June 12, 2017
So im at Casa Pepa in Santa Colomba de samosa. This is one seriously Podunk town. IT is about 5km off of the camino but the place came highly recommended. All I can say is OMFG!! The building has to be at least 1200 years old with all stone work. The doors are the old fashion latch style doors and it is like stepping back 200 years. Absolutely amazing. We got here and the daughter of the owner brought us 2 beers! She put up our bags and made us feel like at home. This is also the only restaurant in town so apparently it is homecooked meals for dinner. This will ruin a person very quickly!!!
I sit here writing and here the church bell ringing which for some reason all of the bells in spain seem to be on their own clock. In france they all seem to be pretty close in Germany it is expected they are exactly on time but spain is a little more laid back about things.
We left Leon this morning with a goal of Astorga. We made astorga at lunch (and I laugh as another 4pm bell is ringing about 2 minutes after the first one). I am writing again and another set of bells ring. Tiny village with 3 churches(must not be as small as it feels).
SO before we left we ran into our friends Julianna, David, Hetal, Malay and Alan. They all worked together at NASA and are all still very good friends. You must be if you are doing a bike ride across Spain. Seems like an incredible nice bunch of kids (yes I said it, you guys are kids, I assume no children, all engineers and all at a great place in life to be doing the camino at this time, enjoy every second!!!!). They gave me the rundown on what they do (which I have to say was pretty cool, glad Trey was not there to hear it as he would have completely been tripped out, all I can say is they work with NASA which is cool). I got a few stickers out of it, by the way my stickers all go to my tool box. It is covered in everything from race product stickers to the Citadel to “paddle faster I hear banjos”. Anyone who knows me knows that I love my car racing so I nicely covered toolbox is a great thing!!! They are shooting for Astorga today and have a good plan. The bikes look good and they have a great attitude though I have to say leaving Leon was probably the most industrial and least appealing ride out of a city that I have had (period). Most of the other cities literally become farmlands pretty quick and leaving Leon was like leaving Miami heading north (the industry just goes on for miles and the trail was really narrow in a lot of spots). We stayed on the road for most of our trip today and the wide shoulder made for nice riding. IT is very disappointing to be leaving the flat lands because I feel the hills coming and they will be rough the next 2 days.
Tomorrow we head up to Cruz de ferro which is the highest point of the ride. The climb up is 15km from here and then we descend for 36km followed by a brutal 32k climb up to O Cobreira. We will likely not go over the second climb and save it for the next day. The following days are rolling but very manageable. The major climbs will be over then its just long rolling hills.
A few notes on the day. Honestly my legs felt better after some rest. Very much needed. I still cant climb very well and I need to lose some weight but I forgot how much better I feel when I exercise. Burning legs are a good thing sometimes you know!!!! The old saying from the Citadel. “pain is weakness leaving the body” I can go on but I wont.
I will see cruz de ferro tomorrow. I am talking some stones from home as well as a shell from Wey Leach and some of Susan’s ashes to the highest point on the Camino. I think susan will love it as she always liked the mountain views and the beaches. Its after a long climb so I will plan to sit a few minutes and say a few things about Susan, Big Daddy, and all those that have gone before us. I picked up a few rocks from home, a pick of corral that was bleached from the Bahamas in the spring and I have a little bit of dirt from South Africa (Zulu Nyala game preserve dirt that I got when we were enjoying sundowners looking over the preserve one evening).