Today’s goal is a little longer, ~28km.  Joe and I got our crapped packed then headed into breakfast.  Simple stuff, bread, jam, and biscuits.  The coffee had been brewed last night an left in the pot.  We nuked it back to life.  

I sat with Shelly chatting while we picked through the stuff on the table.   Shelly is a retired IT consultant from Kansas.   She worked at Oracle in the 90’s and is something of a PL SQL slinger.   I’d met her briefly about a week ago when I was doing my rain soaked solo push to Logronos.  

We spent much of our time debating on exactly how many biscuit cracker things we should eat.  We settled on 2.  Munching our way through our meager offerings, I made an executive decision and snagged 6 more which I shared with my new partner in crime.   So after 5 biscuits, a hunk of bread, 8 hour old coffee, and an apple, I was ready, no make that HUNGRY, for the day to begin

Pretty much infinite wheat fields here, plus an occasional field of this stuff.  Some kind of grain I assume. 

Joe caught up with Kemi.   I was behind descending from a long rolling hill.  Joe slowed up and had a quick hello convo with her.   Nona, Kemi’s dog, found some fresh cut grass along the roadway and started rolling in it which cut the conversation short so he kept going.   When I rolled up, Nona was back into a walking mood now so she took up a position between Kemi and me and trotted along.  We shared idle chit-chat, jokes, etc.  We talked until the next cafe where she wanted to stop for coffee.  I carried on. 

 

TIL that Vitoria de Rioja was founded on 1019.

Passed through Belgrade.  A decent sized village. 

Outside of town it started raining.  Fortunately, I bumped into a gas station on the edge of town.  I have learned to never pass up a gas station.   They are filled wall to wall with tasty snacks.  I pulled some chips, mm’s, and a delicious Spanish chocolate bar.  Ate my junk food while putting on my rain gear. 

Rest of the day was a mostly light rain walk to Villafranca.  Got hailed on for a bit as well.  According to my weather app, a nasty storm was coming in, so aside from the gas station, no stops today.

Our destination tonight was an albergues behind the San Anton Abad hotel.   We checked in at the hotel desk.  This place is swanky.  The albergues was super clean and modern.  Nice to see some of the swanky hotel money leaking into the albergues.   Joe and I had an awesome 3 course meal in the restaurant.  Then settled in our room of like 8 people.  

Later that evening, it began raining really hard, which quickly turned to hail.  I took this picture for Alice after the worse of the storm passed.