my 90K day

Today was my longest day yet. 40K was my record, but today I traveled 90K. I did it in an hour and a half. My feet didn´t hurt at the end, but I was exhausted.

I hadn´t been in an auto since May 14. Until today, I had never traveled in a motor vehicle in the country of Spain. I walked across the whole country, and then I got into a bus to come back to Santiago.

It was odd to have to wait around to get started. I´m so used to moving whenever I choose to.

At first it felt thrilling, like a roller coaster ride. Then, as I looked out the window at the pilgrims walking up the hill against the backdrop of the sea, clinging to the guardrails to keep from being pancaked, I felt ill. The past couple of days have included quite a lot of scary walking on big roads.

Within 25 minutes, we had gone the distance of my entire meandering day yesterday. For the first part of the journey back to Santiago, I could look out and see the places I had passed yesterday zooming by. They all looked so anonymous and unimportant. Dull.

Then I saw the speed limit signs. 100K an hour. An hour! That´s 4 days of walking.

The time dragged on. I have never wished for a day of walking to be done as much as I wanted that bus ride to end. For some reason, I forced myself not to nod off. I made myself look out the window.

Alongside the road, there were blurs of color. The flowers. I couldn´t see the flowers. I saw some white ones, but it was impossible to tell that they were a weird and fancy kind of Queen Anne´s Lace with a purple stain in the middle. The yellow ones were just smudges. I couldn´t see if they were the dainty ones that smelled nice or the long stemmed dandelions.

Galicia hasn´t had very many poppies, just a few here and there. I was happy to find a little patch of them as I walked into Santiago. I miss them terribly. While I whizzed by on the bus today, I saw this one red blur. I think it was some poppies. I hope so.