Woke up in the early morning dark feeling exactly that, war weary. The chemo forces and the cancer forces duke it out constantly, all day, all night. There is some ebb and flow to it but it goes on and on and on. They are at each other’s throats right now as I try to maintain equilibrium in the bigger picture.

Keeping the battlefield cordoned off to just the body seems a full time project. They keep tumbling into the mind but I always manage to push them out with some considerable effort. My major fortune is that they will never reach my soul. They may occasionally cause disruption in my mind but that’s as far as they can get. Ooh, I like it. Never verbalized that before.

Looking at the cover of this month’s AARP magazine I spy along the edge of the cover a heading called “Healthy You”. Then under that: “50 Tips To Feel Amazing”. Cool! Feeling amazing is good, the last time I checked. Then under that are four of the tips, one of which is “Prevent Cancer”. Nice tip right? I’ll jump right on that right after I build a better s’more and after I get more out of my oil changes. I like the way they slipped that in there. What am I doing reading that anyway, that’s for old guys.

OK, we got all that stuff figured out, time to move on. Have to photograph a bunch of genuine Camino footgear so I can do their portraits. Have to fix some stuff over at Our Jennifer’s. Have to get ready for a job starting tomorrow. Have to, this is the big one, get ready for the sneak preview of a rough version of Phil’s Camino, the documentary, tonight. I will fill you on that tomorrow, all right?

Take care for now y’all, love every inch of you, Felipe.

OK, here I am and I accept the challenge. Today we are blogging about these itsy bitsy pickled cucumbers that are one of the yummy garlicky products from the kitchen of Catherine and Dana. They are tiny, you can see the dime in the pic. And they have stripes like real watermelons but they are cucumbers. So they were dubbed Mouse Watermelons, of course. And a big hit at tapas.

Can a blog post be written about these little veggies and then there is the question of why would anyone bother? I am bothering because ever since I heard this name I haven’t been able to get it out of my head? Maybe this will help me. See if you can do it now that you have heard it. Yea, mouse watermelons. See?

Hehe, love you, Felipe.

I hardly know what the word “blog” means but somehow we have managed to crank out 588 posts over the last year and a half. And I/we still seem to use I/we interchangeably you will notice along the way. And that is the important part, that we are moving along the Way together. I am meeting you, you are meeting me, you are meeting each other.

This all started back before Spain when Esther and the nurses at the hospital thought a blog was the perfect avenue for me to communicate with. And I said OK, not really knowing what I was getting into. Somehow the name Caminoheads came into my thoughts and I mentioned it to Annie and she jumped all over it. And for $84 I got a domain for two years and we/I were on the air.

But beside all that history I really want to thank you the readers that have been with me and brought so much encouragement. Just really want to thank you right now, right here, on November 2nd for being here. You really help make this what it is now.

And I would like to encourage you to leave a comment on a post that grabs you. I really thank all those folks that have done that in the past. So, much good inspirational juice has come from your thoughts bouncing off my thoughts and back and forth again. Some of the banter has been priceless. Don’t stop!

Yes, we all only have so much time, true. But now with winter setting in at least our Northern Hemisphere Caminoheads will need something to do during the gloomy darkness. So let me encourage you to craft up a thoughtful comment for all our benefit. Alperfect, althankful, love you, Felipe.

We are in between storms here too. It’s been raining and blowing like heck for a couple days and more to come. Have the generator all ready to go in case the power goes out. But this is the very stuff we were praying for back in August and September when it was so crispy dry.

I’m hoping for kind of a lazy day hopefully. Just want to spend time imagining Maggie on her birthday in Santiago. What a great scene. So happy for her at the moment and looking forward to her reflections coming up in the future.

OK, here comes the next storm, rain coming down. November is the storm month here and here we are the first of November. It is sort of like summer holds on longer than is natural and we all cheer it on but then when it can’t hold on any longer the winter force snaps back with a vengeance. That’s what November seems like to me.

Have a walk this afternoon and we are starting earlier because of the darkness. The afternoon walks we are moving from a 1600 to 1530 start for three months. I don’t know maybe we will have to back it up another half hour in December. All my walks the first time we hiked “across Spain” were in the morning and we never had this problem.

Probably have to walk the alternative trail today. The regular trail I call the “Mary” trail and it goes through the woods. But when it is stormy we stay out of there. Falling limbs are called widowmakers around here. So we have the “Joseph” trail that is safely all out in the open.

OK, we will be safely out of the storm and Maggie will safely be in Santiago. Sounds good to me. Later, love, Felipe.