that sort of terrifies me, even though part of the appeal of a walk in France was that I would be able to have an easier time with communication. Plus I love France).

After my walk is a return to La Muse, my writer’s retreat. In many ways it feels like I was just there. I know that there’s been a solid 10 months since I returned from my last trip to Europe, and life happened in the meantime, but I also feel like I’m continuing the retreat I started last year. Some of the same Musers will be returning with me: I have four sort of ‘built in’ friends this time around, and I’m hoping that this sense of continuity will help me jump right in and get down to work. That, and also go out and roam around the mountains; relax, recharge, and become re-inspired.

Springtime walk around my neighborhood

A week in Paris rounds out the summer, and there’s the possibility of reconnecting there with a few friends I’ve made on these summer adventures, as well as more time to follow my whims: wander and write and drink coffee.

So this year, it feels like there might be a good and welcome balance to my travels. In the past, these have been very solo trips: I take off totally on my own, and the only connections I find are the ones that I have to make. But this time around, each piece of my trip includes some kind of already-established connection, and this feels good to me. I’ll certainly be doing my own thing and having my own adventures, but sharing this part of my life feels appealing, too.

The next time I check in will most likely be from France. As ever, I hope to blog while I walk (and we’ll see how well I keep up with the posts ‘in real time’).

So here’s to summer: to long warm days, to freedom in all shapes and forms, to adventure. Let’s all go out and have an adventure.

Lake Erie, Geneva, OH

The End of a Long Walk; Day Five on the West Highland Way, Kinlochleven to Glen Nevis, 24km

December 17, 2016

August 17th was my last day of walking on the West Highland Way, which was exactly 4 months ago. 4 months! This is absolutely the most delayed post I’ve ever written.

I was just looking through my photos from those last days in Scotland, and in some ways I feel like I was just there, but in other ways… it feels like those memories are from another life. This tends to happen, especially in these cold, winter months (I’m currently sitting on my couch under a heavy comforter listening to the ping of freezing rain against my window). In the Scotland photos I’m tan, my hair is lighter, the world is green and the sun is shining brightly. Everything is warm and light and free and fun- very much the opposite of the time of life I’m in now.

There are moments of fun in these months- indeed- so maybe it’s just this transition to winter that always gets me a bit down. These are short, dark days- we are in the very shortest days of the year right now, and I can feel it. The cold has blown in too, and I can feel myself resisting all of this. I still want to be outside in a t-shirt, hiking loops on the trails in my park, driving with my windows down, making smoothies and planning camping trips.

I’ve resisted settling into these dark, cold winter days, because this time of the year, for me, is synonymous with work and discipline and routine. The end of my summer travels was so much fun, and I found that for months afterwards I wanted to hold onto that feeling. I still want to hold on to that feeling, but just as equally, I want to begin again with my writing.

So here’s what happening, over here: I’m missing summertime. I’m dreaming of travel plans for 2017. But more than either of those, I’m finally beginning to accept that winter is here. And that it’s time to write- to really write again.

And what better place to begin than at the end? My last day on the West Highland Way was, by all accounts, the ‘easy’ one. It was the shortest distance of the trip, clocking in at only 24 kilometers (which, following days of 30, 32, 31, 35km, felt like a breeze).

But maybe I was a bit too confident heading into the day: I felt so relaxed that I didn’t prepare as I normally would, by meticulously examining my guidebook and planning stops and lunch breaks. So, an hour into my walk, when I stopped for a moment and paged through the guidebook to see where I was, I realized that I wouldn’t be passing through any villages, the path wouldn’t take me by an Inn, there would be absolutely no places to buy food.

Whoops. I’d eaten another hearty breakfast that morning- a huge bowl of porridge, two slices of toast, a container of yogurt and a lot of coffee- so I didn’t need to worry about my food situation right away. I was totally stocked up on water and I had some leftover snacks tucked away in my pack so I just kept walking, because, well, it was the only thing I could do.

It was another stunning day: bright sunlight and a clear blue sky. The walk started with a steady climb out of Kinlochleven, but soon the path leveled out and the walking was mostly even, with only short ascents and descents for the rest of the way.

I walked steadily for hours, stopping a few times for short breaks, or to examine old stone ruins, or to take off my socks and air out my feet. After about 20km (and a mere 4km from the end of the day), I was too hungry to continue so I hopped up on a large rock and dug through my bag, searching for any bit of food that I could find. I had one apple, three Oreo cookies, a small and rather stale packaged croissant, and half a bag of dried cherries that I’d bought in Santiago. I ate it all, and then continued walking.

