Author: Charles Crowley
Shades of New Mexico
You see these plastic wrapped rolls of hay all the time as you are walking. It seems like a good idea. I haven’t tried to lift one but I imagine they are pretty heavy and it seems very unlikely that one might roll away in the wind unless they had one heck of a storm.
4/25 WynChar Diary
Miles: 7.4 miles, from 3 to 374, 915 feet up, 735 feet downDogs in bars: 2Dogs Charlie played ball with in bars: 1Rude pilgrims who hogged a whole three-person bench for him and his backpack and warned us not to sit there while we sat on cold cement steps: 1, but we are definitely not
Old-timey playground equipment
We were on a walk yesterday and came upon this little playground. I remember teeter-totters but not one made of a log. And, of course, the universal playground sign in the US has a teeter-totter on it even though no US playground has had a teeter-totter in many years. Far too dangerous for our delicate
Welcome to California
We have a couple of apps that help us follow the Camino but when we get within a mile or so of our hotel we switch to good old Google maps directions. This is the road we were on: I was getting spoken directions and it said “continue on California 340”. We did some searching
Look! A cow!
I use the photo identification app built into my phone. Usually it works fine, although not as well as Google Lens. For example, I took this photo yesterday: and it said “Asian knotweed”. Great. Then we saw this cow with unusual markings that we had never seen before and we wondered what breed it might
4/24 WynChar Diary
No short items today. We walked 7.5 miles, up 950 feet and down 830 feet, actual altitude ranged from 46 to 466. In an early blog, 2013, I noted that the pleasant phrase “rolling hills” is actually not that much fun to walk. Some were quite steep. But today was a very nice walk. The
Coffee talk
We are fond of the cafe con leche in Spain. In Italy having coffee with milk after breakfast marks you as a child or a tourist. In Spain there is some of that but it is not as strong. In Basque Country you just order a cafe con leche and that’s that. As soon as
4/23 WynChar Diary
Train stops missed: 1Kind Spanish women who tried to help the rookies but was a few seconds too late: 1Miles: 7.1Rain: a little but we were already insideEarly morning walks through Santander: 1Hot and cold pipelines wondered about: 1 As careful readers of this blog know, we are “short-haul” pilgrims who like to walk 7-9
Paying the piper
They used to say about the Camino that “cash is king” because few places took tarjetas. But the pandemic and technology changed that. Touchless was in. We had about €280 in cash from our last trip and now, after two weeks, that is getting low. The exchange rate, which becomes relevant later, in the rant