Day 17 – Mom and I had a great day

So yes, I do often think very fondly of my Mom while strolling along (actually I think of her often and fondly all the time) but it’s my other “mom”‘I’m referring to…..

Rosemary and I came upon a pair of brothers-in-law just at the 100km left to Santiago mileage marker (woohoo – closing in!) and offered to take their picture together.  Now bear in mind that they were looking directly into the sun, but the one fellow asked Rosemary if she and I were mother and daughter doing the walk – and you can guess given I’m telling the story which one he thought was the mom and which one the daughter!  Hilarious!!!!!! And given all he could see looking directly into the sun was 2 silhouettes I have no idea why he would have made the comment – haha, but he did and I will forever rag Rosemary about it!

Anyways, following the fortunate/unfortunate introduction it ended up that Rosemary walked with the one brother (still not sure why she didn’t push him off a cliff) and I walked with the other for about an hour. John (my brother) and I had a great discussion.  He is retired from MetLife and now works in Ohio with a Roman Catholic organization whose mandate is to evangelize Catholicism.  We had a fascinating discussion about this mission, the Catholic Church and spirituality vs religion.  I really enjoyed our talk!  I need to somehow find Pastor Andy the Methodist minister ex of the SAS and from Nottingham England as the Synod has just assigned him the task of evangelizing the Methodist church in his parish. I think they could have a great conversation.

Today’s walk was longer at 26km. Much of the day I was fussing about that rotten rock chute from last year. They’ve changed the trail!!!!!! There’s still a very steep downhill but it’s now paved!!!!  Rosemary and I did walk a half km or so back at the base so she could see the old trail – it was there and still as scary.

Yet again we are at the same albergue I stayed at last year and it is still lovely.  We seem to have picked up Peter from Calgary who is now booking forward with us.