Even though the walking that day wasn’t too difficult, I felt ready to be done. I walked swiftly through the last kilometers, ready to find my hostel, ready to take a shower, ready to sit down for a large meal. 100 miles (many of them difficult) in 5 days wasn’t easy. I don’t wish that I’d done it any other way: I loved the challenge, I loved those really long days of walking, I loved how strong I felt.

But I was also tired. And I was at the very end of my trip- not just the Scotland part, but the whole thing: Bath, London, Paris, Labastide, Madrid, Leon, the San Salvador, the Norte, Santiago, Glasgow, the West Highland Way. It was almost time to go home, and I was ready for the comforts of my apartment, the ease of daily life, the familiar faces of my family and friends.

My hostel wasn’t technically at the very end of the West Highland Way- it was in Glen Nevis, a small hamlet in open countryside, about a 45-minute walk from Fort William. The official end of the West Highland Way used to be in Glen Nevis- just off the side of the road by a round-about (and there is still a sign to mark this), but in recent years the “end” was moved into Fort William, so walkers would have to pass directly through the bustling commerce and tourist shops of the main street in town.

In any case, when I arrived at my hostel, I felt as though I had arrived at the end. The next day I would walk into Fort William but for now I was happy to find my bunk, wash my clothes, and eat a good meal. I was happy that I’d decided to stay in the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel- it sits directly across from the entrance to the path that leads up Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain. The hostel building was old and quirky but the rooms were clean, the bunks seemed new, and I found a private bathroom down one of the hallways that had a lock on the door and a pristine shower.

This was the first time that I had to share sleeping quarters with other people on the West Highland Way, but I found the people staying in the hostel to be an interesting mix. After eating dinner at restaurant down the road, I came back to the hostel and settled into the lounge area, to try to do some writing. I only got a few sentences in when Tony, a wiry Londoner in his 50’s, began talking to me. He was in Glen Nevis with a few of his buddies- his friends were taking on the challenge of climbing three mountains in 24-hours and Tony explained that they were currently climbing to the top of Ben Nevis. “I’m their driver,” he explained. “See this radio here? They’ll signal me when they get to the top, and then I’ve got to be ready with the car as soon as they descend. Then we drive off to the next one.”

While he waited, he made me a cup of tea, saying that I had to have it prepared in the proper, British way (with cream and lots of sugar). Sitting with us in the lounge was a Norwegian man who was trying to convince me to climb Ben Nevis the next day (a lot of people staying at the hostel were there to climb the mountain), and an American woman who was tired of driving on the “crazy Scottish roads”.

This felt like the most I’d spoken to anyone in days, and it was nice to be surrounded by friendly people. But, strangely, I was the only one there who had walked the West Highland Way. This cinched it- most people on the West Highland Way were campers. If I were to do it again (and be guaranteed to have stunning weather), I would love to try camping. But as it is, having a roof over my head and a mattress to sleep on is still a very nice luxury at the end of the day.

My original plan had been to walk the West Highland Way in six days. I’d needed to change that because of availability of places to stay along the way, so I cut the walk down to 5 days. This left me an extra day in Glen Nevis/Fort William, and before beginning the walk I thought that I might like to climb Ben Nevis. But sitting in my hostel that night, sipping my sweet tea and listening to tales from the other travelers, I knew that I was done. My body was tired. I could summit that mountain another time- and besides, I hadn’t come to Scotland to climb a mountain. I’d come to walk the West Highland Way, and I’d done a good job of it.

Tony’s radio buzzed and he leaped into action. Before running out the door he raced over and gave me a big hug. The Norwegian man asked if he could have my walking stick. An American girl from Arizona asked what the West Highland Way had been like. I smiled at her. “It was an adventure,” I said.

Previous Post: Day 4 on the West Highland Way

To Summer, To Travel, To Time

June 23, 2016

The great summer trip of 2016 begins in less than a week, so I thought it was about time that I check back in here with an update. And the only update I really have has already been said: I leave in less than a week!

Does time seem to be moving fast for anyone else? Like, really really fast? Until only a few days ago I was convinced that it was still May, that I had over a month to plan and prepare for my trip, that the days are continuing to lengthen, that summer was still far off.

