A month to the solstice today. The sun though today out is behind the majestic fir trees. It’s that winter sun that never makes it far from the horizon. And yes the solstice, roughly December 21st, will be the seventh anniversary of the opening of Phil’s Camino. I wonder if I can get a few people that were here that day to come and walk this year. That seems like a worthy project.

And what other seasonal goodies have we. Cris wanted me to make a Advent calendar to December 16th when my biopsy results will be revealed. That seems like a worthy project.

I need to post a walking schedule here at the blog soon. We are still open with the inclusion of Covid precautions. People seem to have the time but not the inclination to get out and get over here these days. So, if you are staying away because you think a lot of folks will be here that is defiantly not the story. 95% percent of the time I am alone.

Last evening Annie and I were Zooming with a cancer support group out of LA. We watched the Phil’s Camino documentary and had a QandA session. They are always fun and rewarding for me. If you belong to a group and want to have something like that we can rig it up.

Thanksgiving (US) is coming our way quickly. We have the turkey corralled in our freezer. Looking forward to cornbread dressing once again. This is our chance to proclaim our thankfulness even in these sparse times!

So, that was kind of a newsy post, have to have one now and again here.

Zooming loves, Felipé.

Last evening a comment can through channels to me here at headquarters, it was Becky. I was so happy to know that I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing up. But it was her and her story matched mine so I am happy.

Here are her words:

“Phil! I am here and sorry for the delayed response! Meeting you Wednesday was such a treasured moment! I sent our selfie to my family text thread knowing they would freak out. And they sure did. I recounted our encounter and my shock when you answered my surprised holler ‘Phil’s Camino?!’ With ‘yes, I’m Phil’. I told them I had a speechless moment with so many questions and topics to cover, as anyone who has walked the Camino can relate to. Alas, our respective 8am appointments saved me from embarrassing myself too much, but am thankful you obliged me with a selfie!

My folks have walked the camino a number of times, I was privileged to join them for 2 weeks in October 2016. It is an experience like no other, to say the least.
My folks were staying with me after a recent surgery and they brought your video to watch during their visit. What an honor and encouragement to know your story! Thank you for sharing and continuing your Camino with such grace.
We had contemplated going to Vashon for a ‘get out of the city’ drive. It is still on our list!

That Wednesday morning, I’m thankful I followed by dad’s rule/encouragement to talk to strangers.“

And I’m happy to announce the the whole coincidence/synchronicity phenomenon is alive and well in this world! Here I was pushing open my most feared door and who should arrive to go through with me. I don’t know, one can’t make this stuff up apparently. Thank you Becky for tweaking me there at that exact instant.

The phrase, “we can’t help ourselves”, thank you Annie, goes a long way to explain this. And it all seems to have a mind of it’s own, this synchronicity, just ambulating down the boulevard like it’s reality is all the norm. Hmm. It sort of lives in us now but it has it’s own agenda.

Yea, speaking of Annie I have a zoom this evening with a group that has recently watched Phil’s Camino. It is a QandA. They are always fun. Annie rigs up these deals and I tag along.

Alperfect loves all the time, Felipé.

(our moon is a waxing crescent, 33% illumination)

Something very synchronistic happened yesterday that made my day only it was early and it got lost in the shuffle of all the drama. I need to recount it because it was at least as important as all the hospital junk, no more.

I got up yesterday at 0430 to make the trip to the Hospital for my 0800 appointment for the biopsy. All very important. And the Hospital is not just the Hospital anymore since the Covid and even more so just now because of the Governor’s latest tightening. The facility is all compartmentalized like a ship ready for battle. There are locked doors and blocked hallways and you can only get places by going through the right checkpoints for screening. At one point I set off any alarm and then I got busted for not being screened, geez!

Anyway that is on top of my own years of fears of the whole situation. I know that I have written about how it is the hardest thing in the world is just to go through the door from the parking lot to the Treatment Center. One second you are independent and free and you go through a door and next you are willingly getting poisoned.

And that is where I was yesterday poised to open that door when I caught a glimpse of a woman coming up behind me. So, I pushed the door open extra wide so she would have room to pass behind me at a good distance. And as she goes by she reads the patch on my daypack. She yells, “Phil’s Camino!”.

And she had seen the documentary and her parents had walked the Camino five times. And she wanted to take a selfie with me. And I said go to my blog Caminoheads and comment and I will pick up your email address and we can communicate. And we both ran on, she into an elevator and me around a corner and I yelled back, “You are making my morning!”.

so sometimes you get lucky loves, Felipé.

Breaking my fast with a Starbucks Americano. No food or drink forever before my biopsy procedure and now I am celebrating. That wasn’t so bad just time consuming. Now I am waiting on Nugget to collect the vital info and give me his interpretation of the situation.

