Camino de Santiago Recap 2026

 

First up, I’d like to thank everyone who supported Wendy and me in our fundraising for BCPP while we took on this Camino de Santiago adventure.

I know many of you followed along on Instagram and Facebook and know about the issues I had with my feet and that we cut the trip short with just nine days of walking left. For those not on social media, I’ll include a quick recap here.

We covered over 150 miles of the journey despite both of us suffering foot problems, so that’s something.

More importantly, we have raised nearly $10,000 for BCPP. So along with a trip recap, I’m sending one final appeal to help push us over our goal. Again, thank you to all who have already donated, and thank you in advance to anyone who is still willing to come through for this incredible organization committed to stopping breast cancer before it starts.​ Donate here.

The Camino Francés is not a walk in the park. My favorite sections were those that had trails and trees and hills and views of mountains. So much of the walk was not like that. There were days of endless, rocky, hard white gravel roads stretching through brown fields in 90-degree heat. There were cobblestones, asphalt and concrete sections that wreaked havoc on the scrawny bird bones in my feet.

Due to health issues and laziness in the year leading up to this trip, I was carrying an extra 25 pounds on my frame, and it wasn’t muscle. Due to a busy work schedule prior to my retirement, a very smoky wildfire season and, again, laziness, I was undertrained. Hence, foot issues.

So enough with the explanations and excuses. On to the things I loved about Spain and the challenges.

Loved:

The people — both locals and pilgrims on the way.

Gildas — a skewered treat with olives, peppers and boquerones. Salty and excellent with a cold beer.

Café con leche — really good coffee for about 2 euros.

Spanish wine — every glass was good, and a healthy pour was 2.50 to 3 euros.

Being able to communicate, however feebly, in the language of my mother and grandmother.

The train and bus system — efficient, easy to navigate and cheap.

Tiny villages — sweet little streets and alleys with cozy plazas.

Murals — everywhere there is art!!

Seeing Logroño, my grandmother’s hometown. For a city, it was not bad.

Challenges:

The Meseta — the heat and tedium of long, flat, straight, rocky paths with no shade.

Cities — I’m not a city person at the best of times, but when your final 2–3 kilometers of a long day of walking are through a city on concrete sidewalks, it’s even more challenging. Pamplona was not a favorite.

Late dinners — finding a meal earlier than ​8:​00 p.m. is a challenge. If it were a regular vacation, I’d say, sure, no problem. I’ll stay up till ​midnight and sleep in. But when you want to start walking at 6 a.m. to beat the heat, it’s hard to go to bed on a full stomach at 10 p.m.

That being said, the food was plentiful and cheap!! Most dinners were more than I could eat. They weren’t always delicious, but they were nutritious.

Some things I learned:

You can’t slack off on training when you’re 67 years old.

Don’t dim your light. I had a tendency on this trip to lose my normal Pollyanna attitude and let the difficulties of the trip weigh me down.

​There is a church/chapel/cathedral around every corner.

I’m really not a city person. I mostly knew that, but I learned that I don’t need to build time in for cities on my vacations. We had originally planned to spend several days exploring Barcelona and, honestly, I didn’t feel like I missed out by not doing it.

I already knew from mountaineering that reaching the summit isn’t what makes a climb worthwhile. ​T​his trip was​ a reminder that the same is true of other journeys. I didn’t make it to Santiago, but I still walked the Camino.

And together, Wendy and I turned those miles into nearly $10,000 for Breast Cancer Prevention Partners. That part of the journey isn’t quite finished yet.

If you’ve been following along and haven’t donated, this is my final ask. Even a small donation will help push us over the finish line. We paid all of our own travel expenses, so the money raised through this adventure goes directly to supporting BCPP’s work to prevent breast cancer by eliminating our exposure to toxic chemicals and other environmental causes of the disease.​ Donate here.

We may not have made it to the end of the Camino, but I would really love to make it to the end of this fundraising goal.

Thank you for following along, cheering us on, laughing with us, worrying about my damn feet, and supporting a cause that will always mean so much to me.

