We woke up in pretty good shape this morning thanks to a hot shower and good night’s sleep. I was surprised that my feet showed no evidence of yesterday’s over use. This was one of those stops where we stayed for two nights, a great option avoiding the daily reloading of the packs. The Rota…

A few more thoughts about our epic second day.  Trail marking was not great, especially when there were crossroads of trails. Three times, in the absence of markers, we were lucky to be joined by other hikers with more knowledge of the way. This marker expressed our feelings of the coming narrow track close to…

So I ended my last post, regarding watching trail previews, with the question, did it make us better prepared or scared. The answer: not scared enough. Whoever rated the trail difficulty as 2/5 has a different rating system than we’re used to. Overall it averaged a 3, but some parts were a 4. I confirmed…

Tonight’s dinner was typical hotel room fare for us when our stomachs are riched out from an excess of regional eating or if we are too exhausted to manage restaurant decision making. It’s more appetizing than it looks. Leftover pork from last night’s dinner, local hard cheese with Italian herbs, pimento, bread and Douro wine…

At 6:00 a.m. the storm was still raging. By 8:00 it was a beautifully sunny day. We went for the included breakfast and were joined by a young woman, hiking on her own. Who’s this first person we meet at brekkie? Coincidentally, a nurse from Vancouver. We exchanged info about other point-to-point walking experiences.  Today…

The journey started with three flights – Vancouver to Calgary to Paris to Lisbon. It wasn’t as pleasant a trip as we have had in the past. I can understand a small child being vocal about ear pain while flying. What I can’t is the sibling shaking a rattle that sounded like a New Year’s…

For our Caminos de Santiago we didn’t train overly hard and were quite successful. If we could manage a 10k trek we figured we could do 20. We were correct. Six mile Sundays were our routine with half that on our daily walks.  This trip will average 16.5, so six mile Sundays could be reduced…

Just got my new passport in the mail. It’s good for ten more years. I hope that serves as a warranty on my life expectancy. I intend to put it to good use starting with a hike in Portugal. Not the Caminos de Santiago we have done in the past, but something milder, given the…

Something cobwebby and autumnal in time for this weekend’s semi-annual Fall Art Show and Sale. 8”x10” watercolour on 140lb cold press paper. 

It was Canadian Thanksgiving and off we went to Washington’s Bayview State Park, less than 90 minutes from home,  pulling the trailer, plus the border line-up. Of course we stop for groceries on the US side to avoid questioning and searching re food. What you can and can’t bring over the border is a moving…