I’ve created this blog site to share with you my latest adventure. After working for 47 years starting at the age of 13, I’ve decided to enter into a new phase in my life. That of being a retiree. What does that mean? What will I do? How will I survive? Maybe the Camino will help provide guidance. I’ve known of the Camino de Santiago de Campostela for many years. It has intrigued me. I see the Camino as an opportunity to transition off the treadmill I’ve known since boyhood to a new life that is presently unknown to me. I don’t know where the Camino will lead me, if it leads me at all to anything new. I only know that I must make myself available to the calling of the Camino. Each of us have to experience our own Camino. Only you can answer when the time is right for your own Camino. My wife and daughter will join me on May 13 to Madrid, Spain. We will begin our walk from Burgos. I plan to share my journal and photos with you as we experience this journey. My own Camino has now started.
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Hey Joe! What a great start with your blog, I look forward to tracking your progress and following your adventures. Marion and I are with you in spirit if not in body! Take care – love Carl and Marion x
Joe and Nancy- the adventure begins! Vicki and I wish you the best and will be following your blog. Take care, travel light and keep the spirit with you!
Mike and Vicki Van Portfliet
Hi Bill, great hearing from you and thanks for your email address. We’ll certainly keep in touch. James is really enjoying his work as a radio sports broadcaster. He’s “living the dream.”
Joe: Terry and Mike updated me on your retirement and your plans here, good luck – sounds like a great experience to launch into retirement with. I hear you son on the radio every day and think of you, should make you proud. Keep in touch, email me back sometime directly at wcoder@lgsinnovations.com. Thanks, I know I may not hear from you for a while with the trip and all. Bill Coder
Thanks for your support! We are now in Madrid for today and take the 0800 train to Burgos tomorrow.
Joe, glad to hear you are safely en Espana! You will soon be ‘campesinos’ – be safe mate.
Live the Dream Joe!! Looking forward to your updates.
Incredible blog Joe! It’s a pleasure to experience the Camino vicariously through your words, thoughts, and pictures. Trish and I wish you, Nancy, and Andrea a time filled with introspection, reflection on a life well lived, and an amazing time to draw closer to God. “Vaya con Dios” my friend! PHIL K.
Hi Phil,
So far this has been an amazing experience indeed! The spanish countryside is so beautiful and filled with friendly people who seem happy to accommodate the pilgrims. I’ll keep attempting to enter my journal each day as long as I can get wifi connection. Our love to you and Trish
Joe, keep pressing on, the aches and pains are to be expected. As you progress they will greatly diminish, you are all still ‘bedding’ in. You are aiming for 20k a day I guess? Maybe 25, with rest days taken into account. It will get easier mate! Loving the blog. Carl.
Glad to read that you are finding your grove. Keep it up. 🙂
Thank you, JJ. Tomorrow is going to be a real test for us.
Joe – good plan for Nancy and Andrea – I think you should watch that cold carefully though! Really do listen to your body. You are all doing amazingly well.
Joe, good luck with the long one tomorrow. You are all getting stronger!
Hi my great American mates. Miss you all heaps already. Jude and Nick still asleep and I’m fiddling around with the phone and found your blog. We are in Leon now. Nick had a really hard ride with headwind and not feeling great but made it by 1pm. Fabian Cancellara eat your heart out! Beautiful beautiful city and San Martin near cathedral a great place to stay. Would be a long hard slog that last day into Leon… Worth considering a bus I reckon. Hope the knees feet and heads are all doing ok. So enjoyed your company, walking with you and sharing thoughts. Ultreia mi amigos! Talk soon. Xx
Debbie
Actually I’ve only found your very first entry Joe. Sometime I will work it all out and catch up with the blog. Happy walking today. Deb.
No worries! Today was an easy day of walking. Tomorrow will be more difficult. Safe travels!
Hi Debbie! I’m glad to learn that all of you made it safely to Leon. Andrea and Nancy followed you there the next day. Andrea mentioned that they’ve already seen you and Judy! We really enjoyed walking with the three of you and the laughs we shared. I hope it won’t be the last! I plan to arrive in Leon this Saturday. Buen Camino!
Joe,Nancy and Andrea-how fun to read about and follow your travels! Please know I pray for you daily and your safe,meaningful and joy filled pilgrimage. May your spirits soar and your feet fly over the trail. Love,Terry
Thank you Terry for your prayers. We need them! Our spirits are soaring but our feet are not exactly flying over the trail, but I love the visual! We resume our Camino tomorrow morning after an extra day’s rest in Leon. – Love to you and Bob
Vicki and I are really enjoying your writing. The “Lady Golfer” analogy was classic and very insightful. We were glad to hear you gave the girls a respite. Good decision! I hope the rest has them ready to hit the camino again. Don’t forget to rest a little yourself! Good luck! Safe travels!
I’m glad you’re enjoying the blogging. It’s been a much greater challenge than I had imagined! Tomorrow we start heading to the mountains. This Thursday and Friday are going to be really tough as we ascend to the highest point on the Camino and then the steep descent down. I’ll keep you posted!
