St Jean!!!!

June 6- D Day

Its d day I reflect back on being at Point Du Hoc a few days ago at sunrise. I sat on the german pillbox bunker and watched the sun come up, it was amazing. And the artillery/bomb pits left behind are a huge reminder of the sacrifice our men made on that fateful day to bring freedom back to France and other countries in Europe!

So this morning early rise and too the train! They let me on and all was good.

The ride to bayonne was uneventful. Got there and set up the bike and rolled out of town. I wanted to eat but thought hey ill catch the next village on the way out of town. Big mistake! This is basque country. Everything closes at 2pm. So every stop was no! I followed the river out of town, it was my first camino spotting the whole trip. I got a photo posted on facebook of the camino shell marking the way. Awesome. I took a wrong turn and didn’t go around a village thinking I would find some food. Wrong again. I finally stopped at a grocery store where the manager didn’t like me sitting outside eating a pastry. Oh well. Its all I needed to get to St Jean Pied deport. That is the traditional start of the camino for most doing the traditional route.

The ride was amazing. My route was supposed to have a little climbing (450 foot was listed on the map). I did over 2200 feet of climbing including one monster of a climb that I can only describe as being like brasstown bald in Georgia and about a mile long. My bike is too heavy and I actually walked. It was insane!!! I kept hitting these long climbs (1-2 miles long) then I hit one that had to be 5-6 miles of steady uphill (not hard but steady). You know youre hurting when doing 7mph and its all you can do to push the weight on the bike. It is definitely better since I left stuff with Jamie in Paris but still heavy.

St Jean could not come at a better time. The whole way you are looking at the pyrenees mountains. Amazing climbs with no trees on the tops but lush green. ON some you see sheep grazing and others you see rock outcroppings. Pretty cool. Its basque country so I also saw a few Independence signs and lots of basque flags. This is an unforgiving country side and I believe the people are as passionate about politics as they are their land.

Into St Jean and to the pilgrims office. I met a Canadian who signed me in and gave me my compestella and first stamp. Cool. I am now a pilgrim. Awesome. I checked in at a private alberge which was cool and hit the town for dinner. I did some walking around. St Jean is a neat mountain town. It has a walled Citadelle around it with the campus on top of the hill (it’s a private school so no visiting the school but you could see the view). Pretty cool. I then walked the top of the wall around the town which was neat.

I bought some glue to fix my cycling shoes that are coming apart which isn’t good and went to dinner. There was a group of about 10 people from Rome Georgia there (I forget all of the names so I wont try here but super nice, they bought me dinner (Thanks Joel) and told me about their trip which is pretty neat. It is condensed in time compared to mine but still it’s a trip on the “way” which is awesome. Once again I am humbled by the generosity of people! Really awesome.

Back to the room and do some writing and go to bed. Im tired from 70k today on the bike. My roommates are Shirley and Isabella from California, upstairs is 3 kids from New Jersey and apparently there several americans from Colorado on the trail. Awesome. This is exciting. SO off to bed and get up early for breakfast and a ride up to Roncevalles which is a 15k climb according to my map. Kill me now! This will be fun.. I am still having download problems so will get it updated tomorrow night when I have some time to figure out this camera stuff! Buen Camino!