Final Frantic Days

As we move into the final days of preparation for our departure for Spain 5 days from now, it's amazing how much stuff has to be done. Leaving home for two months is not the same as going on a two week holiday, we're finding out. Our list includes:

• Arranging for police surveillance of our property 
• Taking care of lawn mowing & fall cleanup
• Selecting the right overseas medical insurance for our travels (hint: it's a lot cheaper to get it when you're 20 than it is at 70 - a lot!)
• Notifying the Visa card and our local bank that we'll be overseas -so they won't shut the cards down when a charge appears from France or Spain
• Pre-paying for our utilities and car loan so that we don't damage our credit scores.

We've been getting all sorts of wonderful send-off "gifts" (remember my "GIRLS" discussion in the last post?) from our friends,family and neighbors in Arundel, Our neighbors threw a BBQ party for us last Friday and even  the weather co-operated - it was gorgeous and mild all day. Here's a shot of the T-shirts they gave us, along with lots of best wishes, support & love!

If you can't make it out, it says: "We're with you all The Way from Arundel". The beautiful model for the shirt is Joan, of course.

As many of our followers know, Joan & I are doing this pilgrimage with  a goal of raising $5,000 in donations to the Merrimack Valley Hospice House. Joan was the driving force and inspiration for creating, financing, building and licensing this incredible 21 bed facility in Haverhill, MA during her final years as CEO of the Home Health Foundation. Their hospice service was an extraordinarily calming & caring presence for my mother during her last days and we continue to support the Hospice with our own annual gifts and donations. As Joan & I thought more about why we were doing this pilgrimage, we both realized that our purpose had to be something greater than just a nice long walk in Spain. So just "click" on the link between this blog and the Home Health & Hospice Foundation website; it's located on the right hand corner of the blog banner. It's 100% secure and your charitable donation (tax-deductible, of course) would mean a great deal to us and the wonderful people at the Hospice House. So, please come "walk with us" by helping out with a donation. We'll occasionally keep reminding folks as we blog along the way over the next two months. Back in the Middle Ages, the Knights Templar and other church orders founded and ran many hospital facilities along the route to Santiago to house and care for the injured, sick and even dying pilgrims who passed along the way. In many respects, this was the genesis of today's hospice movement.

Joan & I have both been going through our final packing and repacking to try to get the weight of our backpacks down to below 15 pounds. We're both using lightweight 33 liter Osprey Talon backpacks and then sub-dividing our stuff by function into small 2 & 4 liter Sea to Summit & Eagle Creek bags. Here's a photo of whats going in my pack.

The book on the right is our James Briererly guide book to the Camino, and the puppy dog is in honor of our recently departed Golden Retriever pack-mate, Ceili. For 14 years she always loved to go with us for walks in our fields and swimming in the rivers & ocean, so it seems fitting that we bring her along with us on our long walk to the sea. I'm carrying a few ounces of her ashes to give to the Atlantic when we reach Finisterre, an isolated point of land about 60 miles northeast of Santiago, a place which in ancient days literally was believed to be the end of the earth - beyond Finisterre, in the vast and unknown sea, the maps warned that "here there be monsters!".

So our next posting should be we get to Pamplona or maybe from St. Jean Port a Pied in France, where we start UP for two days crossing the Pyrenees Mountains. Wish us "Buen Camino!

Two weeks from today we leave St. Jean Port a Pied. Why?

Why are we doing this? Joan & I are about to set off on a walking pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain that will cover 500 miles and take us two months.  "Why" is a really good question and one that each of us is trying to answer – to our family, friends and especially to ourselves. Like much else in life, this quest has many layers of meaning, both universal and personal. Finding a perspective – a place from which to look at what's happening to, and around us, and give it some sort of meaning – is hard but it’s a subject that seems to be well suited to mulling over on the long training walks I’ve been talking to get physically ready for this adventure. Most of the walks  I’ve been doing over the past six months have been with Joan but recently she’s been really busy with per-departure  work & family activities, so I’ve been doing my eight to ten mile walks alone. In Spain we plan on making daily hikes of about 10-12 miles and carrying a backpack weighing about 13 pounds, although the distance will depend on terrain, distance between towns and the weather.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far as finding a perspective on the "why" question. There are at least four components – viewpoints, if you will – to the matrix I’m thinking about applying (I sound like an analytical nerd or an engineer, don’t I?).My shorthand name for how I hope to look at what happens to us is GIRLS. Before you jump to the obvious (and wrong) conclusion, let me explain. I’m talking about this:

• ·         Giving

• ·         Receiving

• ·         Learning

• ·         “Sparkles”

That’s what the acronym GIRLS means - a way to look at what experiences we have during a period on the Camino.

