I just saw this on my May 30th 2014 post, roughly two months before Spain:

“Live carefree before God; He is most careful with you.” 1st Peter 5:7

I’m liking that and a great way to start off another thousand posts here at Caminoheads. Are you ready for that? Probably need a whole new readership as I’ve probably burned you guys out by now.

Maybe a little on readership would be appropriate here. I was just looking at the stats for the number of visits to this blog per month over the last two years. In 2014 we were averaging 700 visits per month and this year 900. The low point in the year is summertime, July and August. And the winter and spring times are most active. So here we are now at the beginning of the best time, I had better up my game.

So, now we are averaging roughly 30 visits per day by interested folks. Some are regulars and some maybe have just wandered in as a result of a search. Anyway we have fourteen parties that receive the blog automatically, ten via email and four via Word Press. That is handy and it might be worth your time to sign up for one of those. I know my Rebecca is one and it just automatically shows up on her email whenever I post.

It is raining like mad out here and barely light out, must be good blogging time, right? So what will be up for the future of this blog, for the next thousand posts? Gee, that sounds daunting but it really isn’t when you take it day by day, it just adds up. And I think that one of the main pluses of this writing is that it is fresh everyday. There is no major long range plan to it. It just describes the pilgrimage of a guy with cancer going down his trail and the people he meets and the things he finds out. How long can he keep this up, maybe is a major question. Well, we will see I guess!

So, I see a couple of comments came in to help celebrate the occasion yesterday. One from Terry Hershey of Sabbath Moments and one from Pilgrim Farmer John from the Heartland in Wellman, Iowa. Thanks guys. Two walkers, Mary and Debbi from the Port Townsend area showed up yesterday to be with us. And Wiley and Hanna and Catherine y Dana came by to toast the 1000 blogs (and watch the Cubbies of course). So, that is what it looks like (nice win Cubbies).

So just a thought to folks that read Caminoheads, I always always enjoy comments on the posts and I answer every one. It is easy to do if you haven’t done it already. It makes the whole situation come alive, otherwise Felipe is just yelling into the wind out there on the Meseta somewhere.

Off we go, walking in a moment, love, Felipe.

I have a really great idea! I am going to goof off for my one thousandth blogpost and give you a lovely poem that my lovely wife wrote for this lovely occasion:

What if?
One thousand blogs.
More than ten times the number of chemo treatments,
And more than the number of walking days.
More than the times of tapas and friends coming by,
More than the film festivals you’ve been to.
Of course it’s the chemo and walking that keeps you alive,
But what if it’s the blog instead?
What if?

OK, well thanks to all of you that have been putting up with me for two and a half years or how ever long it’s been since you wandered in here. If you want to give me a comment on this celebratory post it would be great. Always loving you, Felipe.

We are here on Phil’s Camino clawing our way “across Spain”. I know it has been over a year to do this but I guess we don’t care at this point. Anyway we have walked 723 laps for 636 kilometers. We are at the town of Hospital da Condesa just west of O’Cebreiro. So that’s 152 kilometers to go.

So, one of the important dates coming up is November 6th when Daylight Savings reverts back to Standard Time. So let me publish our walking times for a couple of weeks:

Sunday October 30 – 1600-1700
Monday October 31 – 0900-1000
Tuesday November 1 – 1600-1700
Thursday November 3 – 0900-1000
Sunday November 6 – 1530-1630
Monday November 7 – 0900-1000
Tuesday November 8 – 1530-1630
Thursday November 10 – 0900-1000
Sunday November 13 – 1530-1630

So starting Sunday November 6th the afternoon walks will start a half hour earlier. OK, nice job Felipe.

Come walk with me, Felipe.x

Here we are on the verge of the thousandth blog post. Really crazy, this whole endeavor. Maybe I can blame it all on St James and call it good.

I got some chicken soup going to warm up on, a rainy day, although one of those pesky sun breaks could come along. And so far so good with my new red hat. It stays on my head in the wind and nobody has mistaken me for someone else.

Right now watching the U of Washington Huskies playing Utah. This is my low energy weekend so watching football is about the right speed. Maybe a nap. Oh, touchdown Huskies!

And I am making vast progress on my Don Quixote book. Got through the translator’s intro, then the intro, then the prologue and then a group of poems and sonnets celebrating the book. OK, then I am on page 48 of 900 and some pages of adventures. Am enjoying it.

I’m going to bag it for now, need to rest up. Have a good one today, love, Felipe.

Yesterday in the mail comes a new hat from the Mazama Store, Mazama, Washington. A new one just like the old original one used to be, used to look like but really hard to remember. So, the old one, the real one, the one that made it accross Spain in the sun of July and August will be retired except for special occasions. But the important thing is to thank the mystery person that ordered that for me. Thank you, whoever you are!

So, Cubbie’s game tonight after I get back from the hospital in Seattle. The commute on Wednesday was a bear and hoping today’s will be easier. Might even be some sun breaks. Do weathermen use that term in other places? In Seattle it means that it has been gray for far to long and then the sun “breaks” through the clouds for four seconds and everyone goes, “What’s that?”. Yea, really.

Also, getting ready to celebrate the thousandth post on Caminoheads blog. This post right here is 997. So, maybe Sunday. My Rebecca has already composed a poem to commemorate it. So stay tuned for that. It would be fun to hear from some of you in the comments.

We had a tremendous party last night. It revolved around Jan, William and Starr’s visit to walk Phil’s Camino. They were in from California and Oregon. Then Bill my cancer commando buddy showed up. Then Kate Munger with Barb and Ken came in. Kate is the founder of The Threshold Choirs which is a world wide movement to have little choirs bring comforting song to folks on their deathbeds. My Rebecca is in that in Barb’s group. So we had a walk, tapas and watched Phil’s Camino. A great afternoon and evening!

