Well I have to say that today's walk was pretty awful. Last night I was awoken numerous times by torrential rains and impressively loud and sustained thunder. The rain seemed to be coming in waves. When I got up this morning the intensity had thankfully lessened but it was still coming down. We walked in constant rain for ten and a half miles through low fields with no structures except for a concrete lean-to, nowhere to change into a dry pair of socks. I was soaked and chilled through and through. As that Brit I mentioned a while back might have said, "rawther unpleasant, that!"

The unpleasantness of the weather was tempered by walking with a charming couple from California almost the entire time, he a still active 62 year old firefighter with 37 years under his belt, she a student hoping to become a nurse after a whole host of jobs over the years.

Theirs is the kind of love story one loves to hear. When she was 16 or 17 they fell in love, but he was 11 years older than she. Her father forbade the relationship and it didn't survive and they went on their separate ways, both to marry and have a couple kids each. But after the marriages fell apart they somehow found each other again and have been together for three years. She said she's been madly in love with him since she was a teenager. When they first started seeing each other for the second time she said she really wanted for them to walk the Camino and he agreed, but in an aside said to me "when you're first dating you pretty much say yes to anything; I didn't think she'd hold me to it!" He was having a much easier time of it than she; her feet are pretty messed up and she's had to taxi it a few times, but he hasn't missed a step. When we arrived at the hostel in which I had reserved a room, we stopped, had a cup of coffee, they continued on and we said goodbye. A nice encounter.

Unfortunately the weather report is not encouraging. Looks like off and on rain the next few days. I'm trying to consider my options. My feet, already messed up, got worse today in the wetness, and I don't want to do irreparable damage. I'll see what it's like in the morning. I'm about halfway through and I haven't yet skipped a step, but if I feel it's the right thing to do, I will.