Quick post

Internet sketchy. Just a pic. Camino tomorrow.

We made it

Long flight. Lousy airport. Subway good except for the ticket lady trying to rip us off. Double decker city tour bus is awesome. Madrid is amazing city. Incredible architecture with quaint streets. Muy tiendas y restaurants. Ate at a wild food market. Paella! Resting for now. More adventure later. Ciao!
Update: Well we went back out into the city. Dinner at typical European street cafe. This is the busiest city I think we've ever seen. More people on the streets at 10 o'clock at night than there is at noon. On to Leon tomorrow.

Camino de Santiago

A little history..
This is one of the three major christian pilgrimage destinations; the other two are to Jerusalem and Rome.
History, tradition, and legend tend to get mixed together as to how Saint James remains came to be interred in Santiago de Compostela. It is believed that James preached the gospel in this region after the death of Jesus, he returned to Jerusalem, was beheaded in AD 42, and his remains were returned to Spain and buried in the quiet town of Libredon, which later became Santiago.
In 813 a shepherd boy, Palayo, saw bright lights over the meadow. The bishop declared the boy had found Saint James remains. Records from as early as AD 950 speak if Christians making pilgrimages to Santiago de Compestela.
In 1993 UNESCO declared the Camino de Santiago a World Heritage site.
You can google this topic for much more information.

Camino de Davidson

On location testing of ipod touch and equipment. Beautiful morning.

Camino De Clifton Farm

(From Ed) In preparing for our Camino we decided to do a practice walk with full pack.  In July we traveled to Joan's mother's farm in Virginia and found a great place to amble through the Blue Ridge mountains.  This would give us a great opportunity to test drive our clothing, shoes, pack, etc.  It was an overcast day yet very beautiful as we traversed through the foothills on a fairly well maintained gravel road.  Pictures of our day can be found HERE.  We encountered many critters, from cows to farmhands.  What we didn't realize is that we would get to test our rain gear.  We had walked about six miles under cloudy skies but then the rain began to fall.  We walked the remaining three miles in a pretty steady shower.  We found our rain jackets and back pack covers to work quite well.  The biggest problem we had was our shoes were soaked.  Walking (or rather, squishing) was a little uncomfortable.  The bigger problem, we found, was the next day.  My shoes had dried by the next morning.  Joan's shoes were wet for the next three days.  This prompted a frantic search for a better pair of hiking shoes with less leather/nubuck and more nylon.  After trying many pairs of shoes she ended up with a pair from, of all places, LL Bean.  We have decided that on days with much rain we will probably wear our spare sandals with socks (to prevent blistering).  Anyway, the walk that day was very educational and much fun.  More to come!

Preparing our Rucsacks

Ed and I have been  gathering our few personal items that we will carry on our Camino.  The first item we purchased was our rucsack (that would be a backpack to you Americans). Fit and size was of great importance as we don't want to carry a large burden.  I got a Gregory Jade 28 and Ed got a Gregory Z30. We also got the Camelbak reservoir that fits inside. We have also purchased pants, shorts, shirts, socks and some other clothing items of high tech nature. As we will only carry two sets of clothes, they must be able to resist odor, and easy to hand wash and quick dry.  We are waiting for our one season sleeping bags to arrive and hope that they will meet our needs. We will carry a few personal hygiene items as well.  That should meet most of our physical needs, other than food which we will eat along the Way and won't need to pack.

We have also been researching the path and accommodations along the Way. There will be no need to prebook lodging as we will sleep wherever we end our day. Our plan will be to walk about 20K (12 miles) a day. Another important skill ,will be the ability to speak Spanish. I study almost daily and Ed becomes very entertained as I work on pronunciations.

Spain It Will Be

In the past couple of years, Ed has expressed an interest in going to Europe. We have looked at several options such as guided tours and cruises, but not until we learned of the Camino were we ready to commit. So on August 29 we will leave for Spain and on September 1 we will begin our walk from Leon to Santiago de Compostela and on to Finistere. We plan to walk the 400K (250 miles) in three weeks.