GI - What did I give of myself to people- to other perigrinos or people living in the space I pass through on my journey. A kind word, encouragement, food or drink will do. Or something bigger like offering some of myself to a new friendship or experience.

R – This may be the flip side of giving or it could be my awareness of an experience that has “stuck” or been especially meaningful to me that day (or night). Perhaps hearing the Gregorian chants at the Santo Domingo monastery in Silos near Burgos, being in the place where El Cid once stood or perhaps walking on 2,000 year old Roman roads. It could be from a conversation with others or just recognition of some bit of the wisdom of the ages.

L – My mother once told me (actually, she told me many times) that her secret to a long and fulfilling life was two-fold: always be curious about life and try to keep a positive attitude. Since she lived 101 years and enjoyed almost all of it, I figure being curious is all about learning new things all the time. Having a calcified mind and outlook on life is a sure way to get both broken. I’m think I’m really going to try to learn some passable Spanish and dig deeply into some – as yet unknown – aspect of the Camino experience.

S – “Sparkles”. That’s the things that happen that make a moment special and stick forever in your memory and mind. It could be big, like making it to the top of the Col de Lepoeder and seeing Roncesvalles lying far below in the twilight after climbing up 4,000 feet in the Pyrenees Mountains. It could be a small thing like a thirst-quenching sweet drink from the fountain in a small town square after a long hot afternoon walking on the flat & endless plains. Or maybe the sparkle will just be seeing a butterfly land on a flower while I’m resting by the side of the road or  talking over tapas to a fellow-pilgrim and ending up with a unexpected moment of soul-mate recognition. The funny thing is, you know “sparkles’ when they happen. 

My son Steve gave me a very light & small Olympus voice recorder last weekend at a family multi-birthday party & clambake we had at our home in Arundel. I plan to use it to capture our thoughts and impressions over the next two months using the GIRLS framework as a model. If this Camino does turn out to be a transformational experience for Joan and me, I want to have a coherent way to describe the experience and what happened to my family and friends. We will be bringing a small Panasonic camera as well, so hopefully there will be pictures to go with the words. Let’s see what happens!

Things that go “bump” in the night!

It’s no only 15 days until we leave and of course I’m starting to think of all the things that could go wrong or break once we start our 800 kilometer, two month pilgrimage walk. I’m not so much worried about my equipment, since except for my walking poles breaking in half, the backpack ripping apart somehow or the soles of my hiking boots falling off while crossing a stream, there isn’t a lot of equipment to break, actually. That’s one of the benefits of being a hiker- it’s a low tech sport in today’s high-tech world. I was reminded of this the other day when we stopped by the New England Ski Museum in Franconia, NH and had a chance to look over some of the vintage equipment they have on display. Back when I was an aspiring ski racer at Dartmouth in the ‘50’s, our high-end equipment was Austrian wood skis & leather boots and French long-thong bindings. Today it’s carbon-fiber skis and slippery bubble-fabric racing suits.

Anyway, the things that wake me up at 3 AM –my “bumps in the night” – are more about problems with my “engine”, not equipment. By that I mean my body, which after 78 years, has taken a fair amount of abuse and sometimes suffered poor maintenance as well. Here’s what worries me:

• ·         My right ankle. I wear a Blaze orthotic brace to hold the ankle parts together. The doctor says it will need a fusion operation soon. Will I make it through the pilgrimage or will the ankle give out somewhere in Spain? So far we’ve put in about 350 miles of training walks and its feeling sort of OK now. But last week it started to hurt more than usual and that worries me.

• ·         My left knee. A year ago, my doc said it would need a total knee replacement because I was getting pretty close to a bone on bone situation. I’ve had two Synvisc injections so far, the last eight months ago. I’ve lost 85 pounds and exercised faithfully at the gym and walking. The knee feels just fine now. But two months of daily walking 10-12 miles is a lot of punishment.

• ·         My right knee. I had a total knee replacement in 2005. So far everything is fine but these things only last (they say) between ten to fifteen years. I’m getting close.

• ·         My gut. It was only two years ago that my life was saved by being close to Mass General Hospital and their staff of wonderful doctors. What happens if I have another bleed out in the middle of some Spanish no-where?

I have learned that almost everyone walking the Camino endures pain and sometimes injury but that enduring the pain is part of the transformational experience. I can understand how that works for blisters and shin-splints. I expect I will have those discomforts as well. But my “things that go bump” seem different and not something that I could just work though if they break. That worries me because this is such a big thing we’re doing and I don’t want to screw it up.