But all of a sudden it was summer, and work had ended for the year, and the only thing that was looming before me was my big trip. I should be used to this by now, it’s been my pattern for the last three years: work ends around the middle of June, and I promptly hop on a plane for Europe.

So why does it feel like this trip is still weeks and weeks away? Last year, on the first day of summer, I was doing this:

I’d already been walking on the Camino for a few days, life at home felt like it was another world away.

My trip begins a bit later than usual this year, maybe that’s part of it. Or maybe it’s just that life is speeding by so fast that I yearn to hit a pause button, and give myself some time to catch up.

But there’s no stopping time so here we go. I think that finally, in these last few days, I’ve accepted that summer is here. I’ve gone to a baseball game and drank a coke slushey and had a dish of ice cream and spent a day at the beach. I’ve stretched in the lounge chair on my porch with my feet in the sun and read a book that I was too busy to finish months ago. Two days ago I went on a 10-mile hike; tomorrow I’ll try for 12-miles. This is the most hiking I’ve done in a long, long time, and well, it’s about time.

And then next week, I’ll leave for Europe. My first stop is England, something I don’t think I even mentioned in my Summer 2016 blog post. It sort of got lost in the shuffle of my mind, and stayed lost until just a couple days ago. But- oh yeah!- I decided to fly into London because it’s been a solid 15 years since I’ve been there and I thought it could be nice to do something a little new.

This photo is from my last trip to England, all those years ago:

My friend reminded me that our original plan was to spend a few days in London, then head to Stonehenge. But in 2001, Stonehenge was closed for 5 1/2 weeks because of foot-and-mouth disease, so we went to Liverpool instead (and honestly, this was probably my vote all along… Long Live Ringo!).

It’s a bit crazy to think back to that trip- parts of it that feel like a lifetime ago, other parts that are so recent in my memory I could swear that I was just there. Wasn’t I just there? Leaving notes for our friends on scraps of paper at the hotel lobby because this was just before any of us had a cell phone; crossing the street at the wrong end of Abbey Road (and causing quite the pile up of traffic in order to get a photo); battling a cold on the train to London and the endless cups of tea to soothe my throat; noticing that a small magnolia tree was growing in the front yard of the house where George Harrison grew up.

These memories are creeping in because I finally sat down and planned some things for my three days in England. I focus on these details for a moment- there’s a Jane Austen Centre in Bath! I can finally make it to Stonehenge!- but then an email pulls me into another part of the trip. It’s from the writer’s retreat in southern France- our host has forwarded a suggested shopping list so that we’re not overwhelmed when we arrive and are whisked off to the grocery store. And then I think back to my time there three years ago, and how I was overwhelmed, and didn’t buy quite enough food. Will that happen again? What will the village be like- will it be just as I remembered, or will there be changes?

And what am I like, this time? Three years wasn’t all that long ago, and yet, I know that I am different. And certainly, I’m different than I was 15 years ago, on that first trip to London and Liverpool.

Different, and yet… still me. Always me.

There’s more, too: another Amazon package arrived at my door, it’s a guide to walking the West Highland Way. And then I need to push the days in England and the writer’s retreat from my mind, and focus on Scotland. Scotland! I know nothing about Scotland! Shouldn’t I learn something, shouldn’t I do some research? A friend warns me about the haggis, and I wonder if I will try it.

And then, finally, in the very back corner of my mind, I remember that I’m also walking a Camino. That I’m returning to Spain. I’ve barely given it any thought, because this is the thing that feels the most familiar, the most comfortable. Other than breaking in a new pair of shoes, I haven’t done much in preparation. I have all my gear, I know where I’m going; this is the thing that I don’t have to plan for.

But remember just two years ago? My fretting and my fear in the weeks before I left for Spain that first time? Wasn’t I just memorizing the Spanish words for ‘I’m allergic to nuts’ and wondering how, exactly, I was to go about hand-washing my clothing?

Ah, time. I still don’t know what to make of it, of how quickly life is streaming past, yet of how far I’ve seemed to travel in what feels like very fleeting moments. I know that in August, I’m going to be back here at my computer, in my apartment, marveling over how fast the summer just went by.

Of course I will. But I’m not at the end yet, I’m only at the very beginning. So, here’s to summer! May it be the best one yet.

