Some days on the trail, I don't know where I am. We arrived in Saint-Come d’Oit in bad need of a rest day. So we stopped. And we mapped out the rest of the journey.

July 5, we’ll hike 19.5 k to Estaing.

July 6^th, we’ll hike another 19 to Bessoles

July 7^th, another 16 or so to Figeac.

July 8^th,onto Conques, etc...

The day there was peaceful, just what we needed. It starts to feel like a while away. But that is

not a bad thing. Its about the process, not the outcome, particularly on this way. We're just hiking, but without a clear destination.

Sitting at the pool, I read from In the Cafe of Lost Youth, a novel about 1950's Paris by Patrick Modiano, thinking about writing and living, growing older and making sense of where we've been.

"In this life that sometimes seems to be a vast ill defined landscape without signposts, amid all the vanishing lines and the lost horizons, we hope to find reference points to draw up some sort of land registry as to shake the impression that we are navigating by chance. So we forge ties. We try to find stability in chance encounters."

This is certainly the case on the trail.

Sitting by the pool reading, our friends from Australia arrived. We've seen them most every day on the trail. They all seemed worn out. One had walked three hours in the wrong direct, missing her friends as she walked. So she wandered with new friends trying to find her way back onto the trail.

Frank, our friend from Germany appears, dips into the pool, and orders a cheap beer.

"I'm in heaven" he smiles.

Yes, the Camino is a process, a place to find inner peace while just walking. But its hard getting on the road, even harder staying, getting one's hiking legs, feeling OK with the ups and downs.

We wandered through Saint-Come d’Oit looking at the stained glass in the old gothic church there.

Light is one of the ways we come close to god.

So I look at the wonder of the light dancing on the floor with the little one.

Later that I day, I read, wrote, recharged. Six days left on the trail.

Our destination, Estaing, Aveyron. We left early. It would be an 18 k day. So we wanted to leave early. Not everyone was up for the trail. So we had to be quiet and careful getting moving.

We walked along the river.

I looked out at the clear water, thinking about life, being alive, the days on the planet, and what might become of it. This is a time to contemplate. At a break we read Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe and we keep wandering. I think of girls and poems and cities and places I've been as we make our way through the moods, ups and downs and challenges of the road.