June 23
Logroño to Najera 31.6km
Another 30km day. Our feet didn´t like what we put them through yesterday and now we did it again today. No sun during the day and more rain. Apparently, the rain in Spain does not stay mainly on the plain. For those of you in our generation you may relate to these words, ''it never rains in España. It pours. Man, it pours.'' They have been having a wet lack of spring, just like at home. After hiking 12km, we stopped for bocadillos de tortilla y jamon (ham and egg omlette). And of course cafe con leche.
While perched on a curb on the edge of a small town, fixing our feet, and changing our socks, (mid-hike), a man stopped to visit.  He was delighted by the fact that we were teachers as he is a retired teacher.  He said, will you be here a few minutes?  When I said that we would, he said that he would just run home and come back with a map of a place that we needed to visit.  On his return he gave us quite a  history lesson about a world heritage site in the area which is where Spanish was written for the first time ever, over 1,200 years ago. He was passionate about his belief that it is one of the most beautiful places in the world and that we absolutely had to go see it.  He said, how can I make you understand?  It would be like going to Rome and not seeing the Sistine Chapel, or going to D.C. and not seeing the Capitol.  I have to tell you that I had to lie and swear to him that we would go, but sadly, another 15 km. was not in the picture!  Maybe someday.
The phrase for yesterday and today would be ''different paths''.  People on the camino come from all different parts of the world, along all different paths, yet here we converge as one on ''the way''.  The paths we take here are also many; some spiritual, some physical, some cow paths, some gravel trails, some boulder strewn, some asphalt, some wooded, some populated, some solitary, some high roads, some low roads, but always one way, ''the Way of Saint James''.  Buen Camino.