St. Jean Pied de Port, France

Crossing the Pyrenees

A favorite trail in the Pyrenees

Gildas

Meseta

My Pilgrims Passport

Typical pilgrims meal

Episcopal church designed by Gaudi

Cathedral in Leon

Kicking Off Retirement - A 500 Mile Journey

At the end of June 2026 I am retiring. In August of 2026, my dear friend Wendy and I will take on the challenge of walking the legendary Camino de Santiago - French Route, a journey of 500 miles. Beginning in the Pyrenees mountains in France, we will walk 10-20 miles each day for 34 days from east to west across northern Spain. Aside from the physical challenge, we will also be raising funds for a cause close to our hearts—Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (BCPP), an organization dedicated to preventing breast cancer before it starts.

I had never considered walking the Camino because I typically like to take the road less traveled, but when Wendy floated the idea a few years ago it gained in appeal and as the date nears I am getting more and more excited. The route we are taking goes through my grandmother's home town of Logroño. When my mom passed I scattered some of her ashes at her favorite places in Maui but I've been carrying one last little bag around with me for years. I kept wondering why I was hanging on to it but now I know it's because she needed to come on this journey with me. I will scatter the ashes in the sea at Finisterre at the end of the walk. It has been 12 years since she passed. Time to let this last piece of her go. 

I've been watching Youtube videos of others' journeys on the Camino, some of it inspiring, some quite daunting. We'll be arriving from the states on the 18th of August and begin walking on the 20th after transferring from Biarritz to the start of the trail. And the first day is crossing the Pyrenees, a 16 mile day with the first 12 miles being ALL uphill, ascending 4500' in elevation. I watched a video of a young, fit honeymooning couple struggle through the first day, taking 9.5 exhausting hours to get from St. Jean Pied de Port to the first stop at Roncesvalles. Wendy and I have both been wondering what the heck we were thinking, taking this on, but now we're inspired to train even harder. Hard hikes and workouts now will make day one a little less painful. Hopefully.

This walk feels like a gateway to the next stage of my life. The stage where I won't have a "job" and a set schedule anymore. I'm sure I'll find ways to fill my days with play, spending time outdoors, making art and music, nurturing friendships and adventuring abroad. For now it's just wrapping things up with my job, managing one last climb on Mt. Shasta and waiting for the time when I can finally take my first step on The Way!

If you'd like to support Breast Cancer Prevention Partners' important work to prevent breast cancer you can donate to our fundraiser at http://donate.bcpp.org/Camino 

What Have You Got to Show for Yourself?

I wrote the following in July of 2016 and it still rings true today in February of 2026. 

The ever-present questions: What do you do? What do you want to do with your life? What have you got to show for yourself? Where are we going? Is this going anywhere? Why do we ask these questions? Why do we have to be something? Can’t we just be? Where do we have to go? Isn’t the point of life just living? Why do we have a need for some major goal, some end point, or some massive achievement? Why can’t we just go through day-to-day living with joy and let that be enough? Why can’t a daily run be enough without a race? Why can’t preparing a meal from whole fresh ingredients be enough without a lime, fig, Viognier reduction with tarragon kohlrabi coulis and roasted pistachios? Why can’t a happy, healthy woman be enough without a child and/or a career and a “successful” husband? 

I fret constantly over what I have or haven’t achieved in life; the fact that I have nothing concrete to show for my 57 (now nearly 67) years of scrambling. But what is really concrete about a house that can burn down or tumble down in an earthquake? What is good about being tied to a house that owns you? What is solid about a career that takes up more than half your waking life unless that career is also your passion, and how many people truly have that? I’ve always struggled with a need to strive for something but often have to scramble to find a target to shoot for. Sometimes my target is random, grabbed out of a hat just to have something out there. 

If I’m honest with myself, here is how I really want it to go. I awake, slightly predawn in my tiny, cozy apartment, meditate before leaving bed. Then I drink my green drink or coffee while I read a chapter in my latest library book. Then I do a little dynamic stretching before going for a sunrise run on trails around my home. As the sun climbs I return home for a quick shower, a protein smoothie and a cup of green tea before shooting a few early morning photos of the surrounding scenery and a particularly stunning dewy spider web sparkling in the sun. Then I sit down to my computer to write my daily blog, edit and submit photos for stock sites and develop query letters for the book I have planned but don’t really care if I ever finish. I may take out a sketch book or slap some paint on a canvas.