I am thinking a lot about the film we watched Netflix last evening. It is brand new and free of charge, how can that be? It feature’s Sonia Loren at 86 years old. Entitled The Life Ahead it is directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. All I can say is that she still has it! And it will probably be an award winner. This is your hot tip for the week.

Well, it is something to distract me from this anxiety producing wait for my results. I don’t know what is worse waiting for biopsy results or scan results? And then there are all new Covid restrictions here at the Hospital and Institute. I set off an alarm trying to get to where I was going early this morning. Gee wiz anyway. Adventures in health care.

Well, I guess I miss understood the time required for the biopsy to be processed and it will take a month. So I am going back in four weeks to see Nugget, a vacation!

Listing to port loves, Felipé.

I am talking about Cris our esteemed representative in Buenos Aires. She works in clinical research and I just wanted to let you know this since vaccines and clinical trials are so much in the news lately. The last few days Moderna announced their vaccine reaching a certain level of completion. This was on the heels of Pfizer’s vaccine. So great that this progress is being made. And our Cris works for PPD which is a partner of Moderna and handling the clinical trials (my best guess at an explanation). I Googled and Googled and all the info refers to PPD with just the abbreviation, no explanation.

“PPD which is the company I work for, has 1200 employees working in the Moderna vaccine clinical trial… a huge number of my work colleagues working really hard to get it done… We are all hopeful and while this is not the trial I work on, I am proud of the work we do…“ Cris.

Our Cris, there as part of that big picture. Thank you Cris! And she is invaluable to us at Caminoheads also. Apparently we were all supposed to get together here at Caminoheads and here we are.

So, it’s mid November and the Covid clock keeps ticking. We in the States are now facing big new rules on gatherings to mute down the holiday partying. Yea, 2020 hitting a flaming crescendo with all it’s special fun. So the vaccine will be welcomed but that will be for 2021.

And here the leaves are quickly being removed from their trees or the trees are being separated from their leaves. The winds are here. It looks like it is snowing out there and the electric lights are blinking inside.

So, off to Swedish Hospital for a biopsy in the morning and an interpretation of that by Nugget in the afternoon. Never ending fun I’ll tell ya. So, prayers for Felipé please. And as long as you are praying, one for Janet who does energy work with me. She suffered a fall yesterday and she is recovering. Thanks all.

prayers and loves, Felipé.

I am reading American Guerrilla in the Philippines for another time. I am on the last few pages of this book that I have read at least twenty times. It seems each time I read it I am doing something different. This time I am studying the various parts of it to see how they translate to my own life. Each event or chapter has an equivalent.

It is a great story of a US Naval Officer who lives out in the bush and barrios of Southern P.I. through the entire years of the Japanese occupation in World War Two. He chooses to make himself useful instead of blending into the background. It is daring and full of escapes and full of mistakes and things going bad but it ultimately somehow achieves victory as he outlives the invaders and gets recognized for his work. He over those years ran a radio network that fed information to the American Forces to facilitate the retaking of the Philippine Islands. A true story.

A true story and somehow to me a truer story in that it was a guidebook of a Way to deal with the invasion of cancer into my body. An allegorical tale that was of ultimate usefulness to me. The remarkable part to me is that I started reading and studying it at least ten years before my diagnosis, like I was training for it. That part is remarkably woo woo!

But even as it speaks to me it may be unintelligible to another in my same position. I have recommended this book to people but that may be a mistake as it may have been meant for me personally. But someone else may have another story that speaks loudly to them. And this is how I am looking at it as I reread it again.

sometimes things are amazing loves, Felipé.

It is pretty mild here in the lowlands with mainly gusts of wind and rain coming down. Nice not to be up at higher elevation. Almost seems too easy down here.

We got all the canvas from the tent dried out and Wiley and I are off later this morning to the Sportsmen’s Club to use the large floor in their clubhouse to fold up things nice and tidy for storage for another year. That tent is 25 going on 30 years old and still is in pretty fair shape, a testament to good care.

And Catherine will be here in a few minutes to walk and say the rosary with me. I so value our friendship and all that entails. I think that we help each other “figure things out” as they say at Phil’s Camino. Speaking of which I had the trail closed for today because I thought that I may not be back from the mountains. But after today we will be open. It has been slow participation with the pandemic in full swing lately but we are in fact still operating. Blog readership has been down this months also I guess with the distraction of the election. Hopefully we can button that up shortly and get back to some semblance of regularity. Praying for that.

So hang tough, I know things are gittery and slip sliding around but we will get through this. And a reconfiguration of the Thanksgiving holiday in progress. Improvise, adapt and overcome, remember?

no slip sliding loves here, Felipé.

