This post is late because I had internet issues at the alburgues in Vega and O’Cebreiro.

Well, I got up today at the alburgue in Vega at about 8:00 AM and had breakfast. Maria, the hostess at the alburgue, put out a nice spread of muffins, coffee cake and yogurt. After breakfast I went outside to stretch and realized that the local TV station had been alerted to the fact that The Colorado Cowboy on the Camino was in Vega, the little village where we are staying.

The reporter from the television station interviewed the mayor first about what an honor it was for the town to host a true blue All American cowboy.

I was up next and answered all their questions as best as I could. They didn’t think to bring an interpreter but I understood most of what the interviewer was saying, in Spanish, and he seemed to understand and appreciate my candid answers, in Spanglish, which is a combination of English and Spanish I have perfected while I have been walking the Way. At the end of the interview the guy with the mike asked me if I had any final words of wisdom for his TV audience. I looked right into the camera and told the TV audience that I had been sent to Spain by the government of America 🇺🇸 to Make The Camino Great Again! The crowd who had gathered to watch the interview went wild and started chanting USA, USA, USA! It was a near riot of enthusiasm for the good old Red, White and Blue!

After the interview we packed our backpacks and made arrangements for a baggage service to haul our backpacks to O’Cebreiro. It is uphill all the way from Vega to O’Cebreiro and we thought it best to make this uphill slog sans backpacks.

As we were getting ready to depart from the alburgue, Maria, our ever helpful hostess, informed us that the 15 kilometer, mostly uphill hike, from Vega to O’Cebreiro would be nothing more than a walk in the park for The Colorado Cowboy On The Camino and that we should walk up to the ruins of a Saracen castle that overlooks the town before we left on our journey to O’Cebreiro. I thanked her for her suggestion, got directions to this local attraction, kind of like the world’s largest ball of twine, and Giorgio and I set off to check it out. For such a noteworthy local attraction they really did a piss poor job, pardon my French, of marking the trail leading up to this castle ruin. After wandering aimlessly around a chestnut 🌰 forest for an hour I finally found the trail and we arrived at the impressive ruins of this castle.

Pictures of the scenery along the way to the ruins of the castle.

The trail from Vega to the castle ruins is almost a half mile straight uphill. Anybody who tried to attack this castle in full armor would have dropped dead of exhaustion halfway up this hill.

This is me clowning around inside a hollowed out cavity in a giant chestnut tree on the way down from the castle to Vega.

Beautiful fall colors in Vega.

Some sort of fertility god in Vega. The monkey sculpture, not me.

By the time we got back down to Vega it was 11:15 AM and I was already exhausted. And we hadn’t even started our uphill march to O’Cebreiro. What was I thinking!

We walked through some beautiful scenery on the way to the first village, Herrerias. As we walked along the Way to Herrerias we got this view of the castle ruins we visited earlier this morning.

In Herrerias they have a stable where you can rent a horse and ride up to O’Cebreiro.

Of course The Colorado Cowboy On The Camino had to check out this stable and inspect the horses. This is Juan, the head wrangler of the stable.

Juan gave me a guided tour of his stable and seemed very interested in my take on his outfit and my suggestions on changes he could implement to improve his herd of horses and his overall operation. Juan was so grateful for my interest and advice that he gave me Hellfire, the wildest most spirited stallion in his stable, to ride up to O’Cebreiro. Abe pitched a fit when he found out I was riding up to O’Cebeiro so Juan found an old nag, Sweet Sue, for Abe to ride. Abe was so happy to be riding up to O’Cebreiro.

This is my stallion Hellfire.

The minute I mounted Hellfire he danced and pranced all over the corral, trying to test me to determine if he had a real cowboy sitting tall and proud in the saddle. Once we established my bonafides as a real rootin tootin Cowboy 🤠, Hellfire calmed down and we had a real pleasurable gallop up to O’Cebreiro.

Some shots of the beautiful scenery we passed through on our ride up to O’Cebreiro.

We are now officially in Galicia.

Another reminder of why we walk the Way. This bible verse says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch”

More cows with bells. What a beautiful soundtrack for our journey along the Way.

The Pilgrim donkey, Dondora, taking a coffee break in a meadow next to the Camino.

We stopped in this church and lit a candle and said a prayer for Anna.

When we got to O’Cebreiro we realized that there was only one place to stay, a 300 bed Municipal Alburgue. Man, this place is grim. I am in a 50 foot by 50 foot room with thirty two bunk beds. That is 64 farting, snoring and smelly Pilgrims. Not a recipe for a good night’s sleep! They push two bunk beds together to make room for all the bunk beds and call it a matrimonial alburgue. Thank God I got a lower berth. Nuncia and Giorgio got upper berths. The guy sleeping next to me crawled into his mummy bag at 9:00 PM, zipped it up so all you could see was his nose and mouth and didn’t move or make a sound all night long. I think he might be dead! I am going to make an early morning escape from this alburgue. I don’t want to get involved in the corner’s investigation when they try to roust him out of his sleeping bag in the morning and they determine that he is dead. I am making a hard and fast rule for the rest of the Camino. No More Municipal or Matrimonial Alburgues!

I hope everyone had a restful and relaxing Sunday.

Good evening from O’Ceberio, Spain.

