It was raining when we saw the big cross. In the distance. We’d been told about the cross. We knew it was near. Everyone on the trail had been talking about it.

It’s called the Iron Cross. Or “Cruz de Ferro.” It sits on the trail, located at the highest point of the Camino de Santiago, between Foncebadón and Manjarín. It’s tall, really tall. And surrounded by a massive mound of rocks.

We pilgrims had our rocks in our pockets, intended for leaving at the cross. It’s a tradition. The rocks represent your burdens. You’re supposed to pick out a few rocks when you start the trail, carry them for weeks on the Camino, then leave them at the cross. It’s symbolic. And, if I’m being honest, a little cheesy.

But everyone does it. So you must join them. Some people even bring rocks from home. They carry them on the plane and everything. Try explaining this to the TSA personnel.

The rain picked up tempo. My 5X palm leaf cowboy hat was dripping

at the brim. The cowboy hat had been a Godsend on the trail. You never realize how functional a cowboy hat is until you wear one in the rain.

I’ve been wearing a cowboy hat since I was a boy. My father wore cowboy hats, and he wore them non-ironically. He came from farmers and cattlemen. It’s just what they did.

I stepped up to the cross. I reached into my pocket for my rocks.

When you view the mound of stones up close it will move you. Many stones are decorated with artwork. There are photographs. Hair ribbons. Baby shoes. Notecards. Wedding rings. There are farewells to loved ones, written on looseleaf pages, covered in cursive.

I placed my rocks at the cross. I had three. It doesn’t…

I can’t write. I don’t know why.

Every time I sit down, I can’t do it. Namely, I keep asking myself “Why are you writing this?” Then I get up and go outside.

I’ve been writing professionally for upwards of a decade. And suddenly, I don’t know why I’m doing it. What’s wrong with me?

Since my wife and I finished walking the Camino de Santiago, life just feels different. I don’t mean “different” in a woo-woo, spooky way. I mean in a practical way.

Part of my mind is still hovering somewhere over the Iberian Peninsula, flying over orange groves, deserts, and Galician mountains.

Maybe I feel strange because you don’t spend 40 days on foot, beneath a hot Spanish sun, carrying your possessions on your back, and not find yourself a little overwhelmed when you walk into, say, Publix supermarket.

Our local grocery store has 1,008,327 different varieties of orange juice. We have pulp free, pulp intensive, 100% juice, 50% juice, and %100

juiceless orange juice. There is almost an entire aisle dedicated solely to peanut butter.

Maybe I’m disoriented because, as you walk the Camino, you are walking mostly in silence, through primitive villages, some with less than 50 residents. And it’s so quiet out there. Whereas, America is anything but silent.

When our plane touched down in Chicago, my wife and I scurried across O’Hare International Airport to catch our connecting flight.

The knowledge that we were in actually America hadn’t quite settled into my brain yet. I still FELT like we were in Spain. So when I found an airline employee, I asked for directions to our gate in Spanish.

The employee just looked at me with a blank face and replied: “Learn freaking English, sir.”

And I knew I was home.

Since then, nothing has seemed the same. I’ve been spending a…

We entered Santiago de Compostela at 2:11 p.m. On foot. We’d been hiking since sunup. Our pace was slow. Our clothes, threadbare. I was muttering the 23rd Psalm—a kind of private meditation on the trail. 

Two tired pilgrims. Thirty-six days on the trail. Five hundred miles. Thousands of public toilets, none of which have been properly cleaned since the installation of the previous pope. 

We looked bad. Smelled bad. Felt good. Splintered rubber, flaking from our soles. Mud-frosted backpacks. Athletic tape, wrapped tightly around my shin-splinted legs. 

For a brief moment, hobbling into Santiago, I wasn’t sure which century we were in. Were we modernized American tourists, trudging across 21st-century Spain, with smartphones in our pockets? Or were we 9th-century pilgrims, desperate and tattered, clad in sandals, clambering to see the remains of history’s first martyred apostle? 

I really couldn’t tell you. 

The cobblestone streets beneath us were ancient, polished smooth from centuries of Reeboks. The crowded sidewalk cafès were serving lunch. Café customers were applauding us pilgrims as we marched slowly past. 

“Vaya!” people were shouting with glee. Shouting and cheering. “Ya estás casi

ahí!” 