But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more…

June 17, 2015

In about an hour, I leave for my second Camino. A few weeks ago, even a few days ago, I figured that this blog post wouldn’t be written until I arrived at the airport and settled in to wait for my flight. Or maybe it would be written on the flight, or else on the train ride from Paris down to Hendaye.

But instead, I’m ahead of schedule. I’ve been ahead of schedule these last few days, and it’s throwing me off a bit. Where is the scrambling, the rushing, the panicked feeling that I don’t have everything done and I’m not prepared and that I’m going to forget something?

A small part of me worries that there’s something I’m not remembering to do, but mostly, I’m on top of stuff. It’s strange. I know I’m still going to have that feeling of “what am I doing??” when the plane takes off and, better yet, when I arrive at the train station in Hendaye and set off to cross the bridge from France to Spain and into Irun, my first official steps of the Camino del Norte.

But right now, this sort of feels ‘old hat’. I did a small training hike the other day with my pack ‘Camino loaded’, and as I was stuffing things into compartments, it all came back to me: how the sleeping bag fills out the bottom, how my soap and toiletries come next, topped with my rain jacket and ziplocs filled with clothes, how my bag with electronics and cords settles in at the top. Without having to think, my hands just moved along, filling my pack in the way that I used to last summer.

I’m at my parents house right now, where I’m leaving my car for the next month. I only arrived here yesterday, having spent most of the day finishing up work for the year. I imagined that I would spend my evening with maps spread out in front of me, jotting down notes, sending off emails, doing all of those last minute, pre-trip things. But instead, I went for a stroll around my neighborhood and saw lightening bugs blinking across the corn fields. I sipped a coke slushey and watched Apollo 13. I had one of the most relaxing summer evenings that I could imagine.

And now I’m sitting in my old bedroom with my Camino things spread out before me, not quite fully packed. My outfit is arranged on my bed, I’ll change into it shortly: a long pair of hiking pants, a deep blue t-shirt, underwear, socks. I remember this moment so vividly last year, how I was struggling to take a deep breath, panicked about what I was about to get myself into.

This year I feel so calm, and I love it. I think I’ve been ready to get back on the Camino for months, and now it’s here. Round two. The weather is supposed to be beautiful for my first day’s walk on Friday, so stay tuned for some gorgeous photos of the northern coast of Spain. Here’s a photo of a map of the route, taken from my guidebook (so pardon the poor quality of the map… but you’ll be able to see the route, which is the most important thing).

The solid red line is the route I’m walking this year, the Camino del Norte which branches off to the Camino Primitivo; the dotted red line is the Camino Frances, which I walked last year.

So here we go, 31-days on the Camino del Norte and Camino Primitivo… 500 more beautiful and strenuous and magical miles through Spain. Stay tuned!

Next Post: Day 1 on the Camino del Norte

The Good and Beautiful Days of Patience

May 5, 2015

I’m sipping a glass of wine (a tempranillo, got to prepare for my Camino!), and eating a small bowl of potato chips. At some point along the Camino, potato chips became my go-to snack (I don’t think this counts as tapas) to go along with a glass of wine. I think it was my friend Mirra who first introduced me to this combination, when we took a bottle of Rioja and a bag of papas fritas down to the banks of a river in Najera, to sit and talk and stretch out our legs after a long day of walking.

In the last week or so, I’ve been consumed with memories from the first portion of my walk on the Camino. I think it’s because everyone’s on the Camino, these days: blog friends and Philadelphia Camino friends and even a real-life Camino friend, from last year. They’re posting blog posts and photos- “I made it over the Pyrenees!”, and “Here’s Belorado in the rain” and “Passed through the small, quaint village of Ages”.

I’ve loved seeing these updates; I click on every photo so it enlarges on my screen, and I press my face in close to examine the image for the tiny details that I might have forgotten, to peer at each stretch of road, knowing that I walked the same path nearly a year ago. It almost makes me want to return to the Frances, to walk that road again.

But it’s too soon to go back to that particular path, not yet anyway. The Norte is still my plan for June, although I have to say- this year’s preparations and anticipations are completely different from what I experienced last year.

Maybe that’s one reason this blog has been a little quiet. I assumed that by now, I’d have a lot to write about- my training and the things I’ll be packing and my thoughts and impressions of a second Camino. I’ve had so many thoughts, but they’re all still muddled up there in my head. Sometimes, I still wonder if I shouldn’t be spending the month in France, writing, instead of walking. Sometimes I worry that I’m going back to look for something I never found on the first Camino, something I can’t even identify. Sometimes I think I want a re-do of certain aspects from the end of my Camino. Sometimes I think that if I had figured out more about my life in this past year, I wouldn’t feel the need to go back for another Camino.