We got up early at the Municipal Alburgue and worked on the blog post. I have been in jails where I got a better night’s sleep than the Municipal Alburgue in O’Cebreiro. In most jails you have one cell mate. In this alburgue we had 63 cell mates, all farting, snoring and emitting a collective oder so foul it would knock a buzzard off a garbage truck. And we are not going to get into my criminal record or my experience in jails of any sort, other than the Municipal Alburgue at O’Cebreiro, “the Folsom Prison of the Camino.”

This is me on the ridge at O’Cebreiro greeting the sunrise.

This is a picture of the magnificent sunrise at O’Cebreiro.

The valley to the west of O’Cebreiro was filled with clouds/fog. It was a flat out spectacular view that we enjoyed during our morning walk west of O’Cebreiro.

This is the valley that we walked through as we walked down from O’Cebreiro.

We saw a lot of cows on the walk today.

These cows were in the barn having their breakfast.

This is a very old chestnut tree on the outskirts of Triacastela.

In Spain every cafe owner has his or her own unique way of marking the restrooms so that there is no confusion about where the men should go for relief and where the women should go. These two signs were on the doors of the separate rest rooms at a cafe in O’Cebeiro. No confusion about these signs.

We spent the night at the ecological alburgue, El Beso, in A Balsa. We had a great vegetarian dinner and there were only 5 of us in the bunk room. It is out in the middle of nowhere so the stars and the moon lit the landscape like it was full daylight. What a beautiful evening.

I hope everyone had a good Monday.

Good evening from A Balsa, Spain.

What in the world is this? It is a pile of donkey droppings, or donkey apples. You are probably wondering why I have a picture of donkey droppings as the lead photo on the blog today. Well, it’s a long story. During the first stage of this walk I started to hear people talking about these two women Pilgrims who were dressed in medieval pilgrim clothes and walking with a donkey. They have become a legend on the Way. There are thousands of Pilgrims on the trail, all ages, sizes and nationalities. But there is only one donkey pilgrim and only these two women who are doing the whole Way as real old timey pilgrims. I thought they were ahead of us and I have been following what I thought was their trail of donkey droppings. Many of you might not know this but I am a very skilled tracker, reader of signs on the trail and diviner of donkey droppings. Well, it turns out that instead of being in front of us, the two old timey pilgrims and their donkey were behind us this whole time. Boy was I surprised yesterday afternoon when what did I see at the alburgue but two medieval pilgrims unloading their luggage from the panniers on their donkey. For those of you who are not knowledgeable in the equine lingo, panniers are the luggage holders you put on your horse or donkey or for that matter your yak or your llama to hold your luggage.

I gave all three of them a big hug, told them how excited I was to finally meet them and introduced myself. Well, you would have thought I was the king of England based on their over the top enthusiastic response to my introduction. They were bouncing up and down like they were on pogo sticks, which is impossible because they did not have pogo sticks in medieval times.

Apparently, a week ago they made an extended pit stop at the Cowboy Bar.

The owner of the Cowboy Bar told them that I had visited him, that I was the only rootin tootin Colorado cowboy 🤠 on the Camino and that I had schooled him on the Cowboy Code of Conduct and corrected his bad ass attitude. It sounds like I have become somewhat of a legend at the Cowboy Bar. The two medieval pilgrims were so excited to meet a real cowboy and when they found out that on top of being a legendary cowboy I am also an experienced and expert mule skinner, they dropped to their knees and thanked God for their great good fortune. I got them up off their knees and we had a good palaver about the advantages and disadvantages of horses versus donkeys as pack animals. I set them straight on a few of the finer points of handling donkeys and they were very appreciative.

They wanted a few pictures for their blog. Francesca is wearing the white hat and Marina is wearing the red dress. They are from Italy. The donkey’s name is Dordora. The donkey is from France. It makes perfect sense to me that the donkey is French.

After we took some pictures for Francesca and Marina’s blog, Giorgio, Nuncia and I went to the pilgrim mass and blessing. After the Pilgrim blessing we hightailed it back to the alburgue where everyone was waiting on us to start dinner. The chef/owner of the alburgue had everyone stand and hold hands while he blessed the meal and our pilgrimages. After that he had two people bring out a paella pan the size of a truck tire full of chicken and vegetable paella.

I had seconds, thirds and fourths. After we finished the paella we had salad. I know, I know, the salad should come first but no matter how hard I try to explain this simple concept to these Spaniards, they refuse to serve the salad as a first course. I have given up and have decided to go along with this backwards meal sequence. After salad we had a bowl of fresh and succulent purple plums for dessert.

This morning I got up early and showed Francesca and Marina a few tricks of the trade when it comes to the proper way to saddle and pack a donkey. They were very appreciative that I would share my extensive donkey packing expertise with them.

When you get to the alburgue you shower and wash your clothes, including your under garments, and hang them on the clothes line to dry. Because everyone hangs their underwear on the same clothes line everyone knows what kind of underwear you are wearing. Francesca and Marina were medieval pilgrims on the outside but Vegas showgirls when it comes to their foundation garments. Va va va voom!

They wanted a few donkey pictures for their blog and I was only to happy to comply.

Looking at these pictures I realize that my ears are almost as big as the donkey’s ears. Maybe the Eighth Street neighborhood gutter snipes should have called me donkey ears instead of monkey ears.

The two people to the left of the picture are the owner/chef of the alburgue and his girlfriend. They were such gracious hosts.

This is me with my new BFF.

