Blogs from New Jersey, United States, North America

Nashville had been a blast, but the batteries were running low and on my Spirit flight back to Philadelphia, I was looking forward to some rest and recovery back in the Carthy household in Haddonfield. Ronan collected me from the airport, and we headed back to the family homestead. We had about an hour before heading out to a local Irish bar to meet some of their friends for a few beers, nachos and chicken wings. The bar was like an aircraft hanger, very crowded for a Thursday evening, but Irish in name only. The Guinness wasn´t bad, nor the company, and in old style the ladies departed early and the lads headed to a number of venues in the suburbs till the early hours. Was happy to be in a house again, and sleep was ... read more

And so, another journey begins. We were scheduled to fly out Friday morning at 6 am, but we live in Southern New England, and snow happens here. Our flight was cancelled yesterday, so we spent the day rescheduling. In order to make sure we would get out of Providence before the pending storm, we opted to leave the night (tonight) before and spend the night at a hotel at the Newark Liberty Airport. This of course meant Tarragon would spend a night alone and it would not be until Friday evening that his nanny arrived. But he was well petted and fed before we left. He certainly knew we were leaving because he spent much of the afternoon shunning us under the bed. Flying out of Providence is so very simple, we were checked in and ... read more

Today is the day we boarded this beautiful ship! We are only one hour ahead of Missouri and seeing that I normally am awake by 5:30am, I didn't think setting an alarm was necessary. We woke-up at 9:43am Eastern time. Check-out and our shuttle to the cruise ship were both at 11:00am. It was shocking, funny, and marvelous. I had laid-out and organized everything the evening prior so we took showers and grabbed our bags. The ride to the cruise ship was the two of us and this very large extended family of a widowed mom with her grown children (in their 50s/60s) and their spouses. The men started talking about all the seafood they planned to eat on this cruise... fried shrimp, boiled lobster, baked salmon... they all sounded like Forest Gumps. It was funny. ... read more

So, I've been home for 3 days and have done a lot of thinking about this Camino experience. Because I like to wrap things up with a bow, I thought that writing an epilogue would make sense. So, here we go: 1. First, the data: in total we walked 200.4 miles. This includes 37.4 of what I call "flip-flop miles." Every day at the end of the day, we'd take off our hiking shoes and put on flip-flops. These were our walking-around shoes when we weren't actually hiking. We used our flip-flops for exploring Porto, Valenca, Pontevedra and Santiago. We used them to run errands when we arrived in a new place every day. My flip-flops were new at the beginning of the trip, but they were well worn by the end. Even so, it surprised ... read more

Today I did a quick 5 miler - boring, mainly on roads. I think it’s the last hike I can squeeze in before leaving on Tuesday. Got back to my office by 9 and ticked off a bunch of things on my checklist. This evening I checked things in my pack against my list. Pack organization is a big part of these hikes. Every ounce of weight adds up to a toll on your back and people go to crazy lengths to save weight (e.g. sawing off the handle on their toothbrush.). At the same time, you need to squeeze everything you need into the pack. Though we’re staying in pensions and hotels (not camping) days can be quite warm and evenings chilly, so it’s important to pack accordingly. While I bought some (expensive) compression bags ... read more