Our tradition with these trips has been to pass by the Seattle and Montreal grandchildren as the beginning (and usually also the concluding) stages of the trip. We would normally do that by driving to Seattle flying from there to Montreal, and then on to our start city in Europe, with the reverse on the return. That has changed now. We do not feel comfortable in the U.S. any longer, and certainly not a U.S. airport. But we still need to see our family, so we are driving down, braving the border, and coming back.

With that set up, I was not going to call the Seattle trip part of the tour, so in principle you should not be reading here about it. But that changed too. We were on the ferry from Vanvouver Island to the mainland, standing in the line for the lunchtime buffet, when Dodie happened to take out our Creanciales -(the "passports" given to us earlier in Paris and Tours. These need to be stamped at churches or shelters as one progresses on the Camino in order to receive a certificate of completion at the end). She was wondering how much space they provided for stamps to be collected along the way. The requirement is one per day, but we had naturally been talking about collecting as many as possible. We were counting the boxes when the man standing behind us in line said "Ah, you are doing the Camino!". This turned out to be Jean, who not only had done the Frances last year, but who would be on the Norte this year in May! Even more, he actually had lived in St. Jean Pied de Port!

Jean joined us at our table and we were able to experience the comraderie that is well known among people on the trail. We wished each other Buon Camino and promised to look for each other on the Norte. Cool!

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