After we got the donkey all loaded up I had a little argument with Abe. When he was an attorney in Springfield he used to ride the circuit on his horse, Old Bob. He wanted to ride the donkey for old times sake. I told him that this was a pack donkey, not a riding donkey and that he would have to ride the back of my pack like he has been doing for the last 32 days. He tried to issue an “Abe gets to ride the donkey Executive Order” but I told him that he could not enforce it because, technically, he is dead and not the President of the United States 🇺🇸 anymore. He doesn’t like to be reminded that he is dead and on probation from heaven to make this trip. In the end, Abe reluctantly hopped up on my backpack and strapped himself in for another day of walking on the Way.

I had one more incident before we left the alburgue. All day yesterday the people at the alburgue have been calling me the American burrito, I thought, because I said I would kill for a smothered burrito. Someone pulled me aside this morning and told me that burrito is really the Spanish word for little jackass. So now I am confused. Is burrito, in Spanish, a term of derision or a term of endearment. Again, it would be helpful if everyone in Spain could learn to speak English.

The scenery on our walk from Villafranca to Vega was spectacular. Sunrise shots as we left Villafranca.

This is the river that runs through Villafranca.

We are getting closer to Santiago every day.

The fall colors are coming out in the river valley that we walked through from Villafranca to Vega.

This is the river in the valley that we have been walking through.

Closer and closer to Santiago.

We stopped in this church and lit a candle and said a prayer for Anna.

Another shot of the fall colors.

This is a shot from the bathroom window of our alburgue in Vega.

Nuncia made a simply wonderful vegetable soup for dinner and we had ice cream bars for dessert.

I hope everyone had a restful Saturday.

Good evening from Vega, Spain.

So last night I went to the pilgrim mass in the church next to the alburgue and after it was over I decided to go to the Super Mercado to get some yogurt and bananas for breakfast. As I was shopping I spotted a box of assorted mini ice cream bars. Somehow or other a box of these ice cream bars jumped into my shopping cart 🛒. After I checked out I realized that there was no freezer at the alburgue and I had to find a place to sit down and make a pig out of myself by eating all the ice cream bars in the box. I wandered around until I found a beautiful little park and sat at a picnic table and gorged on ice cream bars. There were eight mini ice cream bars in the box and after I ate six I was way beyond full. I couldn’t stuff another ice cream bar down my gullet with a two by four. I got up to walk back to the alburgue and after walking around for five minutes I realized I was completely, totally and utterly lost. And it was about 8:30 PM and everyone seemed to be inside doing whatever it is that Spaniards do in the evening. Now I am screwed big time because I am lost and there is no one around to palaver with to get directions. Yikes! So I wandered around for about fifteen minutes until I ran across a young woman who was walking her dog. As you all know, I listened to the Coffee Break Spanish podcast for an hour a day for three months before I came over here, so I speak pretty good Spanish. The trouble I have is when I ask a question, I don’t understand the answer. These people don’t speak any kind of Spanish that I can understand. I asked this woman “donde está iglesia” or where is the church, because the alburgue is right next to the church. I figured that if I found the church I could find the alburgue. In response to my simple request for directions to the church, I got a torrent of impassioned Spanish that lasted 5 minutes. At the end of this 5 minute Niagra Falls of Spanish she paused and said “Vali” pronounced Valley. When anyone in Spain ends a sentence with the word Vali you know you are now in The Twilight Zone. The literal translation of Vali is “OK?”

When a Spaniard is talking to me in Spanish and uses Vali at the end of of a sentence it means, ” Stupid American, did you understand anything I just said?” You can respond by either saying si, which is yes, or no which is no. I have no idea why all Spanish words aren’t as easy to understand as “no.” Before I come back I hope Spain works on their language so it is easier for me to understand. But I digress.

When someone ends a sentence in “Vali” it is a good bet that I did not understand a word they just said. If I say no I did not understand a word you just said, they will just repeat the sentence that I did not understand in the first place. I guess they figure that if they keep repeating their unintelligible Spanish, sooner or later I will understand whatever it is they are trying to tell me. I have done the “Vali” song and dance 💃 enough times that I am on to their game. No matter what they say, and no matter how confused I am, I always respond to “Vali” with an enthusiastic “Si!” I am still lost but I spare myself the frustration of listening to another round of unintelligible Spanish. I go from person to person, like a beggar in a Monty Python movie, asking the same stupid question over and over, until I find someone who can give me an answer I can understand, preferably in English.

Well, last night I was having a hard time even finding someone to ask directions, let alone someone who was able to give me directions in a language I could understand. I finally ran across the aforementioned young woman who was out walking her dog. I gave her my last two, now melting, ice cream bars and told her I was a monk in mufti who escaped from the monastery next to the church for a night on the town and I had to get back before they locked the doors of the monastery. She dropped to one knee, made the sign of the cross, and said something that sounded like, “Mother of God, what a jackass!” She then rose to her feet and led me to the church while her little dust mop of a dog tried to take a chunk out of my ankles. I had to keep saying, “What a cute puppy dog 🐶” and fight back the urge to kick the little ankle biter across the street. Well, we made it to the church and I blessed her and thanked her profusely in Spanish, which means I have no idea if I was thanking her or telling her to go to Hell. That is the challenge when you are trying to palaver in Spanish.

This morning Giorgio decided to sack in and we did not get out on the Way until 9:15, so no sunrise pictures. What can I say other than Giorgio is Italian and you all know that Italians are not morning people.

This is the river we had to cross to get out of Cacabelos.

This is a house on the outskirts of Cacabelos with a stream running under it. St. Rita’s mother’s family has a farmhouse with a stream running under it in Hardheim, Germany.