At once I saw the ornate campana towers, high in the distance. Taller than everything else. Reaching into the clouds. 

“I can see it!” Jamie shouted. “I see the cathedral tower!”

I started crying. I don’t know why. 

“There it is!” said a few pilgrims. 

Everyone’s pace increased. 

Obradoiro Square was crowded with pilgrims. Thousands. Everywhere. Some lying on the pavement, smoking cigarettes, or taking naps with heads resting on their packs. 

Most were new pilgrims, who just started the trail a few days ago. Young. Cheerful. Still fresh. FaceTiming loved ones. Taking mass selfies. Slapping each other on the backs. Howling loudly, as though their newly…

Everyone calls it something different. The Camino has many different names. The Germans out here call it “Jakobsweg.” The French call it the “La Chemin de St. Jacques de Compostelle.” The Chinese we’ve met say “Cháoshèng zhě zhī lù,” which means “Pilgrims Path.” 

The South Koreans call it “Santiago Gill.” The Ukrainians call it “Camino Podolico.” We Americans, who speak fluent Roy Rogers, cannot help but refer to it simply as “The Trail.” Which is why many of us Americanos say “Happy Trails” to each other, despite the ribbing we receive from sophisticated Europeans who neither understand why we say these words, nor why we giggle after we say them. 

Either way. My wife and I have walked this path for a long time. We have been out of our own country, living in sweaty albergues, municipal hostels, b.o.-scented dormitories, and the occasional bedbug-fumigated bunkhouse for one month and a half. 

We have been hiking The Way for most of this time. For five of those weeks, the Camino de Santiago has been our only home. 

The cohort of

international pilgrims has been our only community. We are a family. eat together, sleep together, cry together, go to the bathroom together. We walk together. We shower in the same foul stalls. 

We share everything. Food. Clothing. Water. Toiletries, phone chargers, nail clippers, antiinflamatorios, music. We bandage each other’s blisters. We loan each other Euros for cafés. We share pocketknives, boot laces, and even—this actually happens—sports bras. 

We even share sickness. Currently, a lot of the pilgrims are sick with what is being termed “Camino Flu.” The virus has been making the rounds, hopping from albergue to albergue. It’s an intense, quick-moving head cold. But everyone gets a turn experiencing it. 

When…

A few random things I have written in my journal throughout my time walking the Camino de Santiago. 

— Humility is the natural, resting state of creation. Pride is man-made. 

—Good sleep is worth more than good money. 

—Your schedule doesn’t actually exist in spacetime. If you don’t believe this, try telling your schedule to a cat. 

—You’re stronger than you realize, but not nearly as tough as you think. 

—If it’s true that people’s opinions are like rear anatomical orifices, then it is also true that the advice they offer is similar to the output of the aforementioned bodily cavity.

—In some cultures, it is considered dignified, admirable, and even beautiful for a grown man to cry. 

—The most important thing in life is to make life important. 

—Walk more. 

—You will never realize the meaning of “daily bread” until you don’t have any. 

—Hapiness can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, and infinitely multiplied, if you give it away. 

—Pain can be halved if you share it. 

—If ever you’re confused, just remember, so is everyone else. 

—You can’t do everything you thought you could. Neither can your wife. 

—Slow down. 

—Eat cheesecake. 

—Weep as often as you are able. Enjoy every tear, especially the bitter ones. Tears are a gift. 

—You have no idea how today will turn out, so pay no attention to your first impression of the day. 

—Tomorrow has no mistakes in it. 

—Find a beautiful place in nature every day, and sit there for a while. Even if this place is only in your mind. 

—Water is good. 

—If you’re going to stop and smell the flowers—and you definitely should—prepare to…

I walked 10 hours and 42 minutes just to surprise her in Portomarin, Spain. I entered town at dusk, limping, dehydrated, breathless, leaning on a walking stick. Her first words were, “And you STILL can’t fold the

laundry when I ask?”

I’m afraid that’s all the energy I have to write today. 

—Sean

I am standing at a bus stop in the unrelenting rain. Although to call this a “bus stop” is being generous. It’s just a highway guardrail. I am alone on this empty highway, waiting to catch a ride out of O Cebreiro. 

