Am I excited? Over the top! Am I anxious? Too much so. Am I ready to be on The Way again? More than ready.

Cindy and I are once again meeting in DC for an overnight stay before we head to Madrid. We thought about just powering through this time and jumping on the Madrid flight the same day, but my connection was too close. So, we have an evening to relax and to begin to decompress from the past few anxious weeks.

We’re also spending a night in Madrid before we take the train to Logroño – where we departed from last August. We’ll acclimate there for a couple of days, then taxi back (east) to Viana on the morning of the third day. We’ll explore in that small town for a few hours, then start our walk (west); and overnight one more time in Logroño. A six mile walk. Easy first day.

The second day is about 12 miles to Ventosa where a friend of Cindy’s (who will have been walking from St Jean Pied de Port) will meet us. That could be interesting as she’ll have her ‘sea legs’ and we’ll just be starting. She may be our ‘scout’ – securing lodging for all of us as she could get to that night’s stay before we do. Ha. At least until we get our sea legs.

Word on the Camino forum is that it’s busier this year – even busier than last year (which was a Holy Year). Generally, bigger groups start at certain times of the year- referred to as ‘waves’. We’re hoping that by the time we get there, some of the biggest groups will have moved on ahead of us. But we’ll just go with the flow and not worry about it.

Did my backpack end up lighter than last year? Nope. But it’s still doable. And it’ll get lighter as I go. Using up toiletries and the postcards I painted to give away.

How about my Spanish… well, I learned more words – and I use the term ‘learned’ loosely. Haha. In order to speak a language, you have to think in that language; and I’m still not there. Spanish is actually a third language for me, so it’s doubly hard to retain it all. I’ll do my best!

If you wait until everything is perfect, you’ll never go anywhere. And we all know nothing is perfect.

So let’s GO!

(I’ll be posting here only about once a week or so. Last year, we found that by the time we arrived at our albergue for the day, we were too tired to write much and just wanted to relax and spend time exploring and/or visiting with fellow pilgrims. I will be posting a daily synopsis and a few photos on Find Penguins, if you’re interested.  You don’t have to join, just click the ‘Follow’ link.)

“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” Jennifer Lee