Wiley, James and I scampered out of the hills on Thursday afternoon ahead of a winter snow storm predicted to dump another one to three feet of snow on us. Yup, it was disappointing in a way but it was the only thing to do. We left the elk to their winter wonderland and headed downhill.

The guys had a good time and learned some valuable lessons. I‘m glad that I left midweek for a break and gave them time to themselves. And I got to go to Cabela’s Outdoor Store and get some badly needed gear and clothing then. Picked up a new coffee pot because my old trusty one that I got for a 25 cents forty years ago sprung a leak, cost $59.
Also got a new chore vest to replace the one I found out in the sage brush two years ago, cost another $59. Yup.

So, the election is over sort of. Still a mess but we go on in spite of the silliness. We still have coffee to drink and chores to do and of course faith to maintain. And great to be back in communication with you all. We have lots of time to sort things out.

your love is never a chore, Felipé.

(Our moon is a waning crescent, 1% illumination)

No Hope = Riots
Hope = Dancing in the streets

I moved to the D.C. area from my beloved Poulsbo, WA in June this year.
In July as I walked around the White House streets in Lafayette Square, the tension was insurmountable in D.C. . You could feel in the air that at any split-second people could start rioting, and the Secret Service would be enforcing the gates of the White House…
No one was happy. No one. It was a build-up of the last year, the last 4 years as well.
The fence around the White House had hundreds of pictures of folks of all races attached to it. I saw one picture in particular that looked familiar. It was a picture of a man that was shot in Poulsbo last summer. Shot in the park next to the marina, next to my boat. It seems like that was the start of the year to come.
Last weekend, I went to the same Lafayette Square Park, as I go into downtown D.C. with my Segway scooter and zip around the city often. When I approached Lafayette Square, which is not blocked off, (Black Live Matter BLVD is now the closest you can get) ……it was different..
The tension was not there. In fact, people of ALL races were literally dancing in the streets. Dancing. (“Everyone around the world, people dancing in the streets” was blaring on a stereo speaker and doezens of small groups of people were dancing and singing along with this song…even some of the police).
The Riots had literally turned to dancing. People were so happy, even the reporters and camera crews.
It can be hard for some folks to read this and not get political. I understand that. What I can offer to you though is simple……when rioting turns to dancing, there is something to be said of that. HOPE.
People need hope. Empathy. Love.
Spain
I think many of us had travelled to Spain to walk the Camino because we needed the same things….
I feel as if a mental weight had been lifted in the past week. I am not minimizing the thoughts of the other half of America, but for me, the effects of the last week is the same feeling of having a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. Like hearing noise and then you put on the noise cancelling headphones and it is calm…like the sound under water in a swimming pool, calm.
I felt the same way on the Camino. The noise of my life was muffled by nature. By foot pain. By day after day of sweltering, July 2017 heat. By kindness of people. By laughter. By amazing tapas. By town after town of celebrations and people dancing in the streets….

Ryck, CEBC

(Our moon is a waning crescent, 4% illumination)

I really don’t know how cold it would have to be for your brand of whiskey to freeze but I got your attention anyway but that would be pretty damn cold. Well, Wiley’s callsign is Whiskey and he froze a few nights so that counts pretty much. I am back for a mid week break from the Elk Hotel so I thought that I would hammer out a communique to you guys. As of the time I left we saw recent tracks but no critters actually standing in any. But having a good time playing the game.

There is snow there where we are camped and deeper stuff higher up to tromp around in. The high point in the neighborhood is 5900 feet above sea level with the tent at 5000. And snow is much easier to deal with than rain so happy about that.

It has been down in the teens at night, temperature wise. We have the fly on the tent for extra insulation and the Lil Buddy propane heater runs all night on low setting. And we have the propane cook stove that we had at the Veranda going. I’m pretty much the cook leaving the climbing around to the young bucks. The guys aren’t complaining too badly about the food so I guess I have future employment.

One morning out there after I got the guys off I spent a good hour standing in the first sunshine thawing out. Something so simple can be such a joy. And there is a young cottonwood tree that was basking also. Half of it’s leaves had already fallen of over previous days. Then as I watched the tree warm, leaves started falling in a rush. That continued for half an hour maybe at the rate of ten per minute and then it stopped. It was entertaining me as I tried to guess which one would fall next. I guess I am easily pleased and it was fun while it lasted.

So, I have the afternoon here to gather up things that the guys requested and fix a few things and round up more water and propane. And I’ll be off early tomorrow morning. Going to stop at Jessika’s on the way and delivery some of her stuff that needed hauling. And I want to stop at Cabela’s, the mecca of outdoor stores for a few things.

Well, thanks for checking in here at Caminoheads. I will be back On the air Sunday or Monday. Happy Marine Corps Birthday today for anyone who might be a Marine out there.

simple sunshine loves, Felipé.