So the story begins with my 82 year old dad deciding that he is going to walk the Camino de Santiago--Frances in May of 2018. By HIMSELF!!. My sister and I started to worry about him being on his own, especially over the mountain passes and on busy city streets. He has a hearing deficit (two hearing aides), a pacemaker, 4 stents in his heart, a damaged lung from a trauma, and two bone-on-bone arthritic knees. So we came up with a plan that my sister would meet him in St. Jean Pied de Port and walk the first 10 days to get him over the Pyrenees and safely near the Meseta. Mission Accomplished!! He was AMAZING, he trekked right over the mountain ranges and into Pamplona.
My sister had to leave and go back to the United States for her job and left my dad to travel on his journey. Our plan was for me to fly into Madrid and take the Metro to the train station and then take the 8 hour train ride to Sarria. My dad and I had planned to meet in Sarria and walk the last 115 kilometers together into Santiago. The plan worked and he met me at the train station in Sarria and we stayed at a wonderful little hotel called Hotel Novoa. Which I highly recommend. It had a restaurant attached with a great Pilgrim dinner and a hot breakfast in the morning.
Then our journey began from Sarria to Santiago. We both instantly fell in love with Galicia. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have my adult dad to myself on a journey like this. It was a lesson in love and patience. I learned more about my dad in those 7 days than I knew in 58 years of being his son. There was problem!! At home in California I had a wife that was upset and very very jealous that I was walking the Camino before she got to. She had known about the Camino her whole life (being raised Catholic) and it wasn't fair that I got to walk it before her!!
So the second part of this journey was to come back in October of the same year and walk from Sarria to Santiago with my wife Dominique!!
That adventure will be my next blog.