But a lot of those thoughts are based in fear and control, aren’t they? I still want to choose the exact, perfect thing to do this summer, the thing that will help me out the most in my life, the thing that will point me in the “right” direction. Nothing I do this summer will really give me that, of course, and finding direction is just about taking steps towards something- anything- and then figuring it out as you move along. And in this past year, I’ve been doing that. I just need to keep moving, and practice some patience.

So that’s been my word, lately. Patience. I tell this to myself as I sit in a long line of traffic on the way to work. I tell this to myself as I hurry through the last miles of a training hike, my voice saying, “Slow down. Not amount of rushing will bring this Camino any closer.” I try to practice patience as I look through photos of friends on their Camino, envious of their days spent walking through Spain. I try to practice patience with my writing, as I wait to hear back about an essay I’ve submitted, as I wait to find the right words to say something.

And maybe the biggest is this: practicing patience about the direction of my life. I’ll get to wherever I’m going, I’m sure of it. I want to be there NOW, I want to have all the answers to so many of the questions. I know that I’m going to be okay, and yet, I just want a flash of an image from my life, 5 years from now, of the 39 (yikes) year old me. Just a little reassurance that the decisions I’m making now, the things I’m testing out now, are going to lead me somewhere good.

So in the meantime I’m just going to keep trucking along- drinking my wine and eating my potato chips, hiking miles through a park, practicing Spanish phrases, writing my essays and making to-do lists for my next Camino. Despite the unknowns, these are such good and beautiful days.

Should I Walk Another Camino?

February 5, 2015

Prices are already increasing on flights to Europe this summer, and from what I can gather, they’re not going to get any lower. It’s only the beginning of February, and while it seems like I should have plenty of time to make a decision about what I want to do this summer, if the answer is “walk another Camino” then I think I’d better decide soon.

The biggest question that I’m asking myself is this: Do I want to spend a month doing something very similar to what I just did last year?

As an American, I’m very lucky to have two months of vacation time every summer. Right now, I don’t have to make big sacrifices in order to travel to Spain and walk for a month: I have the time, I don’t have to quit my job or leave a husband and kids, and with most of my gear already purchased, this is a fairly affordable trip (if you consider what it would typically cost to spend a month in Europe).

But by the same token, I look at this chunk of time and think: I have two months (well, actually just a month, since there’s a July wedding back in the states that I don’t want to miss), and I might not always have this same freedom and flexibility. Is there anywhere else I’d like to go? Is there anything else I’d like to do?

The answer, of course, is yes. There are so many new things I’d like to try and new places I’d like to travel to, but maybe the real question is this: Is there anything else I’d rather do right now than walk another Camino?

And I’m struggling to come up with anything else. There are lots of factors, of course. There are places I could travel to and experiences I could have, but they’d require me to go alone, and to be alone for most of the trip. I don’t mind solo-traveling- and in fact, there are lots of things about it that I love- but I worry that long-term solo-traveling would be hard for me. The writer’s retreat in France was perfect, and so was the Camino: I had lots of time alone, AND the chance to interact with the same people for weeks at a time.

But honestly, I just want to walk another Camino. I felt this as I arrived in Santiago- I want to keep walking. I’ve felt it in the months since I’ve been home, and when I think about this summer, nothing that I can come up with is as enticing as another long walk.

There are fears and worries. Is it too soon to walk another Camino? In many ways, I’m still processing my trip from last summer, and I worry that rushing off to do another walk is going to blur the lines between the first experience and a new one.

I had such an amazing time on the Camino Frances and I know that the next walk is going to be different. I worry that I will compare the two, that I will always be chasing that first experience and that I am going to be disappointed. While the Camino del Norte is gaining in popularity, the numbers of pilgrims who walk this route is significantly fewer than the Frances. Of the pilgrims who received a compostela in Santiago in 2014, 68% walked the Frances and about 6% walked the Norte. I’ll still be able to meet other people, but it is going to be a very, very different atmosphere than what I knew last year.

I have these visions of myself on the Norte: waking up early and stopping whenever I want for a café con leche, arriving at my albergue in the early afternoon and then lounging on a beach for a few hours. Meeting up with friends at night for tapas and wine. Honestly, is there a better way to spend a month than this??

