September 8, the Birthday of Mary

 This morning I went to mass at the monastery. When I did the French way 19 years ago, probably half the people staying at the albergue went to the mass in the evening or the morning. This time it was me, the woman in charge of the albergue, a monk, and a visiting priest who said the mass. It was a very private mass. I didn’t realize going in that it was the day that we celebrate the birthday of Mary. So it was nice to attend, if a 

Then I started to walk, it was 9 AM until I ever left.

I stepped out of the woods onto a street and off to my right, I saw some garbage bins and an arrow pointing to the left. A yellow Camino arrow. I immediately turned left, what I did not know was there was another street behind the one I was on that was supposed to be the one where I turned left. Sadly, I went straight up a hill, kind of like Gold Mine Road going over Peters Mountain. Straight up. 

I was surprised not to see other pilgrims, because the road is so crowded with us. But I persevered. After about 40 minutes, probably a mile straight up, a man came by in a car. He stopped and rolled his window down and said are you on the Camino?I said yes, and he said you are on the wrong road. It is down the hill. I said, but I turned left at the arrow. He said there is another road behind this one. He shook his head and said a lot of people make this mistake.  Needless to say, I descended a lot more quickly than I went up.

It is raining here and when I finally did get on the right road after an hour of wrong road, we went through a woods that had 100s and hundreds of steps in a descending staircase. It’s kind of like the turkey path up in Tioga County, those who know that set of staircases.I was so thankful it was stair steps, because I really slip. in the mud. So I had a railing to hold onto and was very safe the whole time.

I am concerned that looking up this blog results in a message that says it is closed. If they discontinued my account, I’m not sure why they are continuing to let me post. I hope that Some of you are seeing this. I got a hotel tonight, so I will have a lot more time to check on this, and I am hoping to either find a good address for this one or start a new one that everyone can actually read.

One of the staircases. And a beautiful garden in the mountains. For Harper.