Category: Life Is A Spell

Hotel Corona de Castilla in Burgos was full of art, mostly prints but a few one of a kind assemblages. There was even a Francis Bacon print on the primer piso, a contorted male figure in a dramatic spacial environment. It was signed and numbered in Roman numerals. We were only a few blocks from the cathedral so we left our bags in the room and walked back there this morning to see if the little religious shop we had seen last night was open yet. It wasn’t, so we had coffee and Tortilla and went back to check out.

Our route out of Burgos took us back toward the cathedral and that small shop. We struck gold on our third visit. I bought seventeen holy cards for thirty centavos each and Maureen bought a small Cruz de Caravaca from Murcia.

We took a couple of wrong turns on the way out of town and we’re quickly directed back on course by locals. Pilgrims stick out here with their muddy shoes and backpacks. The Camino is like a giant park, as wide as a path, and stretched out, east to west, across the entire country of Spain. Walking it from town to town through gorgeous countryside is like an incredibly long, dreamy movie.

We had vegetable soup and a salad at our hotel in Hornillos (population 68 inhabitants) and we met a couple who said they were staying down the street in the same room Martin Sheen stayed in when his son Emilio Estevez was filming “The Way,” their movie about the Camino. The owner of the hotel there told the couple that Emilio’s son met their daughter during the filming. They married and are living in LA.

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It was raining when we set out this morning for Burgos and we walked seven kilometers on a slippery, rocky path before stoping in the first town for café con leche y uno pincho de Tortilla Espanola. Unlike the first week of our Camino the towns are now mostly in valleys. The towns near the Pyrenees were all built on hills for medieval, defensive reasons. As we climbed out of town we came across a shepherd with an umbrella and a dog tending this huge herd of sheep. Peggi made an audio recording of their cowbells.

The way into Burgos was a bit of a slog, a long industrial stretch with nowhere to duck behind a bush for relief. The old section of the city though is very pretty with a bounty of cafes and restaurants. We had Pulpo y ensalada mixta con Valdeón y queso de cabra. Walk on the Wild Side was playing on the sound system.

The Cathedral in Burgos is astounding, a millennium’s worth of craftsmanship and over the top devotion. It completely drained us. Maureen stayed for the seven-thirty Pilgram’s mass and she was surprised to be the only pilgrim in the house.

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We never set the alarm at home, not even when we were working, so it’s a little strange to be startled by an alarm every day of our vacation. But if you’re gonna walk all day you might as well get going early.

We find ourselves entirely loopy after walking all day. Can’t think straight, walk right or even converse. There were quite a few climbs today and we clocked twenty three miles before stopping in Atapuerca, a town of 206 residents.

There are only a few hotels here and they are all full so we are staying in an Albergue, something like a youth hostel. It is a big room with maybe twenty bunk beds, no sheets or pillow cases and no heat. Blankets were provided but they look like they have been around the block. The proprietor pointed to a wood pile and told us we could start a fire in their wood stove if we wanted to. The cost is cinco Euros por la noche.

Spaniards eat their main meal in the early afternoon and we got here too late for that. We had to wait for the restaurants to open again at seven before sitting down for a meal and you can imagine how how hungry you are after walking all day.

Tomorrow we should be in Burgos. There are quicker ways to get there but none more rewarding.

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Let’s see. What are we going to do today? Walk.

We walked out of the Rioja region and into Castillo y Leon, our third providence in Spain. The countryside has shifted from vineyards to wide open rolling hills full of wheat. Maureen, my cousin and our walking partner, is a farm girl from Dundee, New York, Starkeys Corners to be precise, on Seneca Lake. She has been pointing out all the geeky farm minutiae, the same stuff her father did on their farm.

I lost my second glove today. Just as well, it’ll lighten my load. I probably put it under my arm when I stopped to take a photo and then let it go.

I’m still thinking about the ghost town we walked through yesterday. It took about a half an hour, the same length as the early Twilight Zone episodes. A town in the country with rows and rows of new apartments or condominiums, all empty with “En Venta” signs in the windows. Spain had a housing bubble worse than ours. Surrealism at its finest sticks with you.

So many of the churches we’ve been in along the Camino charge a Euro to put the lights on. They are unattended and in near darkness until you drop a Euro “por la luz.” The statues and altars, the retablos, the stations of the cross and paintings all come to life. A real bargain!

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Our ninth day on the Camino was an easy one. Not that it is getting any easier, just that it was a shorter haul. Rain was forecast but we didn’t see any. When we arrived in Santo Domingo we sat on a bench at the outskirts of town and looked up hotels. There are two Paradors here and we were ready to live large so we chose the one named after the Saint, located next door to the cathedral named after Santo Domingo.

