36 Days and Counting ...

"Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed." ~ Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

Thirty-six  days and counting … and we hope to board a plane using passes from a friend and be on our way to Brussels, the first leg of our journey. We will spend a few days visiting our youngest son who is in the Army working at AFN Benelux. It has been 2 ½ years since we last saw him.  It will be great to wrap our arms around him and give him a BIG hug! 

We will be traveling to familiar territory. Twenty-eight years ago we left Belgium after living in Europe for six years and returned to the U.S. At that time our sons were in 1^st and 3^rd grades. Never in our wildest imaginations did we think one of our sons would join the Army and then serve at the same duty station. Stoney flew helicopters for the SACEUR and I think this was his favorite assignment in 20+ years with the Army. Zach is a combat photographer/videographer working in tv broadcast and he is really enjoying this assignment.

We have made some arrangements this past week and our journey is becoming less of a dream and more of a reality. Stoney has taken care of the rental car at Brussels airport. We’ll drive about an hour South to visit Zach. We’ll drive the rental car to Charelois airport for drop off and fly to Biarritz, France on Ryanair. Reservations for that flight are confirmed. We’ll take a bus or taxi from Biarritz airport to Bayonne train station for a ride to Lourdes. 

 

Lourdes is a small town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southern France.  In 1858, a 14-year old local girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in the remote Grotto of Massabielle. The lady identified herself as “the Immaculate Conception” and appeared to Bernadette 18 times. The faithful believe the lady to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. An estimated 200 million people have visited the shrine since 1860 and the Roman Catholic Church has officially recognized 69 healings considered miraculous. Have a look at the link if you’d like to read about Lourdes.

The following day we will travel by train or bus to Pau train station (not too far from Lourdes) and we have made arrangements to take a van along with a few others to St. Jean Pied de Port. It's about 90 miles and I think we will enjoy the scenery along the way.  We'll have time to walk around the little town and we'll spend the night at Gite Azkorria on the rue de la Citadelle not far from where we'll begin our journey on the Camino.

 The next day we'll begin our walk on the Camino. We don't have to leave early morning because we have reservations at Refuge Orrison (third dot on map). We will start the Camino gently by walking only about 5 miles our first day.  The next day it will be about a 10 mile walk to Roncesvalles (last dot on chart 1) where we will probably spend our second night unless we are not ready to stop walking. It has been said that the first day can be quite challenging for those who walk the entire 15 miles.  So we are grateful to be spending our first night in Orrison. You can see by the elevation chart, it's a climb UP the Pyrenees.

This morning we received 2 inches of rain and so it was a great day for Stoney to test his hands-free trekking umbrella. I used mine on the Appalachian Trail and it made walking in the rain tolerable on most days and when the rain was a gentle rain, it was absolutely delightful to walk in the rain. A loop hooks the handle around the backpack waistbelt and there is a velcro shoulder attachment that holds the adjustable height umbrella pole to the shoulder strap.  So we walked about 3 miles this morning and I made a little video. I apologize that I'm a bit tongue-tied in my narration. When Stoney talks to me while I'm making a video, I get a bit distracted and my narration suffers. At the end of the walk, he thanked me for his new umbrella.