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December 30, 2021

Dealing with the Unexpected & Preparing for the Camino de Santiago

The Loneliest Road

This past week, we published 2 Vlogs highlighting our time crossing Nevada on Highway 50, also known as the loneliest road in America. You can watch the first one here. On that drive, we really had a good time, but we also kept running into the problem that everything was closed. Most of us have gotten used to relying on Google maps not just for directions but finding coffee, restaurants, etc. And we’ve noticed that during the pandemic, Google maps isn’t always up to date. It makes sense. Over the last two years, businesses have had to adapt to constant changes related to local and state laws. We’ve noticed that business hours on Google aren’t always accurate. And in places where people weren’t traveling or frequenting, businesses may have had to close. Google just doesn’t always have the latest info.

Ely, Nevada

When we went through Nevada, we listened to a podcast on all of the must-eat places on highway 50. And it turned out most of them were closed. It could be the pandemic, or it could have been that it was mid-October and places were closing for the season. But constant changes to our planned stops didn’t ruin our drive. All of the time in the van up to that point had been constant changes, so we were kind of used to rolling with it. Vanlife had taught us to be flexible (well mostly me, WIll was already pretty flexible). In the end, we did end up having dinner at one of the places from the podcast, Kerouac’s, on the last night they were open for the season-and forever because they were selling the place.

rolls with shaved truffle at Kerouac’s

Getting Ready to Walk the Camino

As we get ready for 2022, we are once again dealing with the unexpected. We told you our plan is to walk the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile historical walk across Spain. With January 2022 approaching, we have a lot to prepare for. We started with a list of regular health things like our annual physicals and WIll’s screening colonoscopy. While we were getting that done and prepping for the holidays, Will took his bike out for a 10-mile ride. The next day we did a 4 1/2 mile walk and somewhere in there, Will’s knee started to hurt. A lot. He couldn’t walk on it much for a few days and had to take some days off work. An MRI and an orthopedist visit later, the good news is he isn’t going to have surgery. The bad news is it’s a complex meniscus injury. So we have the next 3 months to work on training and recovery so that we can walk the Camino in April.

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To get organized, I started a Google sheet and started a list of everything we need to do to get ready. Our rental ends just before we go, so before we leave, we will need to park our cars, put everything back in storage that we don’t need, arrange a dog sitter, book all of the transportation, and plan and pack our gear. At the same time, we plan to save all of the money we need on the trip. We are budgeting an estimated $5500 for the trip. But I will definitely keep track to see where we end up.

We also have WIll signed up for physical therapy and we are creating a 3-month training plan to get ready. We will keep posting our progress AND we will keep sharing our adventures on YouTube. Let us know what you want to hear about!

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