In the afternoon I go for a swim or a bike ride or another run or a hike then I get together with a friend or a group of friends, and we take our time fixing a healthy, simple meal together, maybe sip some wine, or fresh squeezed lemonade. And we talk about our day, what we’re grateful for, our families, the world, and life. Maybe some instruments come out and we sing a couple songs. 

Simple. Slow. Stress free…

But wait! That Baker Lake 50k was so fun. Maybe I should do that again. And I still want to tour Central Asia. And a van tour of National Parks would be fun. And I still haven’t learned Spanish or German. And I DO have a book in me that needs to be written! 

What's a girl to do, but continue to strive, to seek the new, to be an adventurer, to keep on learning? I guess it makes sense that my favorite thing to play on the piano when I was a kid, was a piece called Perpetual Motion. 

SMOKE

Cane fire viewed from my lanai in Paia

Although I was never a smoker, (not cigarettes anyway) I’ve had an intimate relationship with smoke and fire for so many years. When the sugar cane industry was thriving on Maui, the method of harvesting was to first burn the field, to clear away the leaves and the tops, allowing just the valuable cane stalk to be cut and gathered. The resulting smoke plumes from these fires went so high that they created weather. We called the resulting ash fallout Maui snow. When I worked on boats there, we would sometimes have to hose off the boat 2 or 3 times in the early morning before our passengers showed up for their snorkel trip, so they weren’t sitting in ash. 

For 10 of the 30 years I lived on Maui, I lived right on a cane field, so not only did the smoke affect me but also, the wind-blown dirt from the empty fields after the harvest, added a daily layer of red dirt to everything in my house. Not to mention, the displaced scorpions, centipedes and cane spiders taking up residence with me once their homes had been burned.

Once the cane industry shut down in 2016, the fields were left fallow, not cleared, not watered, just a dry tinderbox of leaves, getting scorched in the drought, so wildfire became a thing on the island. 

When I moved to Washington 3 years ago, the first summer was a brutal fire season, with the AQI sometimes hitting over 500. A good deal of time was spent indoors with AC and air filters on. I have friends who lost their homes in the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA. and in the Almeda Fire in Phoenix, OR. 

But the Lahaina fire on August 8, 2023 hit hardest. I’ve finally stopped crying every time I look at the photos. I have many friends who lost their homes but luckily all my family and friends there are alive, though traumatized. 

So how to bring this story to an upbeat end? It’s difficult. But when I see the huge outpouring of love and support from the entire Hawaiian community, I am lifted. Everyone is giving all of themselves, all that they have, to those who lost everything. Everyone I know has opened their homes and have people sleeping on floors and couches. Everyone I know is donating so much of their own household goods, clothing, food. The aloha spirit is strong. And others around the world are helping as well. So, there is hope, and that warms my heart. 

And smoke makes for some stunning sun rises.

Sunrise with wildfire smoke. Yakima, WA

Shallow Roots or Flying Free?

There’s something weird about the light and the smells in the Caribbean. When I worked on a live-aboard dive boat down here, motoring up and down the islands, I always felt a vague unease. The light wasn’t right. The salt air had the wrong scent. I loved parts of being here, the food, the music, some of the people, but something was off. My personal vibration never matched the Caribbean vibration. 

So different from my experience in Hawaii. From the first time I stepped foot on Maui at the age of 9, it felt right, I felt at home. Hawaii was unlike the Northern California coast I grew up on. The cold, fresh salt air smells of Inverness and Tomales bay were nothing like the smells of plumeria and pikake in Hawaii, but somehow Hawaii made sense to me. 

I’ve left the islands now and with the recent devastation on Maui, although I feel pulled to go help, I will not return to use up much needed resources. Although I spent the bulk of my life there, basically growing up there, it is not my true home. I was not born there. I was a transplant, and although I felt accepted as a “local haole”, it does not feel like my place, like I belong. 

I was born in Oakland, California and spent my first 15, sometimes harrowing, years there. But that is not my place either. So where is home? Where are my roots? I don’t know. My maternal grandparents were immigrants, hailing from Spain and Denmark, but I feel no compulsion to explore those roots. 

So I wander, I move, I relocate, I explore. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, if I shift my perspective from feeling ungrounded to feeling light and free. I'm good at nesting wherever I am. I'm good at building friendships and keeping a nice cozy residence. 