We had an early main meal, Spanish style, at a place across the square from our hotel. It was a two fork restaurant (whatever that means), and we ordered local dishes, salted Cod and lamb with a bottle Rioja that came from a vineyard four kilometers outside of town. We asked the waitress what the beautiful flowering yellow crop we saw on the way into town was and she told it was rape.

After dinner we toured the cathedral where the Saint lies in a tomb. They’ve kept live chickens in the cathedral since the fifteenth century in tribute to a miracle Santo Domingo performed, a miracle that is too crazy to retell here.

We stopped in small bakery and bought cookies shaped like chickens. The bakery was run by a woman who looked like she stepped out of a Bolero painting.

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We have our own descriptions of the fellow pilgrims, the ones we see every couple of days. We are no where near high season so we go long stretches without seeing anyone at all but we’ll get into a town and run into a familiar face or two every time. If these fellow travelers have nicknames for us I would be “the guy with one glove.” I lost the right hand one on day three so I’ve been keeping that hand in my pocket.

Today’s trek was twenty miles in cold rain. And there were, not snow capped mountains like up in the Pyrenees, but snow covered moutains on both sides of the path. Zaragoza, to the south of us, got a shovelable amount and made the news. We are in the Rioja region now. Navarra is behind us. The soil is red and the path is muddy. You soldier on and act like this is your cross to bear. When we see the Asian couple again we’ll smile and say, “Buen Camino.”

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Not wanting to spoil this adventure I did very little in the way of preparation for the Camino, kinda like the way I approached high school. I didn’t read any of the guide books. Maybe that’s why we walked right by a “must see” monastery today.

Peggi read a few books and I followed her lead. Of course we did a lot of physical prep work, walking to Charlotte and building up to our walk around Irondequoit Bay. But I didn’t realize until we got here that about ninety five percent of the Camino is on dirt, stone and gravel paths over mountains, through woods and pastures and gorgeous little towns. At least this first week has been that way.

We did 23.4 miles today, most of it in the rain. We were pretty well prepared for that with the gear Olga picked out for us at REI. The base layer, fleece and outer shell pieces all performed perfectly. The pants, some sort of miracle fabric that wicks water and drys quickly, work but it was raining hard enough to roll down the backs of my legs and into my shoes. I guess that is where gators come in but we don’t have any.

Osprey makes great backpacks but their design depatrtmnt has overreached. You see a lot of them on the Camino and each year’s model has a bigger logo. We turned our rain covers inside out so as not to look so much like a billboard and we were surprised to see others who have done the same.

But considering how old this pilgrim route is, so many centuries old, it is striking how uncommercial and unspoiled the Camino is.

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Living out of the pack on your back is entirely possible. Other than the clothes all you really need is a camera, an internet device and your charge card. And the similarity to a monk’s existence is driven home here at Albergue de Capuchinos in Estella, a former monastery, where we were given one towel and a stack of linen to make our own beds.

We walked in rain and mud today and in between we stopped at churches in every town we passed through. We have discovered that we’ve met our match and then some when it comes to visiting churches. The iconography, the religious myths, the relics, the ritual, the architecture and history and in my Irish cousin’s case, the faith itself are all a magnetic force. We are thrilled to be traveling with Maureen. She spotted the twelfth century church of Santa Catalina in Cirauqui when we were still a mile out of town.

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Pamplona is in the Navarre region of Spain, just above the Rioja region, but it is also in Basque country It’s Basque name is Iruña. We took the train here from Madrid and plan to take a bus up to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (literally “Saint John [at the] Foot of [the] Pass) tomorrow to begin our walk.

Rick Steve’s would call Pamplona a “workaday” city. We live in a workaday city and happen to like them so we love it here. We walked around the old section, circled the bull ring, had tapas in two different places and came back to our hotel room with two cans of San Miguel cerveza. We could settle down in Iruña.

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You could pray for anything. Right? My mother, somewhat of an activist, would say, “I wish they would stop praying and do something.” We walked by this sign on Bay Road in Webster this afternoon and I thought of her.

Each day for the last month Peggi has plotted a loop for us to walk. If we are out somewhere in the car we’ll start from there but most often we start at our house. And we like to head out in one direction and come back via a different route. We have been inching our way up over ten miles a day and hit twelve the last few. We’ve gone down every road on this side of the bay. The roads reach the bay and then either dead end or come back up again. There is no road that runs continuously around the bay and we have been dreaming about walking around the bay but it just didn’t seem possible.

