finishing my camino blog...the almost-next-to-last installment...

So...weve been back for way over a month now...and i keep INTENDING to finish the story of our travels--although the post is dated march 11th..so i guess i started it over a month ago, and just finishing it now!...Dont know if anyones still reading, but want to have it for my own reasons anyway, so im continuing....theres alot that got left out in the short, rushed, limited albergue internet sessions. mostly i havent done the final posts because i was trying to find somewhere to upload my photos, which i cant do at home because the internet connection works off the cell phone towers....so tonite im in town and will try to finish uploading at least some of the pics...then i can finish the blog from home.

These are our "leaving" photos, beginning monday morning, after having arrived in santiago on saturday afternoon. Baby G was more than happy to jump in the rental car, and in fact towards the end of the camino, she had started "watching" whenever a car passed, sometimes trying to leap towards them as if she wanted to jump in... probably because she was imitating my behavior, lol...there were some days when we were really wrecked that i would watch all the cars that passed, hoping someone would see how wrecked we were and offer us a ride ;p... but the thing about the camino is that people driving by usually assume you want to do it on your own, so unless youre actively hitchhiking, youre unlikely to get a lift...























we got pretty lost on the way back to pamplona. part of it was because i decided i needed to make a detour back by somewhere, and the rest is because the major roads i found to be very poorly marked....plus we only had a really basic map off google. we left late in the day, way later than i planned. but i got to see the sunset from near cebreiro, above tricastela. i saw the sunset from here when we were walking the camino, but was in such a rush because we were so far from tricastela and had already done like 30 k and it was getting dark etc, that i didnt really have time to appreciate it. and i KNEW i wasnt doing it justice by really appreciating it at the time, but we had more important things.. so these few sunset photos here are from up above tricastela. the small photos dont do it justice--as is always the case with cameras ;) -- anyway, the purples etc in the east were amazing. cant figure out how to use this program to caption by the photos, so anyway, further below is "YAY ETAP!!!" etap hotel was such a Godsend when we FINALLY arrived in Le Havre, on time to get grainnes vetwork done and in time to catch the ferry. ETAP lets pets in rooms for only three euro extra. we went in to get the room, and as i went back out to the car to get our stuff, the guy flipped the sign on the door to "no vacancies"!! we were SO lucky we got the last room. proceded to watch american movies that had been dubbed into spanish for the evening and sleep in a real bed, with a shower, and a blasting heater. :) Le Havre, by the way, was not very nice, im actually glad we didnt have to spend any more days there...though i still could have done without the billion dollar car break down... further down is us waiting for the ferry.





































































above is gro at le havre port while we were killing time waiting for the ferry, and below, again killing time... was SO glad to have the car back :) almost all of my photos of me/us on this trip have been self-portraits taken by me because there was seldom anyone else around to take them ;)