As we were walking from Cacabelos to Villafranca we were in wine country. These are a few pictures of the wineries.

These are shots of the stunning scenery along the Way today.

Giorgio helped me take a number of pictures of this beautiful villa on a hill in the middle of a vineyard.

What beautiful vineyards.

This is Villafranca.

This is the Door of Forgiveness at the Church of Santiago in Villafranca. In medieval times there were only two places along the Way where a pilgrim could get a Compostela or certificate of completion of the pilgrimage, at the Door of Forgiveness at the Cathedral in Santiago De Compostela and at this Church’s Door of Forgiveness. The tradition was that if a pilgrim made it to the Church of Santiago in Villafranca and could not continue to the Cathedral at Santiago, the pilgrim would be issued a Compostela here and all his or her sins were forgiven. Thus it is a very special historical place.

We went inside this very special church and said a prayer and lit 🔥 a candle 🕯 for Anna. One of those red votive candles at the foot of the altar is Anna’s candle.

We decided to stay at the alburgue next to the church. As luck would have it, Nuncia, Giorgio’s buddy who is a professional chef in Italy, was cooking a pasta 🍝 lunch for the alburgue staff and invited us to join them.

After lunch I thanked Nuncia for a bellisimo lunch. I told Nuncia that she might be a professional chef but at one time I was a professional dish washer and that I was going to do the dishes, along with my sidekicks Abe Lincoln and St. Christopher. She started to argue but Abe insisted and she finally relented and left the dishes to us while she and everyone else took a siesta. Tonight the owner/cook at the alburgue said he was going to make a paella 🥘 that will make me weep with joy. I can’t wait.

I hope everyone is having a great Friday.

Goodnight from Villafranca, Spain.

Today we got up at 7:00 AM when the hosts at the alburgue started blaring Spanish music over the loud speakers and walking up and down the halls screaming Buenos Dias! They really wanted everyone out of the alburgue by 8:00 AM and they spent the hour from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM herding us like cattle out of the sleeping rooms, into the kitchen/eating area and out the front door. I went to the grocery store last night and got food for breakfast. We had chocolate croissants, yogurt, soft boiled eggs, bananas and apples. Yum! The kitchen/eating area was a madhouse this morning with everyone trying to cook their breakfast, clean up and get out by 8:00 AM when the alburgue hosts threw everyone out of the alburgue and locked the doors so they can clean the place before the next herd of pilgrims descends on the alburgue like a plague of locusts.

After we left the alburgue we found a cafe and killed some time eating our second breakfast until the Templar Castle and Museum opened at 10:00 AM.

This is a shot of the Templar Castle.

It was very foggy this morning in Ponferrada. This is a church next to the Templar Castle.

This is a shot of one of the interior walls in the Castle.

Two views of Ponferrada from the Castle walls.

This is a church steeple highlighted by the sun shining through the fog.

This is the river that runs through Ponferrada.

They have a modern conference center on the grounds of the Castle.

This is another shot of the river from the castle walls.

After touring the Castle ruins we spent some time in the very well done museum devoted to life in and around the castle during the Middle Ages.

Views of the mountains surrounding Ponferrada.

As we were walking out of Ponferrada I saw this interesting street sign.

Another shot of the river running through Ponferrada.

As we were walking out of Ponferrada I spotted this sign. I guess pot is illegal in Spain unless you are a member of a pot co-op. That makes no sense to me but nobody’s asking my opinion on this issue.

It look us a couple of hours to get out of Ponferrada, but once we did we were rewarded by some very beautiful scenery.

We walked until 5:00 PM and hit Cacabelos. That was enough for the day. We found an alburgue that is almost empty and we are making it our home for the night.

I hope everyone had a great Thursday.

Good evening from Cacabelos, Spain.

Today we walked from Molinaseca to Ponferrada.

This is a view of sunrise just west of Molinaseca.

This is another view of sunrise west of Molinaseca.

This is a picture of the Camino family at sunrise.

In Spain cats love to sit on roofs and watch pilgrims walk along the Way. I am sure they are laughing at us.

I am dying for a smothered burrito 🌯!

This is a picture of the Templar Castle we are going to visit tomorrow morning.

This is a picture of the now depleted Camino family having dinner at the alburgue. We had pasta carbonara, red wine🍷, fresh bread 🥖 and ice cream for dessert. It was a feast fit for nobility.

Going around the table from the left of the picture to the right, Oliver from Denmark, son of Tina and Kim, Tina from Denmark, Giorgio from Italy now living in Vancouver, British Columbia, your humble correspondent, and Kim from Denmark.

This is me and Kim at the Municipal alburgue in Ponferrada.

Now that I can see my ears I understand why the neighborhood gutter snipes called me monkey ears. It was a very descriptive nickname.

I hope everyone had a great Wednesday.

Good evening from Ponferrada, Spain.

This post is a day late because I was too tired to work on it when I finally crawled into Molinaseca.

Today we walked from Rabanal del Camino to Molinaseca. It is almost 30 kilometers and takes us uphill to the highest point on the Camino, Cruz de Ferro, or the Cross of Iron. And then almost 15 kilometers downhill to Molinaseca. This is a shot of sunrise outside Rabanal.

This is a shot of the trail on the way to Foncebadon, our first stop on the hike today.

This is a shot of a spider web dusted with dew on the trail climbing up to Foncebadon, the first stop on our hike today.