Hey cuz….. Doria and I are are spending a week at Anna Maria island to do our decompressing so I had time to just kickback and catch up with all of your entries. What an incredible experience and I am so very impressed with your writing skills. You may have found one new career path right there. I feel I am experiencing every cafe con lechwe, every cold shower, and every pain you are experiencing. It is really incredible that you guys are doing this and it’s a lifetime achievement for sure that surpasses all others. I think I might do it soon but after reading your entries I will be sending the backpacks ahead (great idea by the way) and I will be importing a golf cart to ride. Well, keep up the spirits. I hope your cold gets better and everyone’s pain subsides. You re half way there …….we send our love to you Nancy, and Andrea.
Hola Primo! I’m glad you’re enjoying the website. It’s been fun to maintain and to share these experiences with our family and friends. I love your idea of the golf cart! That is very funny! I can visualize that so well. Instead of where the golf bags would go, we could strap our backpacks! I can’t wait to share that with some of our fellow peregrinos tomorrow! Nancy and I really miss you and Doria. We hope to see you two this year. Much love and affection from Joe, Nancy, and Andrea!
Hey Joe and Nancy, great reading of your experience along the way. I continue to train and prepare for my September walk. I’ll probably start in Pamplona and try to do 450 miles in 35 days, we’ll see. I’ll catch up with your posts and share your trip, then looking forward to seeing you back in Denver this summer. Larry Bryant
Hi Larry,
I look forward to seeing back in Colorado to personally share our Camino experience. Buen Camino!
Joe, what an adventure! I catch up every couple of days with your blogs. I appeciate all of the little details and observations you provide to us CO mountain dwellers. Except for the sore feet and joints, I feel like I’m traveling with the three (four) of you. You’re making great progress, but that’s not the point, right? 🙂 The road itself is the point, a parable about life incarnate and living in the NOW, the progress will attend to itself. As you said it is your personal camino, though you travel/share it with others, to do it how you feel best–so much like life itself! Your day-to-day experiences have given me much to think on right now in my own life. Your camino reminds me of the Mark Twain quote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Keep on trekking, my friends and may the wind be at your back the rest of the way! Matt H.
Matt,
Thanks for the great comments and Mark Twain quote. We really appreciated it! We’re really enjoying this rich experience and appreciate it more as we get closer to Santiago. Wishing you all the best! – Joe
Breaking the rules once in awhile is one of the rules! You are on the down hill side. Keep your dauber up!
I’m feeling better about that decision because it made a huge difference for all of us from a physical perspective. We will still have walked over 500 kilometers by the time we reach Santiago because even when we end our day in a new town or village we still walk everywhere! It seems like if we’re not eating or sleeping, we’re walking!
So glad you all are getting some nicer weather! You all are a tough bunch climbing those kind of elevations in such short distances. Colorado hiking will be like a walk in the park:)
Hi Terry!
Nancy says “aveno face cream is not cutting it for the Camino! She loves and misses you!”
Just found out about your blog from Gene. My wife and I (from Conifer) will be on the Camino in April. We will be reading your entries from ay one. Congratulations on your adventure…Buen Camno!
Thanks for the well wishes! You and your wife will experience a wonderful Camino.
Buen Camino!
Congratulations on your achievement! What a tremendous life experience for each of you. Thank you greatly for sharing it with us!
Joe, family, and extended family (Heike)–Hurray! You all made it in one piece, even though sore and bruised! Great job and congrats! No wonder yesterday had a good vibe–it was sunny here at 8178 feet in CO and we were working in the yard, meanwhile you were basking in your accomplishment in Santiago. May your camino continue to provide dividends in its deeper meaning, the friendships, and experiences you’ve had long after you return to us here in Colorado! Buen Camino! Matt H.
…and yes, thank you for “taking us along” with you on this adventure!
I am grateful that I had the opportunity to share our adventure with our family and friends. – jrg
Thank you Matt for your support and well wishes! The power and beauty of the Camino is that it seems to transcend time in that we are now part of a community of people who have been doing this for over a thousand years. I anticipate that some of the friends we’ve made, the lessons learned, and experiences shared will last a lifetime. Pretty cool when you think about that!
Buen Camino! – Joe
I was cheering for you all the way. Congrats Joe, Nancy, and Andrea!. Joe, I loved following your blog all the way.
Thanks, Sharon for following! We’re looking forward to getting back home. See you and Tim in about a week! Love from Joe and Nancy
A huge congratulations to you all!!! I wish you a restful and relaxing time to reflect on your accomplishments and to recover and get energized for a little sightseeing before your return. Love,Terry
Thank you Terry so much for your love, support, prayers and well wishes. It means a lot! All our love to you and Bob.
so happy for you guys……. you know how proud I am of you guys . The blog was awesome to follow ……it was like reading a novel but at your pace…wanting to turn the page but having to wait for your next entry and pictorials. You will have these memories for a lifetime . I hope everyone is healed to what seemed sometimes to be a brutal experience for your bones, joints, muscles – a full body experience. Have fun and safe travels and hope to speak to you soon. Love Bob Doria, Seve, and Camille.
