Day XXVI: Barbadelo -> Portomarín; 12.0mi.

🛏:Albergue Novo Porto, 10€.

I deleted the description of where we stayed last night, because they were made aware of the issue and (I’d like to think) they’re working on fixing it. Last night was our first (known) bed bug exposure. Going into this trip, we knew there was only so much prevention we could do, but it’s still unsettling.

We made today a shorter mileage day to ensure time for laundry and shaking out all of our stuff, crossing our fingers for no repercussions. Traveling. 🤷🏼‍♀️

🍴:

The majority of restaurants along the camino have a “pilgrim menu” or “menu del dia.” It consists of unlimited wine and bread, a first and second course and dessert. The cost is typically 9.00 – 11.00€. It’s always way too much food and we always eat it all.

🎒:

Every year my dad and I set aside (at least) one day for fishing and one spring day for skiing together (which occasionally turns into a Denver adventure because we wait too long and the snow is slush). Regardless of what we end up doing, they’re two of my favorite days of the year and here are two of my annual dad-day souvenirs that made the packing list cut for this trip.

The other morning I expressed to my friend that I was worried I’d get home from this trip and feel like I did too much thinking about how much my feet hurt and not enough thinking about what I came here to think about. If you knew how much my feet hurt, you’d know that isn’t entirely an unreasonable concern. But it’s still a mostly unreasonable concern, thirty days of walking leaves an awful lot of time for thinking of things beyond blisters and aching arches.

But historically, I do crash hard after anything I’ve been anticipating comes to an end and I’m probably emotionally gearing up for that. It doesn’t matter what it is, summer camp, a concert or a month long trip to Spain, it’s all the same. I get home, romanticize the event, look through photographs on repeat and wallow in a “the thing I was looking forward to for so long is over” funk.

With that in the back of my mind, I’m trying to set myself up for a successful transition home (while simultaneously striving to live in the moment here).

Listening to this audiobook over the past few days has been well timed and it’s helped the new-things-to-anticipate line up. (It also helps that I’ll be returning to a job I love and a schedule that is super conducive to adventures).

🎧:

At this point in my life, I have zero intent to climb Mt Everest (perhaps especially so after listening to this story), but my current most-ambitious adventure-goal is summiting all of Colorado’s 14ers (peaks over 14,000ft).

As of today, I sit at 12/53-58 summits and a few barely-unsuccessful attempts thanks to adverse weather. (I’m also still figuring out where I fall in the heavily debated “how many 14ers are there, actually?” question).

As I consider returning to school in the Fall, I’m extra motivated to check off more of them this summer. (Annnnd now I wish I could call the pup and tell him “I’ll be home soon, sorry I left you for a month, but wait until you start experiencing our summer line up.”)

Side note: in 9th grade my home room class rigged the superlative voting and agreed on someone for every category so that we could all win something. I somehow ended up with “most likely to climb Mt Everest.” At that point in time I was still in my I don’t like hiking phase. These days, I feel a little less guilty and a little more atoned every time I check off another 14er.