This is another shot of the trail.

This is a shot of the mountains we are climbing to get to Cruz de Ferro.

This is a shot of a roadside cross at the entrance to Foncebadon. We stopped here and said a prayer for Anna.

This is a sign at the alburgue in Foncebadon, just a few kilometers below Cruz de Ferro. This sign reminded me of The Clean Plate Club at the Hansen house when I was a young whipper snapper.

At Casa Hansen once food was on your plate you had to eat it. No matter how the food got on your plate or how inedible it was, if it was on your plate, you had to sit at the white Formica kitchen table until you finished it. You also got a lecture about all the millions of starving Chinese children who would love be sitting at the Hansen kitchen table wolfing down the food that you were refusing to eat.

I developed a technique that allowed me to eat the sometimes inedible food without the torture of tasting it. As I moved a forkful of food from the plate to my mouth I would breathe through my mouth, not my nose, so that the smell from the food would not gag me. Once I got the food into my mouth I would quickly drink a big gulp of milk to wash the mouthful of food down my gullet before it could spend too much time making a bad impression on my taste buds.

The most traumatic food memory I have from my time at Casa Hansen was The Corned Beef Sandwich Episode. One day my father decided he wanted a corned beef sandwich for lunch so he went to the grocery store and got some Wonder Bread and Oscar Meyer Corned Beef. Oscar Meyer bologna is bad enough. Oscar Meyer corned beef takes bad taste to a a much higher level. I was in the kitchen when my father got home from the grocery store. He wanted some company while he ate lunch so he told me I was going to join him for lunch. When I found out lunch involved a corned beef sandwich I told him that as much as I wanted to join him for lunch, I was allergic to corned beef sandwiches and if I tried to eat one I would wind up in the Emergency Room with a life threatening allergic reaction. He called bullshit and plopped a big corned beef sandwich on my plate and told me to shut up and eat my sandwich. I took one bite, using the technique I described above, and I got that first mouthful down but it immediately tried to come back up my gullet. No way was I going to take another bite of that sandwich. My father told me that come hell or high water I was going to eat every bite of that sandwich and I was not going to leave the table until I showed him a clean plate. I sat there for an hour trying to figure out how to get rid of that hideous corned beef sandwich without eating it. Finally, my father went into the family room to watch the Cubs game and, out of desperation, I decided to stuff the corned beef sandwich down the front of my pants. I then yelled at my father to come in and inspect my now clean plate. He did a cursory inspection of my plate and certified that I had complied with the rules and regulations of the clean plate club and was now released from my kitchen table incarceration. I immediately jumped up and ran out the back door before he could change his mind or ask me about the big bulge in the front of my pants. Once I got out to the back yard I took off my pants and started to dig all the chunks of corned beef and bread out of my underwear. While I was doing this the neighborhood mongrels caught the scent of corned beef and, in a large slavering pack, came running at me barking like it was the end of the world. I ripped my underwear off, threw them down on the ground, pulled my pants on and started running as fast as my terrified legs would carry me. The hounds from hell gulped down the bits and pieces of the corned beef sandwich and then took off after me like I had a pork chop tied around my neck. After running around the block three times I got tired and decided that the only way to avoid getting torn to shreds by this pack of deranged hounds was to climb the cottonwood tree in the vacant lot next to our house. I got up high enough in this tree to get beyond the reach of the pack of hounds who had encircled the trunk of the tree and were leaping at me and snapping their jaws in a mad corned beef induced frenzy. All this commotion caused my father to get out of his BarcaLounger and come outside to find out what the hell was going on. As he was coming out of the back door he grabbed my underwear and waving them around his head, he screamed at the dogs to stop barking and go home. He then helped me out of the tree and asked me what in the hell my underwear were doing in the backyard and how did I wind up in the cottonwood tree surrounded by a howling pack of neighborhood mongrels. I gave him a shrug of my shoulders and a dumb look and told him: “I don’t know.” He shook his head, called me an idiot and told me to go bother someone else in the neighborhood and leave him in peace to enjoy the Cubs game. To this day I can’t stand the sight, smell or taste of corned beef.

This is a shot of the ruins of an old farmhouse on the trail up to Cruz de Ferro.

This is a shot of Cruz de Ferro.

This is a shot of the Camino Family at Cruz de Ferro. From left to right, Giorgio from Italy now living in Canada, Marco from Italy, Kim from Denmark, Oliver from Denmark, Tina from Denmark and your humble correspondent.

This is a shot of me at Cruz de Ferro.

This is the stone I left at the foot of the cross at Cruz de Ferro.

In the mid 1980s I was working at the Gorsuch law firm and was asked to be a mentor for one of our summer associates or interns. His name was Rob. At the end of the summer I took Rob out to lunch to thank him for all the great work he had done that summer. Rob said he had a gift for me and gave me this stone. He said that in order to do the work I did I needed to be pretty hard hearted and that in the short time I had been an attorney I had developed a heart of stone. I didn’t think much of his comment at that time but I always kept the “heart of stone” that he gave me. According to tradition you should bring a stone on your pilgrimage and leave it at the foot of the cross at Cruz de Ferro as a symbol of something within yourself that you no longer want to carry around as part of the baggage we all accumulate during our journey through life. I left this stone at the foot of the cross because I wanted to leave my old hard heart there and work on a new softer heart that is kind, generous and loving. I know this is a tall order but this is the Camino and anything is possible on the Camino.

