(Our moon is waning gibbous, 79% illumination)

Expectations

Expectations are funny creations – molded and polished in our minds and played out often in our sight, hearing, and touch, even our sense of smell. They may have been hatched by an event in a dream, a song lyric, or a comment overheard while standing in line. And now-a-days they are often germinated from others’ expectations posted on-line.

But expectations supply the foundations for plans and plans lead to action, reaction, and reasoning. Expectations are easy for some of us to achieve and seemingly impossible for others of us. How many times do we under-estimate our abilities, the external conditions, the phrase uttered by another or the quality of those expensive hiking socks? And the opposite: over-estimating those same things?

For so many of us the Camino provides a lab environment for testing Expectations. Just how long is a ‘long day’ for me today? And for that other guy, the one who reminds you of your grandfather? How long was his day? How DID he beat you to the albergue?

The pilgrims walking the camino these days have some different challenges. Living in Astorga we meet and speak to pilgrims often and I thought I’d share one experiences Ann and I had recently.

Meet Ross. He is from Australia and earned the chef position on a large private yacht recently completed in northern Europe. He was involved in the food storage and prep area planning and construction and its maiden voyage was to Malaga where he was given ten weeks off before meeting the ship again in the Caribbean. At least that is what I recall from our café con leche conversation. He is used to living out of a backpack and thought that the Camino was a perfect use of his time. He began his walk in León and stayed in a hotel for three days when the city was in isolation – no pilgrims allowed to stop or eat there, but could walk through. He enjoyed seeing the town and eating at restaurants unaware of the lockdown which he was amazed to find out about after leaving León. Because of Galician weather and shutdowns in the days since he jumped on a bus to Portugal and is walking there.

I’d guess he had some expectations that varied from a sail from Europe to the Caribbean, that varied from the things he’d read about walking the Camino and more. It is this shaping of the expectation that brings pleasure to some of us and distress to others. Often it includes both, don’t you think?

So what of our expectations these days? Phil is expecting to ‘get an elk’ and enjoy that special time tracking them down with old friends and Wiley as I recall. All of us are preparing for some kind of different holiday season, wondering how that will play out. Many are shaping expectations for this time of year that traditionally includes people, places, and things that might just be impossible now. I’d like to suggest that you let your senses give you hope, your dreams give you new inspiration and that the people you do meet while enjoying coffee add to your lifes’ story and to theirs. Pilgrim, walk the Camino wherever you are.
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Ron Angert in beautiful Astorga, Spain

(Our moon is waning gibbous, 87% illumination)

Woke up this morning and pretty much first thing flipped on the Tube. And now it is two hours later and we are still in the same place in the election news. There are eight states too early to call or too close to call. It’s a real logjam. I have to find something else to do and do it. Well yes, I have a full list of details to deal with before our trip.

It is snowing on Mt Rainier and Mt Adams in our neighborhood but it is not snowing at the elevation where we are camping. But things could change later on. But it is fun to have a little snow to track in. Tracking is half the fun of hunting whether it is small or big critters. It is the closest thing to the newspaper out in the woods and fields. Who’s who and what is going on is all there if you can read it.

OK, this is all I can do for today. Oh, and a thank you goes out to Bob and Elizabeth who sent a book for the Caminoheads’ library. Hiking the Camino by Father Dave Pivonka was in our mailbox!

logjam o’loves, Felipé.

(Our moon is waning gibbous, 93% illumination)

Trying to put a sentence together. Feel pretty scrambled here right now and don’t know if I can assemble sentences. The commercials on the news station bring peace of a sort. Voice of Vashon, our local radio station, is playing some good stuff to keep things calm, like Woody Gutherie’s This Land is Your Land.

Here is a guy I used to play flag football with on the verge of being the Prez. We played flag football because the Kennedy boys had in Massachusetts a state over. That was back before the Sixies got really crazy. It was when a pack of smokes from a machine was 35 cents and Levi jeans were 5 bucks. Of course no one had any money.

But today the TV news chases it’s own tail till the polls close. Then what do we stay up all night trying to eke out meaning? Geez, maybe I can hibernate till breakup and skip this.

Yea, I am glad I have deadline of the elk trip to give me some structure. I have to grease boots and find my gaiters and stuff like that. And where are my Big Bill’s, my dark green wool made in Quebec overalls. I bought all the canned goods and dry goods for camp meals this morning. When we are living in the cold it seems to take twice the normal calorie intake to be happy and be thinking straight. Oh, have to check the air in the tires.

Well, that‘s about it for Felipé for today, Election Day 2020.

wish us luck loves, Felipé.

Yea, no joke, this blog has been hopping lately. I was really serious about Jessika becoming our new Liaison yesterday. And yes, I was semi serious about all my friends being major quirks; well, maybe just half of them. And no joke our readership is up these last few months. I have to thank Annie and Catalina for mentioning us with their groups. So, welcome new folks, hope you are getting the drift of what is going on here. If you figure it out please let me know, I’d be interested.

But also, no joke, tomorrow is the long awaited election day here in these United States. Everyone here is just pulled as taunt as possible. It is amazing anyone is sleeping anymore. But fortunately nature marches on to it’s own beat feet away from me. The weeping willow still weeps and the nuthatches still hatch right outside the window. This is all fortunate as one needs frequent breaks from the political reality swirling around. Oh, the ravens are squawking overhead, complaining that I didn’t mention them. OK, OK, calm down. Yes, they are still raving.

Our son Wiley and his good friend James and I are off on the big elk hunt this Friday. So, I am making out menus and buying supplies and trying to locate all my gear. So, I don’t really know how may blog posts will be coming out in the next two weeks. There is zero internet and cell contact at our camp or the environs.

So, we all (the American electorate) bravely march on through this Election Eve hoping for the best. Prayers would help from any direction. Fastening our safety harnesses.

weeping, hatching and raving loves, Felipé.

(Our moon is waning gibbous, 99% illumination)

I have a new member that I would like to add to our staff here at Caminoheads. Always ever present and hard working we have our Relentless Bureau Chiefs that I want to acknowledge. And also we have our Spiritual Advisor Padre Tomas and our Historian Professor Catalina. So I am adding Jessika (callsign Secret Agent) to our staff as the Liaison to the Order of Malta (the Knights Hospitaler).

Jessika has completed her two year apprenticeship (not the right word) to the Order but has yet to get her cape because of Covid complications. But the Order has been around for eight hundred years taking care of the well being pilgrims world wide. We won’t get into all that right now, perhaps another day, but she was here on the ranch and I grabbed a pic with her so I thought that this was a perfect time to introduce her. You may have met her somewhere on the trail or at the Veranda way back when.

But what I really had on the agenda to write about today was something different but since Jessika was here egging me on to write about this I will now. Although we may just be scratching the surface with one post or really part of a post. But I had a realization just yesterday and I wanted to run it by you. And maybe this all has to do with Halloween, I don’t know. And I hope that this doesn’t offend anyone here, but Jessika reassured me that it wasn’t too weird. OK.

Well, remember when you were a kid and you and all your friends had a weird wild and crazy aunt or uncle that you would get to see only a few times of year, weddings, funerals, holidays. And your folks would sort of try to interpret them for you all the time. Yea, you know what I am talking about. They were probably totally lovable and innocent but just a half notch off. Got that image?

Well, here is the maybe offensive part. All of my friends are starting to appear to me as crazy aunts and uncles. Not more than a half a notch off but still clearly identifiable. So there, what do you think?
Am I wrong? Thanks Jessika, it needed to be said.

So Happy Halloween, full blue moon, the whole thing, loves, Felipé.