Today, Peggi suggested that we do it. Goggle plotted us straight down Culver to Empire, across the top of the bay and up the hill into Penfield to Bay Road. We stopped at Flaherty’s Three Flags Inn and split a pint of “Space Kitty,” a local IPA. A little further down the road we saw a sign sign that said, “Welcome to Webster Where Life Is Worth Living.” The sign was in the exact spot where the sidewalk ran out. Bay Road is is two lanes in either direction and it is decidedly not pedestrian friendly. We walked against traffic on the shoulder and kept jumping up in the snow to get out of the way.

Things settled down once we hit Lake Road and the walk across the spit of land between the lake and bay was beautiful at sunset. We stopped again at Shamrock Jack’s and had a pint of Ithaca’s “Flower Power” to celebrate our successful fourteen mile circumference. FC Salzburg vs Borussia Dortmund was on the screen behind the bar and the score was 0-0.

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I took a quick look at the route Peggi had plotted for today. She had Google Maps open on her iMac and the route was plotted in Satellite view. I could see the bay to the left of our starting point and the lakeshore was stretched out across the top of her screen. The river was also visible on the right hand side and our route went right along it for a stretch. I was struck by how much geography there was on the map and then by the notion that we could possibly cover that much ground on foot.

Our street was still somewhat icy so we started with our Yaktrax on but took them off at the cemetery. Those roads are some of the cleanest in the county due to the roster of public service workers with nothing to do. We turned right on Titus and walked to the House of Guitars where we turned north on Cooper just as Irondequoit High was letting out. Cooper meets Saint Paul and from there we began our descent to the river level, a place called “The Flats.” Irondequoit people talk about this place in almost mythical tones and I can see why.

There are wide open spaces between the houses, old barns and fields, undoubtably fertile fields judging by the standing water. It feels like you are out in the country but we just walked here. It was like a dream. We continued north along Saint Joseph which changes names to Van Voorhis and takes you up out of The Flats.

We checked the mileage and we were somewhere near six miles, about ready to begin the return leg. Since we don’t like retracing our steps we headed north on Saint Paul to the lake and walked along the lakeshore, up Zoo Road in the Park and on home.

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I’m hoping we’ll pick up an additional tenth of a mile just walking around the house tonight because I really want to see that 13 mile tally on our Moves app.

We got a late start because we had a funeral to go to for our sister in law’s father. It was a patriotically themed event as well it should have been. The man served in all three branches of the military! Flag pins were attached to the red, white and blue programs. A trumpet player played taps while we took our seats and then guns went off outside the Baptist Church in Greece. The hymn was “America the Beautiful,” all four verses. Free Masons, wearing white beanies in the front row, presented white roses to the remains. State Senator Joseph Robach gave the remembrance. And a piano player, a seasoned lounge player, played Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and a great version of Frank’s “My Way.”

We changed clothes and headed out through the park and along the lake all the way to the river. We thought we might be able to work our way along the river to Silk O’Loughlin’s, which had just opened for the season, but we couldn’t get around the gates of a shipyard. I took this photo in front of Shumway’s Marina and we turned around. With the temperature right around freezing we walked on a variety of surfaces. Some crusty, icy snow, some black ice, some mud, some soft sand along the lake and a few good sized puddles on the sidewalk.

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The Emirates Group sponsors both teams. Qatar Sports Investments owns Paris Saint-Germain and they spent a fortune on players like Neymar. Real Madrid is owned by their club supporters, hundreds of people called socios and they too spent a fortune on players like Ronaldo. The word Real, Spanish for Royal, was bestowed on the club by King Alfonso XIII and our friend Matthew advised us that if we’re going to cheer for a Madrid team it ought to be Atlético because Real still has cultural ties to the fascists. But we can’t help ourselves, we’ve been rooting for Real in the Champions League and we were ecstatic watching them defeat PSG, both at home and in Madrid. We wouldn’t root for Real against Barcelona, of course. They are on another plane.

Ronaldo is an over-the-top star. Like Trump, you can’t take your eyes off him as he sucks all the air out of the room. Madrid has Sergio Ramos, the captain of the ship. They have Marcello, a back who is an ever threat to score. They have Bale, on the bench with his man-bun. They have the smart, agile Croatian, Luka Modrić, in midfield. And they have Zinedine Zidane in the ever so sharp coach’s suit. They are a real team and a joy to watch.

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We are sort of in limbo with with this white stuff. The big snowfall we had last week is just sitting there. The sidewalks are clear. People aren’t wearing hats or gloves anymore. We have all moved on but the snow lingers. There was so much of it the sidewalk and street plows shoved it into the other’s paths. And it was so heavy and wet when it came down it is now clumped into hard-core sculptural formations on the edges of the sidewalk.

Our route today took us in an eight mile loop with stops. Starbucks, where we had a sandwich and a medium Flat White, the post office where we mailed off (for scanning) 700 35mm slides that my sister culled from my father’s slides, and Dunkin Donuts where we used the bathroom.

