When last I sat and wrote a post on this blog, I had one day left to go on my trip to Santiago. I had been on the road for 40 days and had walked all the way from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Campostella.

I arrived, happy and very healthy. I got my Campostella. I saw the Botafumeiro not once, not twice, but three times over the four days I was in the lovely city.

I visited Finisterre and Muxia. I saw the Church overlooking the sea before it burned down. The Church, not the sea.

I said goodbye to my new old friends, my Camino family, hoping to see them again, yet sure I never would.

But I never finished writing the blog. I left it unfinished with one day to go.

My Santiago adventures, of which there were several, were surprising and, perhaps entertaining. My hitting the Trifecta of albergue experiences on my very last day. The lovey gift given to me, for no apparent reason, by a pilgrim I had walked with for maybe three days. My getting transportation home, finally, and traveling with the guy with no pants.

Yes, that’s right. No pants.

But I never finished writing about them or about my trip. The ends were never finally tied up. I never summed up my trip, what I had gotten out of my travels, what I had learned, how I had changed.

That was two years ago.

And now I am preparing to go again. Yes, the whole thing again. Starting not in St. Jean but in Lourdes. Why? So that I won’t have to gasp over the Pyrenees on Day One. It will take an extra week but it will give me a running start.

I’m such a baby.

I know what to expect. And that makes it easier.

But I know what to expect. And that also makes it harder.

I can’t commit to a starting date yet.

I am excited and anxious and uneasy.

How strange.