Notes on the penultimate day

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Here we are .... one stop from St Jean Pied de Port.. I have a little battery power left on the laptop and some notes from the last few days so here it is.

Tiff sez ... All of our accommodations come with a private bathroom. It's a good thing because it takes us half a day to figure out how to flush the toilet and turn on the shower. Often the shower head is on the end of a coil. I forget to grab it before turning on the water once it immediately uncoiled drenching me and the entire bathroom. We try to wash our clothes in the sink which may or may not hold water. Can you get carpal tunnel from wringing out wet clothes? And I certainly could have gone all the trip without a magnifying mirror! But hey ... any bathroom is great. They are few and far between on the trail (plenty of bushes though). To quote my Spanish Camino poem: "O peeing in bushes, I'm not very fond - now everyone knows I'm not a blond". Today (this was a couple of days ago ...) Today was everyone's favorite day because the hostess at our innn treated us to footbaths with epsom salt and lavender. The way to my heart is not my stomach but my feet. Rich sez .... the foot bath was great but so was the food and the swimming pool.

Back to Tiff ... Today (yesterday) we were given a choice between the short route (17 miles) or a long route (almost 22 miles). DUH! Unfortunately, the short route was also on a fairly busy road. Rich insisted I go first ... he was either being a gentleman or wanted me to be hit by the car first. His version is that he wanted to watch my rear (which is shrinking sez Rich) ... what a charmer! An older couple in a car stopped and gave us a religious brochure ... it wasn't recognizable as Mormon or 7th day adventist. It reminded me that the original pilgrims walked to Santiago for atonement to have their sins forgiven. I figure after walking across Spain and France, I probably have a credit for my sin account. Rich sez ... There aren't enough miles across both of the countries to give me a credit balance .... especially with the bum foot that kept me from about 200 of the miles. We have mostly had spacious accommodations but last night I could almost reach wall to wall but we did have a good dinner at a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant (yeah ... in France)

Today was another short day ... weird when you call 12 miles a short day ... and it was pretty much uneventful. Pat has flirted with and propositioned the innkeeper for a ride to St Jean Pied de Port (she has decided that she would rather arrive early and shop than walk with us ... and we probably won't miss her much for various reasons). We were greeted by the innkeeper with a drink (sparkling water, OJ, and a beer for Rich!) and we'll be treated to a Basque style dinner tonight. Then off to SJPdP tomorrow. We'll be mostly happy to see the pilgrimage end for various reasons. I'll have to do something else with the pictures. I haven't gotten them off the camera and the adapter is with the luggage that has not arrived

Tiff sez ... The last 2 days are like my life ... shorter and harder to deal with. Tiff would like to hang us her spurs and go with Pat but there's only one more day.

I have some thoughts on the whole experience that I'll share when we get home ..

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