Blogs from Simpsonville, South Carolina, United States, North America

When my wife and I had originally planned this trip, we planned for a couple days in Paris, 40 days on the Camino, and a couple weeks in Chipiona. Well, as they say, the best laid plans do oft go astray. First of all, Manoli had heard so much negative about the meseta, that she insisted on skipping it, by taking the bus from Burgos to Leon. So that took about 6-8 days off the Camino. Secondly, I hadn't really counted the number of days we'd have in Chipiona, and now there were 6 or so more. I really like Chipiona and my wife's family, and we went to a few interesting places, but by the end of the first week, I was really bored. When I started thinking about the number of days left in ... read more

We'd already pretty much packed up the night before, so with our 5:30am alarms, we were downstairs waiting for our ride by 5:45am. Finally, at almost 6:10, our ride showed up. The nice gentleman apologized for running late and took to Boise International Airport, dropping us off out front. We checked in, got our tickets and were boarding pretty much on time. I make this statement because almost nothing was on time or easy after that! We arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport around 11am Central time. Since our connecting flight was not until after 7pm that night and wouldn't show up on the boards for a while, we settled down near the gate we'd arrived at, after a long walk around Terminal C. Manoli got out her book and I hooked up my PC and settled ... read more

Well, it's that time again... vacation. This year we hope to catch a flight on Sunday from JB Charleston in South Carolina to Rota Spain. My wife is travelling with me this time to visit her family, while I try to wear out my feet again. Some of you may remember my trek 2 years ago on the Camino Frances. 500+ miles in 35 days, of enjoyment! I still communicate on a regular basis with some of the friends I made on that walk, but was unable to convince any of them to join me again this time. This time I'll be walking the Camino Portuguese. 360 miles from Lisbon Portugal to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, hopefully in about 25 days. We'll land at the naval base in Rota Spain, where hopefully my brother-in-law Antonio ... read more

We were awake by 6am and ready to go. Sean had to leave for work by 7am and Alina was going with us to try again to get out of Ramstein. When we arrived, we saw our old C5 flight, plus the one that had been rescheduled 4 or 5 days, and a C17 to McGuire through Canada. The McGuire flight only showed 14 seats, tentative, so we weren't holding our breaths. As the morning went by, the rescheduled both the C5 flights and the C17 still showed 14 seats, so a number of folks left for greener pastures, including most of the folks that had been ticketed for our cancelled C5 from yesterday. The three of us, Alina, my wife, and I, decided to stick it out and see if we might possibly make the ... read more

Those of you who follow my blog know that I hiked the Camino d's Santiago last fall... all 800 plus kilometers of it. Well, I still seem to have hiking on my mind. I've been considering hiking the Palmetto Trail across South Carolina , about 380 miles or so. The distance doesn't bother me, but I'm not sure if I want to do the camping that comes with it, so, I am doing a 3-day, 2-night trial hike, starting tomorrow. I'll be walking from downtown Walhalla to Oconee State Park, mostly along a small road.. I'll be taking some photos and hope to post a blog tomorrow night. Wish me luck.... read more