A night college football game followed by a 1 p.m. NFL kickoff the next day — in some other state — followed by a flight back to SoCal after filing. … The plan to drive from SoCal over the Rockies and to Denver in about 22 hours, in the midst of winter. … The numerous 450-mile, same-day round trips to Las Vegas for boxing — which invariably ended with me slapping myself to keep awake while driving at 3 a.m.
We have at least three more games in the 2018 NBA playoffs to mull this, but over the past weeks and months I have come to believe that LeBron James is the league’s GOAT — greatest of all time.
Is he better than Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Bill Russell? Absolutely, I am confident he is, and I saw them all play.
Better than Michael Jordan, widely considered, these 20 years past, the greatest player?
The final day of our medium-sized pilgrimage to Santiago featured two threads of action.
One thread was three of us up at dawn, driving our senior/middle-aged bodies as hard as we could to walk 20 kilometers to the cathedral near the northwest corner of Spain, arriving in time to see the special noon pilgrim’s mass.
The other thread concerned our injury-sidelined companion, whose Camino was ended the previous night by a painful and scary looking big toenail (alert the podiatrist!) and her scheming to arrive at the cathedral, via taxi, at the right moment to secure some prime seats at the mass.
Which, yes, of course, could feature one of the highlights of the pilgrimage — the swinging, at astonishing heights, of the renown botafumeiro in the final minutes of the mass.
When treading the path of the western world’s greatest pilgrimage, the typical walker cannot help but peek — OK, stare — at the sandy-gray “mileage” markers that helpfully guide everyone along.
They serve three functions for those headed to Santiago de Compestela, and the cathedral there.
Each of us feared the walk for reasons that never really existed. Our memories were faulty. Our recollection of what went wrong — and what might go wrong — was flawed.
And now we have another leg of the walk to Santiago behind us.
I have from the start. Back before I knew I could make it through the first three days. It fills me with dread.
It is not particularly famous for being difficult.
But this is the day, most likely, that will determine if we get through the final few days of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
It is not a long walk, but 15 or so kilometers is not to be shrugged at by civilians such as ourselves. People whose physical peak was not just years ago, but decades ago.
The rubber will meet the road in the final 6k — when we hit the infamous hills that conclude the walk to Arzua.
We have been there. We have no illusions. We are not green walkers who have no idea of what is ahead. We know it will be hard and long and uncomfortable, verging on painful.
The pilgrimage to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is one of the modern world’s great multinational cultural/religious events.
Nearly two-thirds (64.7 percent) of the 22,067 peregrinos who reached Santiago via the Camino in April of 2018 were foreigners, according to statistics kept by the Pilgrim’s Office.
Spaniards provided a numerical plurality, with 35.3 percent of the total number of pilgrims. These are people who never have to leave their homeland to reach Santiago, which makes things a lot simpler.
Meanwhile, people from all over the world walked the Camino to Santiago in April 2018, with Germany the biggest contributor of foreign pilgrims, 2,509 — but at only 18 percent of the total.
So, four of us pilgrims set off on the Camino de Santiago this morning, marching 22 kilometers in about seven hours and 37,000 steps.
In other news … the little Spanish town where we halted for the day went slightly crazy tonight as Real Madrid defeated Liverpool 3-1 in an eventful Uefa Champions League final.
Spain is soccer-mad, and being in the same room with 50-some intense and nervous fans jammed into the Casa Cruz tapas bar … was a marvelous cultural activity for the visitors with U.S. passports.
Gareth Bale’s stunning bicycle-kick goal in the 64th minute gave Madrid the lead (and the Casa Cruz fans the chills) as the town’s clearly preferred team again reached the pinnacle of global world soccer.
Our friends from St. Louis joined us as we wedged into a corner of the bar, beneath one of two big-screen TVs. Our Missouri friends were right under the TV, and could not see very well, and across the table the other two of us craned our necks so hard for two hours that we may not be able to walk to the next Camino destination tomorrow.