O Cebreiro is a tiny, prehistoric village, entirely made of stone and thatch, with a Pigeon Forge vibe. The gift shops and pubs operate a thriving trade, selling pilgrim essentials like trinkets, walking sticks, handkerchiefs, seashells, and probably even monogrammed toilet paper. 

This is rural Galicia. The mountains in the distance are brilliant green, rising like swells in a foggy ocean. These are not the beer-commercial Rockies, nor the ski-brochure Alps. These are distinctly Spanish mountains. You can just tell. 

I don’t know why I’m in such a good mood. But I am. It’s raining and cold. I should be angry, or bitter that my wife is somewhere out there, hiking deep within those hermosas mountains, walking the Camino without me, as I limp through Spain on shin-splinted calves. 

But I’m maybe happier than I’ve ever been. I have hiked the Camino for a solid month, I left a huge piece of myself on the trail, and this is enough. 

And now I am bumming around the Iberian Peninsula with nowhere to be, no schedule to worship, and no one to appease but my Maker. I hop from village to village, playing my fiddle in taverns. The locals give me free cervezas until I quit playing or fall off the stool. 

I’ve met throngs of injured pilgrims, like myself, who have battered, bloody feet. I carry many bandages in my backpack, bandages I’ll never use, so I’ve been handling a lot of sweaty feet lately, treating blisters and wrapping the infected sores of my fellow pilgrims. Some French lady nicknamed me “le medic…

The town is small. Postage-stamp small. The village of Ambasmestas is nestled within the Galician mountains like a Spanish fairytale. Rock-paved streets, ancient buildings, crowing roosters. 

It is raining. I sit on a bench, reading a book, waiting for my hotel to open in another five hours. I am sopping wet. Even my socks are wet. 

Somewhere in the distant mountains, my wife is hiking the Camino. I should be with her, but I am here with shin-splinted legs and swollen calves. 

But somehow, I am in a great mood. Somehow. I feel marvelous, reading my book in the rain. Because my personal Camino is, for the most part, finished. I now have the distinct pleasure of bumming around Spain, without a schedule, gaily drinking cervezas with locals, playing my American fiddle in taverns where no inglés is spoken, and they give you free beer if you have shin splints. 

I could think of worse places to be. 

Across the street is a stone church. The doors are open. These doors represent the

only open doors in the village. 

I trot across the muddy street, squishing in my boots, wincing in pain with each step, carrying my backpack and fiddle. 

I have been following the Camino via taxi the last three days. Today, my taxi driver, God love him, did not like Americans. He charges Americans three times more than people from other countries. 

Yesterday, for example, I took a taxi with a French woman. The driver assumed I was French, so he charged me 15 Euros. This morning, however, I told the driver I was from Alabama, his demeanor changed. He drove less than five miles and charged me 55 Euros. 

When I paid, I smiled and said in Spanish, “This is a little expensive, no?” His reply was—I’m not…

My taxi arrived at Ponferrada after a long, twisty, pleasant ride through the mountains. And by “pleasant” I mean that only one of three taxi passengers actually vomited. I paid our driver, then found a nearby bush where I could double over.

I limped along cobbled streets toward my bus stop. A young woman pilgrim joined me. 

Her name was Marie, from Virginia. And when she learned I was American we both got excited. Namely, because English is at a premium out here. And nobody can properly mutilate English like we from the Southern US. 

I asked what was wrong with my friend’s leg. She looked like she was going to cry. 

“I think I have a sprained ankle,” she said. 

Marie is 19, this is the first time she has ever been away from home. Her mother did not want her doing something so “foolish” as “gallivanting” on the Camino. But Marie did it anyway. She said she is here for guidance and clarity. Marie’s father died two years ago from

pancreatic cancer, she has felt lost ever since. 

Together, Marie and I found a bar-slash-café where we could get out of the rain and wait for our bus. We had hours to kill, and I needed to get off my shin-splinted legs, which were throbbing like the bass track to a top-40 disco hit. 

I looked into the distant mountains. My wife was somewhere out there, walking the Camino without me. The previous night, my wife and I decided I would skip the next few Camino stages; she would walk for us both until my legs heal. That is IF—big “if”—they ever heal. Until then, I will taxi to meet her at each stop. 

The café was warm. Talk radio was playing. And although the…