Abe left a stone from Little Round Top at Gettysburg. Abe has been carrying this stone, and his guilt over the 650,000 to 850,000 soldiers who died during the Civil War, around with him for over 150 years. He wanted to leave his guilt and sorrow for the deaths of those boys and men at the foot of the cross at Cruz de Ferro. St. Christopher left a stone that he blessed representing Anna’s cancer and his fervent prayer that her treatment will be successful and that she will go on to live a full and happy life. Then, the three of us shed a few tears and exchanged hugs and started to walk down the Way, feeling a lightness that you can only experience after shedding a heavy burden.

This is an Italian who is riding this crazy bicycle from Rome to Santiago. He has a boom box attached to the bike and is playing music from the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns as he pedals along the Way. I am sure this would make Clint Eastwood’s day.

These are shots of me walking down the mountain to Molinaseca.

The scenery on the walk from Cruz de Ferro to Molinaseca was spectacular.

This is a little wayside rest stop run by a lunatic that thinks he is a Knight Templar.

More shots of the scenery as we walk down the mountain to Molinaseca

This is the trail. What a nightmare!

This is the river valley leading down to Molinaseca

This is Molinaseca

I hope everyone had a good Tuesday.

Good evening from Molinaseca, Spain.

Sad news from Astorga last night. We were walking down the street and noticed that the sidewalk ahead of us was cordoned off by yellow police tape. There was a body on the sidewalk under a sheet and beside the body there was a backpack and a set of walking poles. I talked the one of the police officers and he explained that the guy under the sheet was an older perrigrino, that is pilgrim in Spanish, who had a heart attack and died. We went to dinner and walked by the same spot two hours later and the body was still laying on the sidewalk under the sheet. I asked the cop how long this poor dead perrigrino was going to have to lay there on the sidewalk. He just shrugged his shoulders and said that it is Sunday and a festival day so who knows when the coroner will come by to pick up the body. The Spanish are more than a little strange about some things. If you have a spare prayer please say one for this poor dead perrigrino. And don’t call a perrigrino a pelligrino. One is a pilgrim and one is a bottle of water. All this palaver in a foreign language can get mighty confusing.

I figured out what all the men and women were doing in the old time military uniforms. It is the Festival of Three Nations in Astorga. This festival commemorates a battle that happened a couple of hundred years ago when the English and Spanish armies got together and kicked the tar out of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Frenchies. This is a big festival in Astorga and people from England and France come to Astorga to help with the battlefield re-enactments. This is the bivouac for the English soldiers.

I told the English soldiers how poorly the French have been treating me. With my new haircut they assumed I was a retired Marine Drill Sargent. They invited me back for next year’s festival and told me that they would provide me with an old time English Army uniform and a sword, musket and a bayonet. And, they would give Old Sarge, that’s what they started calling me, Old Sarge, my own platoon and I could kick around the Frenchies during the re-enactments. So, I am all signed up to participate in next year’s “Let’s Beat up on the French” festival in Astorga. The Frenchies better start being nice to me or there will be hell to pay next year on the battlefield at Astorga.

After I finalized my plans for next year, I visited the Bishop’s Palace and the Astorga Cathedral. This is the Bishop’s Palace. It was designed by the world famous Spanish architect Gaudi so it is a big deal in Spain.

This is a shot of the chapel in the Bishop’s Palace. Gaudi had a style that incorporated a lot of Moorish elements. That works well in southern Spain, where the Moors were very influential, but doesn’t work as well in Northern Spain, where there is very little Moorish influence, except for Gaudi. But what does a retired Marine Drill Sargent like me know about architecture?

I took an hour long tour of the Museum and Cathedral. This is a shot of the main altarpiece in the Cathedral.

Photos of the altarpiece in the side chapel dedicated to St. Joseph.

Notice the kid with the big grin on his face who is holding St. Joseph’s hand. None of us kids at St. Joseph’s grade school ever had a grin on our faces like that. If we ever smiled the nuns would call it a smirk and give us a good whacking to “wipe that smile right off your face.” And besides, it is almost impossible to hold anyone’s hand when you are using both your arms and hands to do the duck and cover.

Photos of the side altar dedicated to St. Michael.

We woke up at 7:00 AM in the alburgue this morning. It was a cold rainy morning and the staff knew that if they did not roust us out of our beds we would overstay the 8:00 AM deadline for vacating the premises. In order to make sure this did not happen they came into our rooms at 7:00 AM and flashed the lights on and off and screamed Buenos Dias, over and over and over again. Buenos Dias? Are you kidding? In Spanish this means Good Morning. There was nothing good about this morning. Last night I got no sleep because it was freezing cold and the alburgue didn’t have blankets. This morning it is 40 degrees and so cold you can see your breath outside and it is raining and you have the nerve to call that a Good Morning!

We all decided to have a service transport our backpacks to our next stop, Rabanal. Walking in the rain is hard. Walking in the rain and the cold with a twenty five pound backpack 🎒 will wear you down to a nubbin. This is the first day that I have walked without my backpack and I have mixed feelings about it. Without my backpack I feel like a turtle 🐢 without his shell. On the other hand, without a backpack I was able to walk 20 kilometers in the cold rain and arrive at the municipal alburgue in Rabanal in pretty good shape. Who knows? I may have them transport my backpack tomorrow.

As we were walking through Astorga you will never guess what we ran across. Yes! A whole truck full of jamons.