It also makes me think as I walk along in my training walks, alone with my thoughts step by step, about what it will mean for me to persevere, to face adversity & pain and yet persist. It’s very easy to rationalize taking the exit ramp off the highway when the roadway gets rough and bumpy. Cruising along through life has become easy and that’s what most of us do most of the time. We’re conditioned as modern humans to avoid pain and discomfort, to stay warm and well fed however we can. But what will happen if and when things go really wrong for me? If one of those worries I’ve listed above actually happens?

What I’m hoping is that my dedication to completing this life journey will over-ride my normal human inclination to take the easy way out and quit (obviously I’m not talking about life-threatening issues like a bleed-out here). But I really don’t know how I will react and I’ve told Joan that she will need to be alert for any of my “whining signs” that something is wrong. That’s one of the wonderful things about having a life partner with me on this journey. I don’t have to carry the entire worry-load myself – and that works both ways!

Getting Our Ups & Downs!

Exactly four weeks from today we’ll be touching down in Madrid after our long overnight flight from Boston (via Newark - I know, I know ~ I broke Rule # 2 –“Never Fly Newark!, but it was the only United flight from Boston that fit). This whole Camino thing -it’s starting to get “real” now.

Yesterday I went out and bought a new lighter backpack at REI to save 1&1/2 pounds of weight. My old Gregory Z40 weighs 52 ounces so I replaced it with a Osprey Talon 33 that weighs only 29 ounces. This will get me down to 12 &1/2 pounds on my back with everything I need for two months. No tents, sleeping bag, cooking stuff or food of course, since this is a journey where we will stay in hostels and eat pilgrim meals most of the time. I will carry a couple of Cliff energy bars for emergencies! Check out Joan's packing list in the previous blog posting to get an idea of how to pack really light.

A few days ago Joan & I drove over to York, Maine to climb the closest small mountain in our area. This is Mt. Agamenticus, which rises a majestic 700 feet in a vast conservation area overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. From the top we had a clear view of Mt. Washington to the north and Mt. Monadnock to the west in New Hampshire as well as the tall buildings in Boston, 50 miles to the south.

As a former skier, I was interested to learn about the history of this small New England ski area.

The "Big A" was opened in1964 and was a unique “upside down” ski area with a 400 car summit parking lot next to its main lodge. The area had a 2,400 foot double chairlift, a 1,200 foot T-Bar, and a rope tow, with snow-making and night skiing. While Agamenticus attempted to position itself in the early 1970s with special “learn to ski” programs and a freestyle ski school, it soon found itself in financial trouble. After the 1975 ski season, a huge real estate development on Mt. Agamenticus was proposed, with plans to build up to 3,500 homes. Faced with strong local opposition from residents in York and Berwick, the development was scrapped, the ski area closed, and the land put into conservation status. Today, the 10,000 acre Mount Agamenticus Conservation Region features multi-use trails that weave through the abandoned ski area. The remnants of the old ski lift are still scattered around the area, towers, sheaves and bull-wheels slowly rusting away.

Anyway, we hiked to the top and got in about 5 miles of good “up & down” practice plus had a great summer day in some beautiful country. The trails are well maintained and had few of the stream-bed, bouldering & root-maze “ankle buster” sections that mark the trails in the White Mountains, where we were a few weeks ago. Our hope is that the Camino Frances – a route that has been walked by literally millions of people over the past 1,000 years – will bear little resemblance to our New England mountain trails.  We hiked Mt. Pack Monadnock (“pack” means “little” in the local native American language) last week, using the 1.5 mile auto road and found it was an average 12% grade. That was a TOUGH slogging climb, but we felt better after we calculated that the average grade on our first two days in the Pyrenees getting to Roncesvalles is only 6%. Going down was harder on the quads and toes but easier from a cardiovascular standpoint.  So far this year, we’ve already put in about 320 miles of training walks. This month will be the last practice time we’ll have but with a 5 day trip to St. Louis to see our kids and grandkids plus Joan’s 4 day canoe trip to Lake Umbagog in NH with her friends, it will be tough to get in the miles. I plan to doing a multiday “rails to trails’ walk while she’s gone.

Big news! We got our first charitable contribution a few days ago! In case you overlooked it on this blog (top right section) we’re walking our pilgrimage to raise money for the Merrimack Valley Hospice House. This is a wonderful institution that is close to our hearts. Joan was CEO of the Home Health Foundation and instrumental in the creation of the hospice house. So- come on!