But the reality is going to be different. The Camino Frances wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, and the Camino del Norte is definitely not going to be a walk in the park. This is going to be a much more physically challenging route, and I should probably kiss goodbye my multiple café con leche stops, as the route is more isolated and doesn’t pass through as many towns and villages (although past pilgrims, please correct me if I’m wrong!). My walking days will probably be longer because of the challenge of the walk, and there may be many days when I will be forced to keep walking in order to find a town with an albergue.

Having not studied the route very closely, I have no idea how often I’ll actually be close to a beach. And even though I should have learned by now that I can make friends and that a Camino is one of the easier places to do it, I still worry that without as many pilgrims, I’ll spend a lot more time alone.

All of this being said, I still feel the call of doing another Camino. It’s not out of my system, and if anything, it’s only just gotten into my system. I love the idea of attempting something even more physically challenging, and I love the idea of entire days of walking where I don’t encounter very many people. Those were my favorite days on the Camino Frances, after all. I love the idea of trying to learn a little Spanish before I go, I love the thought of getting to see even more of Spain, I love the idea of being by the mountains and the ocean, and maybe I won’t get to drink as many café con leches, but I love the idea that they can once again be part of my daily routine.

And finally, here’s the thing: I’ve already done a pilgrimage. Maybe the Norte will be another one (and certainly in some ways it will be), but I don’t necessarily need to have the same kind of experience that I did last year. On that first Camino, I knew that I wanted to be on a pilgrimage. I wanted to walk the entire thing, I wanted to always stay in albergues, I wanted to stop in churches, I wanted Santiago to be my destination.

This time? I just want to walk again. I want to be open to whatever kind of experience the Camino will give me, and maybe it will just be a long, quiet walk. Maybe I will make some really strong connections again. Maybe I’ll find that it’s even more of a pilgrimage for me than the Frances was. Maybe I’ll finish and immediately want to do another Camino. Maybe I’ll finish and know that I’m done walking.

If you’ve read this far, thanks for bearing with me as I get all of these thoughts onto the page. And feel free to chime in with your opinion: Should I walk another Camino? If you were in my shoes (speaking of shoes, I’ll need to buy a new pair), would you do another long walk? Or would you decide that it’s time for a different kind of experience?

Pre-Camino Visions.

April 22, 2014

I have this sort of ominous feeling that I’m in my last few weeks of quiet and calm. Everything is still fairly relaxed: I’m going to work and seeing friends and family, going on hikes and occasionally picking up something to bring along on my Camino. There is still so much left to be done, but I don’t feel as if there is any hurry- surely, I must still have plenty of time?

And I do, kind of. I have about 2 months until I leave, and that sounds like a lot. Panic hasn’t set in, but it’s like I can sense it, waiting just around the corner. I’m afraid it’s going to suddenly hit and I’ll feel like I won’t have enough time: not enough time to train with my pack (which I still have to buy) or time to research all of my travel plans or time to work out what I want to accomplish on this long walk.

But that panic isn’t here, not yet. I’m still settled into this pre-Camino time, going on hikes when I can, and dreaming idly about my summer plans. It’s still a nice phase to be in.

Yesterday I went on a hike, at a nearby park. I’d been walking for over 2 hours, approaching mile 7, when I saw a deer. I’d been walking on a small stretch of pavement before going back into the woods on a trail, and the deer was positioned perfectly: far off in the distance between two lines of trees, standing in a still silhouette.

“Don’t move, don’t move,” I whispered, as I swung my backpack around to reach in for my iPhone, so I could snap a photo. The deer was far away, but because it was standing so still, I thought that it must have sensed me. I zoomed in with my phone and took a picture, but it was blurry and I could barely make out the deer.

So I inched closer, taking steps through the tall grass crunching under my feet. The deer was standing so perfectly still, and with each few steps I would take another photo. Two steps, photo. Two steps, photo.

I couldn’t believe my luck. That deer wasn’t moving!

I was still far away but finally, I realized that something was wrong. The deer hadn’t moved in a few minutes- not an inch. I blinked, and then shifted my position. Was that actually a deer? Or… a tree trunk?

I waded off-trail through knee-high grass to take over a dozen photos of a tree trunk that I thought was a deer.

So, these are my days, lately. Long spring hikes with my camera, dreaming about the things that I’ll see this summer.

I still think it looks like a deer…