I'm feeling introspective here as I visit my ailing sister. Feeling the preciousness of life, and of family, and of home. It's interesting that us siblings have scattered, the sisters to islands on opposite sides of the globe. Maybe those immigrant genes have more affect than we know. Maybe we're all wanderers with shallow roots, meant to explore and change and discover new places, new cultures, new lives. Life is so mysterious. 

Below are photos from Christiansted, including my sweet Airbnb. 

My Airbnb

Courtyard of my Airbnb

View inland from my room

View from my room towards the bay.

Wonderland By the Numbers

Things didn't go as planned. Things didn't even go according to my modified plans. Basically, things were whack! But considering that I missed out on a substantial block of training due to work, had to maneuver around wildfire smoke and heatwave during training, and was malnourished, I think I did OK for a 62 year old woman who was never really a runner before the age of 40 and whose first ultra was run at the age of 58. 

Some of you may have read about the h pylori gut bacteria that put a crimp in my training for the Wonderland run. The good news is that the antibiotics seem to have subdued the bug. The bad news is that the antibiotics upset my stomach and for the first two days of the Wonderland trip I felt like crap while I was still taking the meds. 

My modified plan was to ride the support van to the campgrounds and do out and back runs. What I didn't know is that the ride to the camp included long stops for re-supplying, meaning that once settled in camp there wasn't time for much more than a quick jaunt. 

So while I am sorely disappointed that I was only able to complete about a third of the course, I am still proud of the fact that I far surpassed my fundraising goal which is truly what the whole thing was about anyway. So huge thanks to all who donated to support Breast Cancer Prevention Partners.

Here's the low down.

Day One - drove to Ashford WA with my friends Janet and Theresa, camped at Big Creek campground for our first group dinner. 

Day Two - drove to Longmire to the start of the Wonderland trail. Bid farewell to the runners heading out. Hopped in the support van to head to the Mowich Lake Campground, stopping for groceries along the way. Set up camp in the rain then headed up for a wet hike/run to Eunice Lake. One of the other runners had bailed about 6 miles in because she was sick but she managed to hitch a ride to the camp. Three other runners rolled into camp with the sweep, in the dark at about 8pm, exhausted and soaked from the rain. I was thankful I had opted out of that day of 34 miles and almost 10k elevation gain. 

Day Three - packed up camp and again watched the runners take off for the next leg of the run. Drove to White River camp and headed out for a gorgeous 6 mile run/hike with glacier and mountain views. 

Pretty much feeling like a failure or a fraud around the dinner table that night as the other runners told their tales from the main trail. Any athlete can tell you how hard it is to be in that position, sick and sidelined, and how deep in your head you can get. While I was enjoying the company and the views that I did get, I was seriously bummed to be missing out on the big challenge. But I took my last dose of antibiotics in the morning and was able to eat a little more that night so I prepped my pack as though I were going to run the next day.

Day Four - Woke up at 3am still unsure of my gut but put my head down, packed my tent and gear, put on my pack and at 4am headed out with my headlamp to tackle the 20 miles to Box Canyon. Saw the sunrise on Mt. Rainier with the alpine-glow pinkness lighting up the sky. My gut was not happy, but I was. I had to make 6 forays into the bush to dig cat holes to alleviate my touchy tummy but it was worth it. Every turn in the trail had me exclaiming out loud at the astounding beauty and grandeur of the place. Photos don't do it justice. It took me a long time to do 22 miles and I was pretty tired of climbing by the end of it but I'm SO so glad I got out there.

The Aspire crew was at Box Canyon with an aid station so I was able to avoid the final 12 miles of the route, a brutal stretch of climbing, during the heat of the day.

The crew from Aspire Adventure Running was top notch, catering to my every need, making sure I could amend the program to fit how I was feeling and it was great to have my support crew to hike with and to boost my moral on those down days. 

So here are some numbers to wrap your head around:

Training Miles Run - 473
Training Elevation Gain 69,663 feet
Training Calories Burned 47,750

Wonderland Miles run - 33.02
Total elevation gain - 6986
Calories burned 4000

Maybe I'll head back next year and make another attempt of the 93 miles. Or maybe I'll tackle something more reasonable. Time will tell. Oh, almost forgot to mention, I ended up with poison oak or ivy! Fortunately it was a mild case but what a way to cap off the wonderful Wonderland journey. You just have to laugh.