OK, have to go for now. And thanks for everything to so many people that make my life richer. On the look out for sun breaks, whatever they are. New red hat love, Felipe.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was my big treatment day and commute into the heart of Seattle. The rain come down all day in buckets and the drive both ways was the worst. Man, good to be here at the ranch just with the regular chores to do. The twist today is that I’ve go two walks. The regular scheduled one this AM and then a special one this PM for folks coming from California.

Then Pilgrim Farmer John from Iowa had a twist on the joke yesterday. And that is the Marine Corps version that says “So far so what!”. That comes from a place where you never give up, where attitude is everything and who can predict that pesky future anyway. Sometimes you can make that future or show a lot of style trying.

And as I thought about the joke, I can’t remember did the guy fell or jumped off the roof? I can’t remember what I wrote or how Bill told it to me. I like to think that he fell. That makes more sense anyway.

OK, what else we got? The big news around here is that Wiley and Hanna are moving in next door on the first of the month to our rental house. Yea, we are
excited to have them close by and right here at the ranch. So, hopefully I won’t be traveling in November to have the month to help get them settled in there.

OK, that’s all the news that I can think of. The best to you there, Spring in Australia/NZ, so jealous. So far so what, love you, Felipe.

That’s a punch line to a joke that Bill my cancer commando buddy told me. And it has turned into a greeting that we use with each other. I need to tell you the joke so that you will be in on it.

So, this guy jumps off the roof of a five story building. As he is falling past the fifth floor windows someone yells out,”How you doing?” The guy yells back, “So far so good!” And he falls past the fourth floor windows and there someone yells out, “How you doing?” And the guy yells back, “So far so good! And he falls past the third floor windows… Well you see where this is going.

So, that is our big joke, it’s a cancer joke really, kind of gallows humor. This is part of how we cope with the uncertainty of it all. “So far so good!” Thanks Bill, your company is priceless.

This is my big day at the hospital for treatment. Bill just dropped by to visit me for a half hour while he was here for any appointment. Again, thanks Bill.

So time for a coffee, have about an hour to go and I have to get up to speed for the drive home. Take care for now, love, Felipe.

Maybe it is nimbleness, maybe it appears slightly naive, maybe a certain knowingness, sort of a bit of happy go lucky. Just trying to figure out what all pilgrims have in common, well when they are in the zone anyway. I have Catherine y Dana for archery lessons this afternoon and I am always sheparding them into the archery zone. There is a place to be that gives you a bulls eye.

And as a pilgrim there is a place to be that gives you the Way, the learning of how to be on that different plane. Kind of feel like I am walking around in circles. Perhaps I can try again. In order to get the big lesson one must be open to it which means a certain amount of trust in the process. One must say yes I am ready to be the clay to be moulded.

I have met people who have been on the Camino and said that they just didn’t get it. Yea, I can see that happening. There is a difference between a traveler and a pilgrim. And being a pilgrim is being on the quest to get “it”. You know there is an “it” and you work toward that. And you have to have the trust that if I am the clay good things will happen as the kilometers go by, as the church bells ring, as the snorers snore, as your pack gets lighter, as you get lighter.

There it is again, the lightness. Well, perhaps I can tackle this on another day, got a start anyway. I like the part about being in the zone gives you a bullseye. OK.

Started Don Quixote the book yesterday. Well, I am fighting my way through two introductions anyway to finally hopefully get to the “greatest novel ever written” here soon. Trying to catch up on my classics is one reason for reading it but also because my “battle” against cancer has been described as “quixotic” and I want to know what that means.

Yup, that’s it for today. Get in that love zone and get a bullseye, Felipe.x

Bill and I walked this morning and made it to Laguna de Castilla just before O’ Cebreiro. We are getting there slowly but surely, little over 7/9ths the way.

Monday 0900-1000
Tuesday 1600-1700
Thursday 0900-1000
Sunday 1600-1700

Come walk with us, Felipe.x

PHIL’S CAMINO will be screening at The Naples International Film Festival AND the YES! Film Festival this weekend!
Friday October 28 at 1:30 and Saturday October 29 at 6:15 PM at Naples International Film Festival and Saturday October 29 at 7:15 and Sunday October 30 at 3:30 PM. Here are the website links: http://www.naplesfilmfest.com/
https://yesfilmfestival.com/

Next, PHIL’S CAMINO will screen at the Ojai Film Festival at 9 AM on Saturday November 5 and Sunday November 13.

Front Page

With our recent wins at the Tacoma Film Festival and La Costa, i believe we are at 12 wins at 21 festivals??? Could that be!!!?!

The recent article in the Vashon Beachcomber is one of the best yet: Living ‘vibrantly in the face of adversity’: Islander learns to live life with cancer – Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber

Living ‘vibrantly in the face of adversity’: Islander learns to live life w…
One late afternoon last month, while the spun-gold of autumn’s fading light filtered through the madrona tre…

I am still amazed and delighted at the response from jurors and audience members alike. There is so much wisdom, so much inspiration here. Phil and Rebecca have touched the hearts of so many.

I am still doing lots of work towards Oscar consideration. We shall see. St. James has it all under control.
Love love love-
A

Annie O Neil
Director/Producer: Phil’s Camino www.philscamino.com

Co-producer and Pilgrim: Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago www.caminodocumentary.org

Author: Everyday Camino with Annie www.everydaycaminowithannie.com

310-403-4228