#10 - Walking the Camino - May 1, 2016

8th Walking Day

Book - 12 miles

Map My Walk - 13.9 miles, 6 1/2 hours

Fitbit - 32,512 steps, 13.86 miles

I'm making a short list of first world peregrinos problems:

1- the zipper in my pants broke....dead, not fixable. But I have a safety pin holding both sides together so I remain modest. 

2- my trekking poles have rubber (or some other rubber like) tips on their ends. See, in Oregon we honor the edges of the trail and choose not to chew up the trail with pointy titanium tips.   Here the trail edges are hard and rocky, so it probably doesn't matter. I have those nice rubber tips - or I did until one came off on a nasty rocky uphill part of the trail. So now when I use them the right pole makes a nice soft 'thud'. The left pole makes an irritating **crunch** with each step.  I'm kinda OCD when it comes to things being equal and centered. 

3- Rays pants are slippery microfiber and he must strap his pack below his waistband. Which.....makes his zipper opening smaller than he is used  to.. And 

he worries about this?? ....not fully realizing what women have to put up with on the trail

4- last one. WIFI that does not work in your albergue because too many people are trying to log on

5- really last one - noisy Germans

As you may guess from my ruminations the trail was much the same as yesterday.  Lots of farmland

Many many vineyards; most are severely pruned. Apparently wine grapes are done differently that Brunner Manor vines for grape juice

Artichokes

See the windmills?  Yes, a lot of wind today. But I'm willing to sacrifice my comfort for green energy

Along the trail we see new plants. Something pink 

Drier countryside with pines and sagebrush like looking plants

Cottonwoods. I'm not showing the trees but their fluffy seeds all over trail

We're searching for mature poppy seed pods so we can add red poppies to our orange ones

I fell off the trail (just a bit off) when I reached too far for a pod. Dang pack out me off balance

This house was adorned like it was Christmas time

At mid day we entered the ancient town of Viana. Made our way to the town plaza and serendipitously found there to be a Sunday Market. Actually today is Mothers Day so all of this was probably for mothers

Flowers

Spices and lots of other stuff

A fountain with four spigots for drinking 

And little kids drinking - they stopped and looked at me instead of continuing to drink

Ray eating lunch and our sandwich. 

At noon church bells rang joyously and throngs of people poured out the church doors and into the square. The children clustered around 'face painting'

Outside the town we passed a nifty park where an extended family was probably having a Mothers Day bar-b-que. We stood and watched and tried to look like hungry peligrinos who needed help. But it didn't work. 

We headed on to Logrono, our day's destination. It's a big town (200,000) so you know already I don't like it. Crossed the Rio Ebro

Looked for our desired albergue which was noted on our map but did not exist at #10 Sagasta  (another first world problem...maps that are not up to date). We were afraid to spend much time looking for a comfy alberge...with, perhaps a double room, so we went to the Mumiciple Alberge and got a bunk bed for 7 euros. An hour later the albergue was "completo".

And ten bunk beds 

And some Germans

Tomorrow we head for Ventosa, 11.96 miles away. It will be Labor Day and people say everything but albergues will be closed. We have three apples, two bananas, three Bimbo sweet rolls, sliced cheese, salami and half of a bar of chocolate that we thought was a candy bar but turned out to be chocolate for melting in hot milk...it's good anyway. 

If I can connect with wifi, I'll send this tonight. If not we all suffer #4 above.