On The Road Again!

Well, we´re into day two of the Post Shin Splint part of the trip and all is well. Yesterday, we decided to try our usual 15 miles and stopped when we reached our designated end point, even though the village wasn´t very pretty. Mark was having no aches or pain, and we didn´t want to push our luck. As it turns out, this was a very good decision! The albergue we stopped at had the regulation large dormitory room laden with bunk beds, but it also had about 12 rooms with only two beds. Since we were one of the first pilgrims to arrive, we were offered one of the private rooms, which we snapped at. We did our wash and had just hung it out to dry when the sky opened up. It had been spitting on us most of the day, enough to bring out the pack covers and the jacket, but not enough for the rain pants. About an hour after we stopped, however, there was an absolute downpour. This is very bad news for our fellow travellers still on the road and deadly for our poor clothes hanging on the line. But miracle of miracles, it turns out the the albergue had a clothes dryer (very rare) and that the dryer actually worked (almost unheard of). I cna´t tell you how happy we were. The Pilgrim´s Dinner started at 7:00 so we were able to eat early and get ready for bed. Since we had total control over the lighting situation in the room, it was lights out before 9:30 and we slept solidly until Mark´s alarm went off at 6:00. It´s amazing how tired we were after a relatively normal walk after our slovenly Leon lifestyle!
Today we had one of the best walks of the trip so far. The sun finally broke through and we had lovely weather most of the day. The temperature was warm, but without the humidity that we had in the beginnning of the trip. The sky was a deep, fall blue with large, puffy, Georgia O´Keefe clouds in the sky. We walked on a beautiful path through some really spectacular villages. We´re walking considerably more slowly than we did before the shin splint episode and, in a way, it´s better because we´re taking more time to enjoy the scenery. We logged 21 miles, pulling in at around 4:00, again no aches, pains, blisters or ancillary swelling.
There is a long line for the internet so this is all I´m going to write. Just wanted everyone to know that we´re back on the road and in good health. We´re heading back up to the mountains tomorrow and probably won´t have internet access for a couple of days. We´ll post again as soon as we can!