Friday, April 26, 2024
This morning was perhaps our best morning ever. I think it’s good for us to sleep in a shared room because the kids can’t really talk things out in the morning. They know they just have to quietly get up and gather their things. Also, in a shared room there is much less space for people to chuck their stuff around, so everything is already in the bag in the morning.
So this morning we got up. Everyone gathered their stuff. We had some breakfast. And we hit the road.
We really wanted to make our town, Reliegos, early because it’s supposed to rain this afternoon. After walking a little bit we ran into some friends from before. Jorge, an American guy we met way back in Villafranca Montes de Oca, and a couple of younger ladies (from Brazil and Israel) that were in our albergue last night. We started walking with them, and things were going great. Then River said she wanted to walk, so she hopped down, and she did a great job of staying with everyone. That means she was really mostly jogging the whole way. I kept asking her if she wanted a ride, but she insisted on walking and chatting with the Brazilian girl.
That ended up lasting at least a few kilometers. It’s by far the most walking River has ever done in a day, and I was grateful. But towards the end she started walking slower and slower, and we were falling further and further behind. When Kimball stepped up next to Elena (the Brazilian) to talk to her, River became furious, insisting the Elena was only her friend.
So then she decided she was done walking, and she plunked down on the ground. She wouldn’t let me pick her up, and she wouldn’t walk. So we just sat there for a while (thankfully there was a bench close by). After about 15 minutes of waiting, we started walking again, but by that time everyone was far ahead of us. We couldn’t even see them. River was really upset about that, and she let the whole world know for about the next hour. She just cried and cried. She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to eat. She didn’t want anything. She was just mad and sad.
Finally, we made it to our town -- Reliegos. It’s pretty small, but the albergue is nice. We actually stopped at a bar just at the entrance of town where Betty and the girls were waiting for us (Kimball and Ian had stayed with me and River). Elena and her friend were there, which made River very happy.
We got some yummy treats there, and just hung around waiting for the albergue to open.
We ended up walking over 12k in just about 3.5 hours. It’s a good pace for us.
Oh, and one more thing. It’s been dawning on me that Ian doesn’t remember The Princess Bride. Of course all of my kids have seen it (I’m not a monster), but he must have been too little. It’s been annoying for him to not get my references, so today we are going to watch it. We started it while we were waiting on the albergue. We’ll finish it in a bit.
This is going to be a really relaxed day.
