Appalachian Trail Journey 2022 and 2023

Monday, 14 September,  2026    It is Monday. I am at my house. My sister Laura is coming at 13:00 to take me to the Marta station so I can get started on my latest adventure. I plan to fly to Japan to walk the Kumano Kodo.    The Kumano Kodo is another ancient pilgrimage route that has been traveled by Japanese Emperors and common people alike for more than a thousand years. UNESCO recently classified the Kumano Kodo as the second of only two World Heritage Pilgrimage routes for its historical and cultural significance. The main or most popular route is called the Nakahechi route and is about 60 miles in total. After I completed the Camino de Santiago last year, I decided I should try to finish this track as well so I could say I had completed both. When a person completes both pilgrimage routes, they are referred to as a "dual pilgrim". There are currently just a few more than three thousand dual pilgrims in the world. I hope to add one more to the list by some...

FINAL ENTRY 17 JUNE, 2025 Well, it is Tuesday morning and I am going home after 49 days in Spain. I am glad to be going home, but I am also a bit sad. I have been to many places in my lifetime, but this trip has been the best one I have ever taken by far. I have learned a lot, seen a lot, and I think I have even grown up a little more. I know that is a strange thing for a 58 year old man to say, but I think it is true. As I sit here in the airport in Madrid, I feel like I am more calm and perhaps more reserved than when I came to Spain at the end of April. Little things don't seem to irritate me like they did before. I think I learned a bit of this while on the Camino.   While a Pilgrim is walking, he really doesn't have control of anything but his walk. The weather can change, people he doesn't care for can walk by, virtually anything can happen at any moment. What I think a Pilgrim learns is the ability to deal with the issues at hand and not to worry so much about the ...

SUNDAY, 08 JUNE 2025 I left Sarria at 05:15 this morning. It was supposed to be pretty hot today and I had a 14 mile walk. I wanted to get way down the road before the sun came up. I packed up, put on my headlamp and started off. I was at the very eastern end of Sarria so I had to go across town and out on the west side. As luck would have it, Sarria is wider north to south than east to west. All I had to do was go about three blocks west and then over a hill. The old part of Sarria is built on a hill that rises up from the city center. You just have to walk up that hill and you are pretty much out of town then. I was walking on field roads in the dark this morning. There was no moon and no street lamps. I used my trusty headlamp to push back the darkness and keep from falling on my face. Let me say, LED technology has absolutely changed the flashlight game in the last ten years. Fifteen years ago I actually was the buyer of flashlights for all of NAPA. In 2010, LED technology was just...

SUNDAY, 1 JUNE 2025 Good morning! It is 06:15 and I just left my hostal, and I am heading 13 miles west to Rabanal. The terrain looks pretty flat. I am hoping for an uneventful morning.  If all goes well, I should pull into Rabanal at about 12:30 or so. This will help me in two ways. I will get done walking before it gets too hot, and I can take the afternoon to rest for Monday. The walk on Monday is an uphill climb of about two miles. From the map, it looks like an Appalachian Trail hike. I want to be fresh for that. I also plan to leave early to take advantage of cooler temperatures. Speaking of cooler, when I look to the south as I am walking this morning, there is a mountain that still has snow on it. I just think it is neat to see snow in June. And to show you how my mind works, I am reminded that today would my grandmother's 125th birthday. I can string a lot together when I am crunching through the gravel on a fine Sunday morning. I told you I was staying last ni...