Final leg(s) of the Batona trail!

Well, we did it and before winter really hit!  Yesterday was the last leg of our effort to walk the entire Batona trail.  It took two days to finish the final leg because of multiple commitments amongst the group.  Rich had a 5k to organize and I had to work on Saturday evening, allowing only enough time on Saturday for a 4.8 mile stretch.

Sunday morning broke colder but brighter than Saturday, and we hit the trail by 9:15.  The final leg had surprising bits of "uplands" and lots of tall oaks.  There were also a few lovely stands of holly trees, beautifully decked with red berries.

Our finale was lunch/brunch at a local log cabin restaurant directly across the street from the trail head.  Apanay's has been a fixture out in them thar parts for a long time.  I've only been there twice and have to report the food is very good and amazingly cheap.  We also discovered what the name means!  Apparently it means star in Turkish!  They got a gold star from us for excellent service and good food for a group of seven tired, chilled hikers.  They even gave us the loft dining area to ourselves, so it really was like a private party to mark our completion of the trail.

Now that we've got that out of our systems....what next???

I am finding that my new job in retail, which can mean four plus hours on my feet on a hard floor, has an interesting fringe benefit.  My legs and feet are much more used to the pounding they take when hiking for miles.  On our Saturday excursion we were on the trail for about 2 hours or so, and then I stood at work for another four hours, and felt fine afterwards.  I think this is going to be a help when it comes time to do the Camino and walk on the hard tarmac.  Although whenever there is an option to avoid those hard surfaces, I will!  On our Portuguese Camino, Joe and I would often walk in/on the leaf litter at the side of the road as we found that too helped to cushion the footsteps.

Ahh well enough now...time to call the Doctors office...I've got a raging earache at the moment and need to do something about it.

Reality check

I am strong, I am woman!  I am....simply walking across the sales floor at my new job when there was this little ping feeling and my back was out of commission!

So, what to do..... well nothing is what I've found works best.  Unfortunately.  Of course that meant loosing some work time to say nothing of what couldn't get done at home!  The end result was 2 and a half days of just lying down, most of it flat on my back.  Drifting in and out of the world in a lovely relaxed haze..oh did I forget to mention the open scrip for muscle relaxants?  Can you tell this is far from my first time ?

The very first time my back went out was on a Thanksgiving day about 28 years ago.  It was a truly humbling moment.  I would inwardly roll my eyes whenever my mother would say something about her back.  She wasn't the only one I knew, but hers seemed spectacular in it's ability to go out of whack, resulting in me having to lift and tote, etc.  I, in my youthful ignorance, thought this was really just a load of crap to get others to do things.  Until...that tiny moment, with about 15 guests coming for dinner, I bent to put a 20 lb. turkey in the oven, and heard/felt that little pop or ping sound.  I nearly went down on my knees!  The rest of the day was spent sitting on a very straight hard chair, giving directions on anything and everything.  It hurt to even pick up a fork to eat!  Hmmmm so they weren't kidding when they complained about a bad back!

Since then the back has been a fairly regular issue, enough so that I truly have an open ended scrip with the pharmacy.  I usually only take it once or so per year, but it's such a relief to know it's there.

SO...this does leave me thinking...what will I do on the Camino??  Guess I'm going to have to build in a few days.  A few just in case days!  And make doubly sure that I take the meds with me.  One small piece of good fortune is that wearing the pack keeps your posture very upright.  I've actually found my acts as a brace of sorts.

Guess this was just a little reality check from the universe...things can go wrong.  Unexpected things can happen at unanticipated moments. What will I do?  Shoulder on I guess! Learn a few more phrases in Spanish to try and deal with it.  And be ready to be humbled.