May 22, 2013

Zippadudah Zippadeay! My oh my, what a wonderful day! Plenty of sunshine coming our way. Zippaduda Zippadeay! This is how we began our journey today singing these lyrics. It was perfect weather, perfect sunshine, very little variation in the up hills and down hills, and running into so many friends that we’ve met along the way. We passed the graveside of a young man, age 49, who died one day before completing his pilgrimage. Our first stop was in ?? where we stopped for café con leche. It was a special restauranté where pilgrims have left messages for years and years and years. Every wall space, ceiling space, table top space, table leg space, barrel space was filled with messages left by pilgrims. I left two and had to lie on the floor to find an empty space. My message said: “This pilgrimage is dedicated to my Catholic Church Reform project. Rene Reid 22-05-2013. I truly do hope that the inspirations and guidance that have come to me on this journey will come to fruition. We ran into Perry again who confirmed that there is a special celebration of the feast day of one of the Apostles. We’re not sure which one but what does it matter. We believe there will be a Mass at St. James cathedral tomorrow at noon. We are determined to get there in time for this.

We made our second stop in ?? where we joined Philipe, Len, Andy, Marta, and Kat for a snack. Andy is a singer and plays the guitar. We began singing
Time Of Your Life. Remember the song we sang earlier that was written for the Camino. Here are all the lyrics:
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it’s worth it was worth all the while.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

After singing and laughing and sharing stories, we wished each other a Buen Camino and headed on our journey. As we left them, we ran into Wil and Marjo on the trail and all of us made a stop at San Irene church, my patron saint and namesake. They took a picture of me there. It was such a simple, sweet little church in such a peaceful setting. We made plans to have lunch together the next day after Mass at St. James in Santiago – Wil, Marjo, Brent, Cecelia, Mike, Liz, and me and who knows who else. The rest of the walk was so beautiful – cows, sheep, horses, walking amidst the eucalyptus trees, down winding woodsy paths. The day couldn’t have been more perfect and only fourteen miles. This distance now seems like a walk in the park. Tomorrow Santiago! I can hardly believe we’ve come this far and we’re at the end of our journey. We all admitted that we had mixed emotions about reaching our destination. We didn’t really want the pilgrimage to come to an end. I never would have anticipated that I would feel this way. I would have expected to feel so jubilant at achieving the goal and arriving in Santiago. Actually I feel both. What a contradiction … but not really.

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