Jim arrived in Madrid this morning and plans to spend the next 2 days exploring the City before meeting me in Burgos on Tuesday afternoon.

My walk today was relatively easy. I arrived in Santo Domingo de la Calzada around 2:00, or approx 6 hours of walking. This is a very reasonable amount of time to walk in a day - not too strenuous. My body really feels good. Still no blisters - fingers crossed. I've seen so many people miserable because of blisters - some hiking in flip flops to avoid putting their hiking boots back on!

A group of 6-8 very large Italian or Spanish women were behind me for quite awhile. They were my age or older and were conversing loudly. I picked up my pace to create some distance and get out of earshot of them. I talked with a couple of folks along the way. There are so many different nationalities represented along the trail. So far I've met people from Australia, Korea, Japan, Germany, England, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain, and the US.

Have you every wondered how we cornered the market on being "Americans?" How come Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, etc. aren't considered Americans, and we are? I guess United Statesians is just too weird. I wonder if all those other legitimate Americans resent us for it?

Everyone I tell I'm from the US asks about Trump! I am happy to have spent the past 8 days totally cut off from political news. It's so sad that the better part of a year and a half every four years in the US is dominated by our presidential campaign. What a waste of energy/attention. Maybe we could consider a time limit for campaigns - say 4 weeks! I suppose that machine is way too big to reign in now and we'll continue to suffer thru...

The next three days are approx 15 miles each. Tomorrow I'm on to Belorado!