Day 9- Down and then back up

Leaving Astorga today it was already daylight as I slept later. Slept so well last night after a nice community dinner and no upper bunk above me. Was a little mixed bag of decoding if it was better to leave in daylight with a little more sleep and breakfast in my system. That jury is out. I have not experienced so many people in and around me while walking and while it was nice to keep a more steady pace and “follow the leader”, I found that also distracting. One thing was in the daylight, one can see more details of what the path passes. Like the tile work on a church a few blocks from my albergue. It was also early enough to get a nice outline of the Astorga cathedral with the sun coming up in the “rear view and the first light as it hit a small chapel.

Today had other significance as well. I spent a lot of time thinking of my father. Today was his birthday and he would have been 83. In the 7 years since he passed, so much has happened not just to me but all around. His birthday is one of the many times I wonder what his take would have been on the state of things globally, nationally and even at home. Walking more alone later in the day I thought back to growing up and how, I feel, my father’s life pointed me in the direction mine has gone. As a young elementary school kid, dad was sent to work on satellite equipment in Ecuador, Kenya, Mauritius, Greece and Australia. He would write us letters and postcards. Occasionally a call as we didn’t have mobile phones then, and long distance, especially international was very expensive. Receiving a communication always meant I would run into class the next day and go directly to the classroom globe to find where he was in relation to our home in Western NC. When dad returned there were always gifts. I still have the collection of miscellaneous coins, many currencies now defunct, that he brought back. I have said it before but I know that his travels, along with the multi national friends and colleagues my parents had expanded my interest to other places and desire to see them. Fortunately, we were able to take several foreign trips together and both parents and my youngest sister came to visit when I lived in Japan after college. Started back up mountains again. Tomorrow will summit the highest point on the walk.

At times today I imagined that I might have talked my father into walking with me for part of this journey years ago and enjoyed the sights, people and food&drink together. Personally, I like to think he is.