I blame 4 people
The following people to blame for this are, in no particular order:
My husband
Rick Steves
Jeanee James
My friend Sarah Sheerin
I first heard about the Camino de Santiago years and years ago. “A 500 mile pilgrimage trail in Spain that’s like a thousand years old and takes a month to walk?! That’s amazing!” The desire to at least visit the end point and its sublime cathedral in Santiago kept popping up as an idea when I planned many many trips but nothing ever worked out. Santiago or its camino was never that perfect last puzzle piece that slid easily into place. So I forgot about it, leaving it to haunt the sticky notes tucked in my Lonely Planet Spain book.
Last month, my roomie from college, Ulfie, announced she was moving to Germany. We haven’t seen each other since forever so I immediately started to make plans to go visit. (I should add her to the people to blame, come to think of it!) The part of Germany she’ll be in (Hamburg), I’ve already seen though, so I started to think about what else I’d like to see while I was over there. The list was very long - my Pinterest positively bulges with pictures of windy-laned Euro villages - but nothing really popped out at me as a “need-to-do-it-right-now” option. I bought two more guidebooks to add to my information overload and kept thinking about it. Germany. France. Re-read Belgium for the 3rd time. (Molly fun fact: I read guidebooks like novels, from page 1 til the index. )
And then there I was, sitting on the couch one evening, minding my own business, completely innocent. Husband turns on the TV, pokes at the Hulu app, and Rick Steves appears - his usual uniform of button-down shirt and no-iron khakis this time supplemented with a jaunty red bandanna around his neck. He was in Pamplona, about to watch the running of the bulls. The episode continued through northern Spain and ended up on the Camino.
“THAT’S IT!”
The roller coaster ride of obsession commenced. COULD I do it? Should I do it? Why would I do this? How could I arrange stuff at work so I could do most of the stuff I needed from an iPad, 7 time zones away? What stuff do I need to buy to do this crazy thing? The question that stopped me the most often was always my first: Could I do it? Physically, was I up to it?
The internet heard me ask this, twirled around, and introduced me to the day-by-day Camino vlog of Jeanee James. She’s about my size and my fitness level, and was also on her own, so seeing her do it made me think I could too, especially because her walk dates are similar to what mine would be, almost identical to the day. (So nice when the universe is trying to send you a message and it enunciates, right?) I also checked with my friend Sarah who did the Camino a few years ago. Her response was in all caps: ‘YES! DO IT!”
So I blame you people for what follows, whatever that may be. ;-)