June 12, 2018 – The Wandering Sandals

Today was a long day. We knew we would be throwing another 18 miles day under our belt. We were plesently surprised to find that it was not as tough of an incline up in some spots, like we thought it would be.

We headed out this morning, viewing the remnants of yesterday’s festivities as we headed out of town. Hopefully someone will be out there doing some more cleaning!

The first 12 miles of today were pretty uneventful. We saw a fair amount of wildlife today, actually, which was pretty sweet. We saw a Magpie bird, a pair of Swans and their babies (where Papa Swan was literally getting his feathers ruffled at anyone who LOOKED at his babies and baby mama for too long), the first and only squirrel I have seen this entire time walking through trees, a little cotton tail, huge catfish, and Debbie saw a snake that slithered right across the path in front of her at her feet!

I was thinking that for this blog post I would just post photos for the day and not any words. That was until we hit our 12 mile break.

At 12 miles we stumbled into a little town outside of Ventosa to take a break. We go into the first cafe and put our bags down. Debbie got a huge mango smoothie, chocolate chip muffin, and had her feet up relaxing, living the dream. I am standing near the near the door, reading the menu backwards through the door because someone was on the outside on the other side reading it. I was not paying attention to them, only trying to read backwards in Spanish. Whoever was outside looking walks in past me and I continue to debate which salad I want (they has so many options! 😍) when whoever it was walks in, drops their bag, turns to walk back out and yells something to another person.

That’s when we heard it. Heard the voice. Both of us, SO quickly, at the same time shot looks at each other to confirm what we heard. We knew that voice. You can’t forget that voice.

New York.

It was New York. He found us. 500 freaking miles to cross Spain, we took a rest day, tons of cafes and this guy walks into ours. He sees us and so enthusiastically says hi. He immediately hugs Debbie, not me 😂, asks if she’s okay, offers to buy her food, asks if she needs Advil. He was excited to see, I would say us, but I think he was excited to see just Debbie. He ends up sitting near us and we talk.

Turns out, New York is a pretty nice guy. I mean, we knew that, but he’s not so bad. He also has a name! It’s Kevin. But I still will call him New York. He works for NYPD (yeah- definitely didn’t see that one coming- us either). He was super awkward too about telling us what he does, because of the political climate regarding police. When I asked what he did, cause he has to go back to work and can’t go to the end, he said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to say. So of course Debbie and I are thinking “what the heck does this guy do?!” I was thinking fbi, national security, some secret weird something. I dunno, it was odd. Turns out it’s just a specialized unit in NYPD. I mean, I guess not just. My point is- I don’t know what I was expecting, but I can tell you NYPD was not it.

Our talk was really wonderful, actually. I’m glad we got to talk to him more and get to know him better. Talked a lot of politics and policies going on in the U.S. which was nice. So, maybe he’s not so bad. I guess I can understand why he’s having a hard time finding love. The job requires (I believe) a certain kind of person to be your partner. So okay okay okay, I was mean! But he’s still a lot. I stand by that. Really nice guy, he wanted a photo with us, so I also took one for me, so everyone could put a face to New York.

After that, we just walked some more. Ha. Ha. It was really cold and windy today, actually. And it’s the first day really that needing the bathroom in the middle of nowhere was a big thing. So, that was fun.

We got to Nájera and stopped at the first albergue. Definitely not the best one we have stayed in so far. But it’s next door to a Chinese restaurant and I’m SO HAPPY! Food that isn’t a sandwich. And we can sit up in the bunks without hitting our heads so a win in my book. We ate some delicious food, found Debbie new headphones, got fruit for breakfast, and headed in for the night. It’s only 5:30pm and I am so sleepy.