I tried to get the guy in the truck to pose for a picture. I suggested that he give one of the pig carcasses a hug and a kiss and let me snap a couple of pictures. He didn’t like this idea and told me to get my stupid perrigrino ass out of town.

This is a roadside cross on the outskirts of Astorga. We stopped here and said a prayer for Anna and the fallen perrigrino.

This is a church on the side of the Way that this little old lady keeps open so pilgrims have a place to say a prayer in the morning. We stopped and said a prayer for Anna.

These are some shots from the trail.

This is the famous Cowboy Bar on the Camino.🤠

This is Marco, from Italy, Giorgio, originally from Italy and now living in Canada, and Heather from Australia.

I took this picture of the inside of The Cowboy Bar, and that’s when the trouble began.

The owner screamed at me that no pictures were allowed. Well, I screamed back at him that I was a rootin tootin cowboy 🤠 from Colorado and that his rude behavior was a gross violation of the Cowboy Code Of Conduct. I threatened to horsewhip him if he didn’t straighten up and start acting like a cowboy. He immediately recognized that he had a real cowboy in his bar and apologized profusely. I had a shot and a beer with him and promised to send him a case of Coors and a bottle of Jack Daniels when I get back to Colorado. Before I left I had the whole bar sing “Home Home On The Range” and then I rode off into the sunset.

We stoped at this cafe on the outskirts of Rabanal for lunch.

We had the best lentil soup at this cafe. We went back into the kitchen and gave the cook a rousing Hip, Hip, Hooray. She invited us back at 7:00 PM for dinner. She promised that dinner would be bellisimo, which is Italian for delicious.

This is the alburgue bunk room. Notice the stove at the far end of the room.

This is my bunk bed, right next to the bathroom and right next to the door to the courtyard, and as far away from the cozy stove as I can possibly get. I picked out this bed. So now I get to smell the bathroom all night and I get a blast of cold air every time someone opens the door and I get no heat from the cozy stove. What was I thinking?

I am heading off to dinner. I hope everyone is having a good Monday.

Good evening from Rabanal, Spain.

Rest Days Are Over. It’s Back On The Road Again

Before we close our visit to Leon I wanted to share a couple of pictures. I took the first picture in the Leon Cathedral on Wednesday. Anna was in the hospital undergoing what everyone hopes will be her last chemo treatment. We went by a side altar with a donitivo candle display and both Abe and St. Christopher demanded that I stop and empty out my pockets and give them every coin I had. They took all the coins, and remember that in the Euro countries the lowest denomination bill they have is a five euro bill. They have one and two euro coins and quarters, nickels and dimes. I had a pocket full of coins, and Abe and St. Christopher kept plugging this donativo candle machine like two little old ladies playing the slots on an outing from the nursing home. After they got seven candles lit we all said seven Hail Marys for Anna and sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot. The prayers were St. Christopher’s idea, the song was Abe’s idea. Turns out Abe loves to sing but he doesn’t have the voice for old time gospel music.

After we lit the candles and held a prayer service for Anna, complete with some good old time gospel music, I needed a drink. This is how they make a gin and tonic at your table on the Cathedral Square in Leon. It is quite a show.

This morning we got up, packed and were out of the alburgue at 7:45 AM. We walked for 30 minutes and found a cafe on the west side of Leon to have breakfast. It took us two hours just to get out of Leon and get into the countryside. The first suburb we walked through on our way out of Leon was Trabajo Del Camino. Guess what I found in Trabajo Del Camino? You know how I have been going into these places for the last three weeks asking them if they sell medical or recreational marijuana.

Every time I do this the “pharmacist” looks at me like I am some sort of dolt and throws me out of the dispensary. Well, as I was walking through Trabajo Del Camino I finally found what I have been unsuccessfully searching for these past three weeks, an honest to goodness pot dispensary.

Just my luck, I finally found the one pot dispensary on the Camino and it is closed. I just can’t catch a break on the Camino.

In the Leon area there are a number of Chinese bazaars. I went in one and it was so chock full of crap that you had to slither down the aisles sideways, and as an attorney for 36 years I can slither with the best of them.

Speaking of slithering, this Plaintiffs’ attorney had a small sign in downtown Leon and this big billboard in Trabajo Del Camino. He seems to be the Frank “The Strong Arm” Azar of Spain.

This is a roadside cross in the next town on our walk today, La Virgin Del Camino. We stopped here and said a prayer for Anna.

We stopped for a second breakfast at Fresno Del Camino. The cafe had a beautiful flower bed on the patio where we ate our food.

We took the alternate route through the Páramo to Villar de Mazarife instead of the senda path alongside the busy road to Villadangos Del Páramo. It was a very peaceful walk and beautiful scenery.

We stopped for lunch at Chozas de Abajo. They had a roadside bell tower there. We stopped and said a prayer for Anna.

As we were walking through Chozas de Abajo I spotted this sign on one of the nicer houses in town. No mistaking the message this sign is trying to convey.

After a nice 22 kilometer walk we finally arrived at our destination for the day, Villar de Mazarife. We are staying at the alburgue Tio Pepe.

This is the Pilgrim statue across the street from the alburgue.

This is the church across the street from the alburgue. Notice the stork nests.

I hope everyone is having a great Friday.

Good evening from Villar de Mazarife, Spain.

Second Rest Day In Leon

It was a cloudy and rainy morning. I sacked in and by the time I got up, showered and had breakfast it was almost 10:00 AM. Abe knew I wanted to get a haircut and he said that he had noticed a barbershop 💈 close to our alburgue on the main pedestrian thoroughfare. We walked down to the barbershop and I was relieved to see this sign on the sidewalk outside the barbershop.