We saw “Shape of Water” this evening and I loved it. An old fashioned straight up love story done with loving respect for the medium. I was a skeptic and wanted Greta to get all the awards for “Ladybird” but I was wrong. This was beautiful.

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We were hanging out with our friends, Jeff and Mary Kaye, last night and we were telling them about all the cool little neighborhoods we had been exploring while walking. We mentioned the dead ends that lead down to the bay on the west side and Jeff told us he lived in a house on Schnackel Drive back in the seventies. He had to get out when the water level rose. He said there was a small store down there that sold nothing more than Wonder Bread and beer. The street sounded so familiar but we couldn’t place it until we found it on our phone. The map showed Riviera’s Liquor store down there, on a a dead end along the bay. I couldn’t believe it. I called the number but it had been disconnected. We were determined to find the place today.

Point Pleasant Road, the third traffic circle on your way to the lake, leads to Pleasant Avenue which takes a dive down to the bay where it turns into Schnackel Drive which hugs the shore of Irondequoit Bay. You can wind your way around the inlet to the right or walk to your left around the gated Point Pleasant Estates and the opening to Bay Front Lane, a street with about fifteen homes that can only be accessed by foot. We’re guessing the store Jeff remembers was the first place on Bay Front Lane but we couldn’t find the liquor store.

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Breakfast sandwiches are now a mainstay. How did that happen? Should we blame brunch? We had one this morning, along with a large coffee, at the Founder’s Cafe in the Academy Building on Fitzhugh Street. We were just upstairs from Edward’s Restaurant where we used to take Peggi’s parents when they came to visit. And we were right next door to the oldest public building in Rochester, “Two Saints Church.”

We started the day at the Co-op by parking our car in their lot and walking downtown. They’re building something on top of the old Lehigh Valley train station right next door to Dinosaur Bar-BQ. Those tracks went under the library and across the river under what is now the Broad Street Bridge. We peeked in and I took this photo. There is so much history here. It is time to celebrate it.

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We better make sure our car still starts. We haven’t driven it in a week. We walk everywhere now. Not that we go anywhere. We mostly walk in circles, circles that keep getting bigger. We are averaging ten miles a day and one of us is carrying the pack. Today we came home with 24 pounds of groceries.

We spotted a yard full of snowdrops as we walked down to the lake. They are such a delicate flower. They seem shocked to be up out of the ground so early. The hardy Winter Aconite, on the other hand, bursts out of the dirt and often right up through the snow. The ones we have on the hillside out back are just now unfurling and orienting themselves to the sun. I’ve tracked the date we first notice them for the past ten years and this is almost the earliest.

I was sickened to read about the amount of plastic scientists found in tiny fish at the bottom of the ocean. And when you walk as much as we have been your eye catches the plastic debris along the edges of the sidewalks. These freakin’ dental picks are everywhere. And someone in the vicinity of Titus and Culver drinks an incredible amount of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, incredible in that they are apparently behind the wheel while chugging these plastic fifths. And then there are all the tiny little drug bags. I collect them.

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Edgerton is a big name in Rochester. I don’t know the reason but I know there is a big grave stone in the cemetery near our house with the name on it. And there is an Edgerton Street in the city near the Upper Falls. The neighborhood is called Edgerton. There is an Edgerton Park near Jefferson High School on Dewey. And there used to be an Edgerton Road that ran through Durand Eastman Park. It is still shown on the map and there is even a street sign labeling it near the end of Pinegrove at the western border of the park.

The road used to connect Pinegrove, which now dead ends, to Kings Highway near the clubhouse. I’m not sure whose idea it was to put the sewage treatment plant in the park (I know it is downhill from the city and I have heard there is huge pipe, probably the diameter of those halfpipes the Olympic snowboarders compete on, that runs from downtown to the plant) but that operation grew into the VanLare Wastewater Treatment Facility which now seems to accept truckloads of shit for hire. And so what was public park land has a smattering of “No Trespassing” signs and the road itself which was closed to traffic has been mostly been swallowed up by the land.

There are still cement guard posts and occasion pieces of metal guard rail and you can pretty much tell where the road used to lie because of the geography. Parts of the old road are used by the treatment plant, pieces are used by park maintenance workers and parts of it are the golf cart path on the back nine. We were determined to follow Edgerton Road yesterday and we did it! The park is huge and other areas have been reconfigured over the years. Ever wonder why Horseshoe Road runs off of Lakeshore and stops instead of coming back out? Ever wonder why three roads run up from Lakeshore Boulevard and all come together in a circle with a barrier in front of Wisner Road, a road that would take you out of the park. Somebody has to think about these things.

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