Thanks Cuz for your constant support and kind words. It was definitely an adventure and one that I was happy to share. Nancy and Andrea are looking and feeling great. Can you believe that after a week of completing the Camino my feet are still swollen! The swelling had gone down a little bit the last few days but it’s been 8 days now since we’ve completed the Camino! I never did like walking! ;0
HiJoe, Nancy and Andrea . Being back in France again it is wonderful to be able to read your fantastic blog. It was great to meet you guys and thanks for moments shared.
Take care
Heidi & Henrik The Danes
Hello Heide! Nancy and I are very happy to learn that you’ve returned safely home and sent us your email address. I’m very glad you’re enjoying the blog. I will send you and Henrik the pictures we took of you two. We are so grateful to have met you two on the Camino. You and Henrik are “Rock Stars” walking from your home in France to Santiago! What an incredible accomplishment and adventure! Wishing you and Henrik all the best. Buen Camino!
good job! looking forward to seeing you again here in Colorado, hearing more of your walk and seeing more of your pictures! so, what’s next? ha! Larry
Hi Larry, Nancy and I will be happy to share some of our camino experiences not documented in the blog as well as more pictures. What’s next? Not exactly sure yet but am completely open to new possibilities! – jrg
Now you got swollen feet to go with that cabeza melon of yours LOLOLOLOL.
Te quiero , si no te quiria
No te Pego tanto dichos
I laughed hard reading your response! I love and miss your sense of humor. Nancy and I look forward to seeing you and Doria in August. Te quiero, Primo!
Hallo Joe, Nancy and Andrea
hope you are all well and healthy back at home!
The day when i finished the Camino, I was a little bit sad, that i didn´t saw the view point on Monte de Gozo from where Pilgrims could have a first look on Santiago.
So -some days later- I drove by bus back to Monte de Gozo, surching for the View Point and took some pictures from there.
Heike told me, that you are haevn´t sawn Santiago, too.
Would you like to have pictures from there? Then, please give me your Email Adress and I send you some pictures.
Hallo Gabi!
It is good to learn that you have safely returned home to your family. Nancy and I enjoyed very much your friendship on the Camino and like you, were a little sad that the Camino ended. I did take pictures with Heike on the Monte de Gozo the day we walked into Santiago. What we did not do is go to Finisterre. Did you take the bus to go there? If so, if you have pictures from there, we would be grateful for any pictures you want to share from Finisterre.
My email address is zemogrj@comcast.net. Think of “jrgomez” backwards. In the next few days, as I sort out all the pictures taken to the Camino, I plan to continue making a few more posts on my website. I will also email to you pictures I took of you on the Camino.
Please, let’s keep in touch.
Warmest regards to you and your family,
Buen Camino!
Hi. Well being back to France and of causebeing a part of your and your lovely wife and daugheters experience during your walk. I’m happy to tell you that we are now back in France. We are not finally “There” ending our tour, that will take another 2-3 months. The experience of our walk will take some decades to think through. Heidi is already considering to expand our trip going to Le Puy from Limogne just to make “the whole jurney” Getting to know you and your family during the trip was a great joy and should you in future get to France it will be a great thrill to host you during a stay in the Lot area. Thank you for treating ud kindly in your reflekstion on the Block and give our love to ypur family. Heidi and Henrik (Denmark)
Hello Henrik!
So good to hear from you and thank you for your very kind words!
Nancy and I are happy to learn that you and Heide have safely returned to your home in France. Like you I agree that it will take quite some time to absorb and reflect on the Camino experience. I too am considering an expansion of my Camino experience. I’d like to return within a few years and walk the Camino starting from St. Jean Pied du Port in France.
Nancy, Andrea and I also enjoyed very much meeting you and Heide. Both of you enriched our Camino experience. Each of you demonstrated such dignity, class, and a great sense of humor along the Camino. Please know that you and Heide have a home in Colorado. We would love to have you stay with us if you are ever in the area. There is much to do and see in the Denver, Colorado area – including a beautiful day of hiking in the Rocky Mountains!
Buen Camino!
Con cariño, besos y abrazos,
Joe, Nancy and Andrea
Dear Joe
It is great to read you blog even after some months after the camino. The last time I saw you after our great dinner at the italian restaurant in Leon was the day after, when we met mid-day out of Leon.
How are you doing in the meantime.
Hugs from Switzerland from
Helene
Dear Helene,
Please accept my apologies for the very late response! It is very good hearing from you! After completing the Camino in Santiago, Nancy, Andrea and I remained in Spain for another week visiting Barcelona and Madrid. We have been extremely busy since our return to the States. The last two months we’ve completelely renovated the entire first floor of our house and have been preparing for our youngest son’s wedding, hence, my late reply since I have not visiting my website in quite some time. Perhaps this is a good motivation for me to return to my website more often! I sincerely your Camino provided you all that you desired and that all is well with you in Switzerland. Winterthur? Is that your home town?
Besos y Abrazos,
Joe