I told Abe I wanted to come out of the barbershop looking like the caballero on the sign. Abe told me that he has been practicing his Spanish and that he would talk to the barber to make sure that the barber understands exactly what I want, nothing more than a light trim.

I probably need to give you a little of my somewhat traumatic history with barbers. When I was just a little kid my father would cut my hair. That’s my father with St. Rita.

Those of you who know my father know that he has never been a barber, has no training as a barber and has no business cutting anyone’s hair. Although he has always had a good full head of hair and even now he has a pretty good head of hair for someone who is 90 years old, that does not now, nor has it ever given him license to cut other people’s hair.

If you know my father you know that he is pretty tight with a buck. He starts at frugal and then squeezes a nickel so hard the buffalo shits. Well, I think he got tired of taking me to his regular barber, Daryle, for a $1 haircut. I understood his concern with the cost of my haircuts. After a while, a buck a month adds up to real money. So my father sent away for a pair of electric clippers and decided he would cut my hair himself. As he said: “How difficult can it be?” As it turns out, it wasn’t very difficult for him to cut my hair as long as I didn’t mind always looking like a Marine Corps recruit on leave after graduating from basic training. Semper Fi indeed. It got to the point where he would need to chase me around the kitchen and belt me into a chair when it was haircut time. I would raise such a horrendous racket while this whole process was taking place that I am sure the neighbors wondered what in the world was going on at the Hansen house.

One of the best days of my young life was the day the clippers shorted out and gave my father a shock that would have made Frankenstein dance a jig. He threw down the electric clippers and said that he was now officially out of the barber business and that I could grow my hair as long as Rapunsell for all he cared. The only problem with that was that the nuns at St. Joseph expected us to show up for school every day, bright eyed, bushy tailed and well groomed. I did not need to have a Marine Corps recruit haircut, but long hair was out of the question. Now I had to figure out how to get my hair cut and pay for it out of the money I made cutting lawns in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter. The solution to this dilemma was as ingenious as it was obvious, the Heck Barber College. At that time Jerry Heck’s father ran a barber college in downtown Springfield. It took six months for a neophyte barber to go from hair butcher to fully licensed barber. The students at Heck’s Barber College would go to classes in the morning and cut hair in the afternoon. Mr. Heck was always looking for people with a full head of hair who were stupid enough to come in and let these student barbers practice on them. You could get a “haircut” from a student barber in his first three months of barber college for a quarter. At first I thought this was a pretty good deal, until the student barbers started whacking off chunks of my ears as they were trying to give me a Vidal Sassoon haircut. When they would cut one of my ears I would give a yelp and they would staunch the ear wound with a stiptic pencil. That would stop the bleeding but it increased the pain and my yelping exponentially. And the Barber College haircuts weren’t much better than the buzz cuts I had been getting for free from my father.

So with that history I approached the barbershop in Leon with a great deal of trepidation. Abe told me to stop being a weenie and said that he would handle all the Spanish palaver with the barber and ensure that I got a great haircut and that I would come out of the barbershop looking like this dashing caballero.

And not this nightmare.

This is what I looked like before the haircut.

This is the gargantuan mound of hair that fell to the barbershop floor during my haircut.

And this is what I looked like after my haircut.

I haven’t had hair this short since I used to get buzz cuts from my dear old Dad. I won’t need another haircut for months. Abe and the barber thought the whole thing was funny. Apparently Abe told the barber in his fractured Spanglish that I wanted just a little taken off the top and sides and the barber thought Abe said cut all the hair off and leave just a little on the top and sides. This is the last time I am going to let Abe help me get a haircut in a foreign country.

After the haircut debacle I decided to go next door and get a massage.

This particular massage guy, Reynaldo, is a legend on the Camino. He takes battered and broken Pilgrims and massages then like a baker massages a lump of bread dough. You are not as good as new after one of Reynaldo’s massages, but you do walk out of his office believing that you can walk the remaining 300 kilometers to Santiago. I got a ninety minute massage and it was a miraculous experience. I am still sore and feeling a little beat up, but I am now looking forward to tackling the Camino tomorrow.

After the massage I had a nice leisurely lunch with Marco from Italy, Andrea from Sweden and Francisco, a Ph.D physicist from Brazil. Francisco is interested in the American West and trains and knows very little about either subject. I am interested in Brazil and physics and know very little about either subject. As you can imagine we had a very interesting series of discussions over our two hour lunch.

Remind me to never order a hamburger in Spain. My hamburger turned out to be an ox burger. No matter how many times I sent it back to the kitchen, it came back raw. That is what I get for straying from the tried and true jamon sandwiches.

This is the Gaudi museum in Leon. Gaudi is the Frank Loyd Wright of Spain. I took a two hour guided tour of the museum and learned more than I ever wanted to know about Gaudi the architect.

This is the view of Leon from one of the towers in the Gaudi museum.

This is the lobster paella we had for dinner. We got the lunch group together and decided to celebrate our imminent departure from Leon with a nice dinner. With my new haircut I got a military discount.

This dinner is the best meal I have had since the last tasting menu in Sweden. If you like lobster, and who doesn’t like lobster, you would love this lobster paella 🥘.

This is the Leon Cathedral at night.

That is it for today.

I hope everyone is having a great Thursday.

Good evening from Leon, Spain.