May 22. 4:00 PM. Day 10. Walked 12.2 km (7.6) miles) today. Walked 236.8 of 787 km (149.1 of 478 miles) total.

Today was a scary day.  As you can see, I walked less today by far than on any other day.  And I felt every single step.  For those of you who are reading along with me every day, you may remember that on day two I felt some pain in my right hip.  But I kept walking and eventually the pain went away.  Well, today I felt the same pain, but this time I could not walk through it.  It was very painful and I am guessing that I walked at about half of my normal pace.  The good news is that I am still a little ahead of my 32 day plan, because I had made some great gains over the last few days.  However, the bad news is that, for the first time, I have had to think about the possibility that I might not be able to complete this.  I am definitely not near that point yet, but it was quite disheartening to even entertain the thought.

In addition to the physical pain, or maybe because of it, I dont know, I found myself very homesick last night and today.  I miss my kids terribly, more than I really expected to (and I expected to miss them a lot!).  It occurred to me that I have already been gone for over a week, and I still have more than four left.  I have never been away from them for this long and I would give anything to hug them right now.

It is a shame that I was feeling this way today, because the walk today was actually quite spectacular.  It was the biggest climb of the walk so far (hopefully that had something to do with my hip pain, though truthfully it started in earnest last night) and the bulk of it was on a mountain road/path.  There was literally not one cloud in the sky all day, and the sky was a deep blue color that I have rarely seen.  Because of my physical discomfort, I stopped more frequently than usual.  At one point I found a bench, laid down for about 45 minutes, and listened to And Then There Were Three (Genesis), one of my all time favorite albums.  It was very relaxing and I might have even drifted off for a few minutes.

Right now I am in a little town called Ages, which is about 4km past the book's scheduled stopping point for today, which was San Juan de Ortega.  As my hip started hurting more and more, I decided that I would have to stop in San Juan de Ortega, and in fact I did stop there and had lunch.  However, thinking that the albergue was still a bit down the road, I put on my pack and continued walking.  I had gone maybe 500 yards when I saw someone walking the other way.  He told me that the albergue was actually in the church where I had just been, and he was walking back there.  With as much pain as I was in, I could not bring myself to walk backwards even 500 yards.  There is just no way... I already walked that 500 yards... I am NOT doing it again!!  So, I decided to push on and walk the extra 4km (about 2.5 miles), just so I would not have to backtrack 500 yards.  How is that for stubborn??!

One last thing before I go.  Last night I stayed in a beautiful albergue.  There was a man and a woman there who I thought were boyfriend and girlfriend.  It turns out that he is 37 and she is 14.  I figured them both for their mid twenties.  I think I am losing it!  Anyway, their story is pretty amazing.  As a preface, I should tell you that the route I am walking is one of many Caminos de Santiago.  There are many routes all through Europe.  The one I am walking is the most popular and most heavily traveled.  So, back to my story, these people I met had already walked the Camino from Sevilla to Santiago (1,000km) and were now walking my Camino backwards from Santiago to St. Jean (another 800km).  They were only 10 days from their destination and had already been walking for three months!  He works for an association in France that takes juveniles who have gotten in trouble and sends them on a three month walk rather than send them to jail.  How is that for cool?  I was just so impressed by both of them.  I wish that I could have talked to her, but she did not speak English.  He was incredible though.  It made my night!

Guess what??  I just SAW my kids.  This computer has Skype and they figured out how to Skype from Talia's laptop.  I could see and talk to them as if they were here.  What great timing... I really needed that!

Until tomorrow...