In my mind I’m gone to Carolina....


Tomorrow, we will be in Santiago.  After 35 days of walking towards it.  So many memories.  So, why is the name of today’s blog about Carolina?  Well because tomorrow marks an end and another beginning.  Going home.  Home to see our children and grandchildren. And our pup, Sandy.  We return to our family and friends and leave many new friends and memories to cherish and many lessons, which will be revealed in time.

We have logged 498 miles.  It is supposed to be 485 miles to Santiago from St. Jean Pied de Port.  And we have 6 miles to go.  Maybe that’s because we got lost a few times. But we are counting every mile, not just those directly on the Camino. Being lost counts too.  I haven’t added up how many feet up and down, but it was a lot.

We have three more posts before we end this blog.  One will be about entering Santiago tomorrow, one will be about our journey with Will James and one will be about our lessons learned.

We are writing this blog as our record of this adventure.  If you have read any of it, we hope you’ve enjoyed sharing our experience.

It seems that James Taylor wrote this song, Carolina in my Mind, when he was in Spain.  So, it is particularly relevant to us.  A few stanzas below.  I’ve left out a few too.

In my mind I'm gone to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine?
Can't you just feel the moonshine?
Ain't it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind?
Yes, I'm gone to Carolina in my mind
........
Dark and silent, late last night
I think I might have heard the highway call
And geese in flight and dogs that bite
The signs that might be omens say
I'm goin', I'm goin'
I'm gone to Carolina in my mind
.....
We are now only six miles away from Santiago.  We will have breakfast tomorrow morning and set off.  We should be there in plenty of time to get our Compostela’s.  It’s hard to describe the call of home against the adventure.  No question, home is calling, but we are so grateful to have had this experience.  Ginger, our friend from Alabama, quotes a man she walked with as saying something to the effect of, “the Camino empties your glass; what you fill it up with is the real question.”  

It was raining again today.  We hadn’t checked the weather forecast but as we left our hotel, one of our fellow lodgers (Kurt) reported rain.  So, we quickly gathered our rain jackets and off we went.  It started out misty, then rainy, then misty, then more rain.  There was muck that stuck to your boots, muck that you could slip on ....  Muck.  Hard to describe how much muck. Puddles everywhere. 

But it was also a forest, which meant that you got maybe a little less of the rain, but more of the water blowing off of the trees.  The forest was pretty cool.  It reminded me of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  I could see Frodo or Gandalf.  

Photos with a few annotations follow:



This is the Hobbit picture.....


Steve’s last NC pin...

Like I said, it was muddy today.
A couple we’ve seen along the way.  Captured before dawn this morning.

Steve loves these rocks.  He says it is one of the things he will miss the most.
Steve was happier than he looks.  But it was a good picture of Sandra, which is what matters.
What is this?
Sandra and Brent, who we just met.  From Canada. Second Camino. Just finishing 1800 kilometers.  Started walking in Arles, France.  August 2.

To Santiago tomorrow.  

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