Sunday · September 6, 2026 · The Del Norte, Finished
Hey you, it's me.
Care from the Camino
I did it! I done it! I biked the Del Norte.
Even saying that out loud feels a little unreal. 😳
278 miles.
Around 28,000 feet of climbing.
Me.
Girl, I'm still shocked.
Today I'm on my way to Sarria in a transport with a few stops along the way, and it has been raining for half of this ride. We passed a 13% incline sign earlier, and yes, I know what those signs mean now. 😂
Look at me. Basically a cyclist.
I saw that 13% and immediately thought, thank You, Jesus, that is not my problem today.
And Ike, wherever you are, thank you for your service.
Please never touch my butt again. 😂🚲
I keep looking out this window thinking about the woman who got on that bike on Day 1.
She was terrified.
And I don't mean the cute kind of nervous you feel before doing something exciting.
I mean genuinely afraid that maybe she had made a huge mistake.
The funny part is I thought I had prepared.
I researched. I planned. I wrote. I joined every Facebook group I could find. Kristen, my riding partner, even told me she had texted me before we came and said this was the hardest route.
Somehow my brain received that information and created a cute little trail through Spain with a few hills. 😂
Bless my heart.
Then I got here.
Real roads. Cars coming up behind me. Mountains. Climbs. Getting lost. A bike I was still learning how to ride. A body I wasn't sure would keep doing what I was asking it to do.
And suddenly all the research in the world didn't matter.
I remember sitting on that bike thinking, I don't know if I can do this.
There was another voice in there too.
One I've carried for years.
A doctor telling me my body might not allow me to have the life I dreamed about.
Those words have followed me into a lot of rooms.
And apparently they followed me all the way to Spain.
What if my body really can't do this?
What if I don't finish?
What if I let down everyone who has been cheering me on?
What if I let Kristen down?
And maybe the one that scared me most...
What if I let myself down?
Sometimes I wonder if God let me misunderstand just enough to get me here.
Because if I had truly understood what I was signing up for, I'm not sure I would have gotten on the plane. 😂
By the time I understood, I was here.
Kristen was here.
Ike was here.
My luggage was somewhere ahead of me.
There really wasn't much left to do except ride.
So I did.
And then I got up the next morning and did it again.
And again.
And again.
There's one day I keep coming back to.
I had ridden 26 miles, gotten lost, taken two ferries, hauled Ike on and off boats, and ridden the final five miles in pouring rain.
And because apparently I personally booked this trip against myself, the five-star hotel was ON A HILL.
Like, WTF is this? 😂
Why did I book every freaking hotel in Spain on a hill?
I'm soaking wet. My pants could literally be wrung out. I'm exhausted. I've been lost. I've taken two ferries. I've ridden through pouring rain.
And now you want me to climb a hill to go to bed?
By the time I finally reached the hotel, I looked like a drowned rat. Water was dripping off me, my clothes were stuck to me, and there were these beautiful five-star-hotel doors in front of me.
Do you know what went through my head?
Open. The. Door. 😂
That was it.
I don't care what I look like. I don't care who is standing in that lobby.
I just biked 26 miles, got lost, took two ferries, rode the last five miles in pouring rain, AND climbed your stupid hill.
I made it here.
There was a version of me who would have stood outside those doors thinking about what everybody inside might think when I walked in looking like that.
That woman wasn't standing there anymore.
Ma'am, open the door. I would like my room. 😂
I didn't realize it at the time, but somewhere between Day 1 and those hotel doors, I had stopped worrying so much about how I looked doing the hard thing. I didn't need to look put together or feel completely ready anymore. I had been scared, lost, soaking wet and exhausted, and somehow I was standing there more proud of myself than I had been in a very long time. I had figured things out as they came, one road, one hill and one ridiculous hotel on a hill at a time. 😂
Today, I finished Ike.
That one got me.
Not because I'm going to miss that seat. We have established our boundaries there. 😂
It got me because I knew the woman handing that bike back was not the woman who climbed onto it 278 miles ago.
I wanted to reach back through those 18 days and tell her:
You make it.
Your body carries you.
You are going to be scared.
You are going to cry.
You are going to hurt.
You are going to wonder what the hell you were thinking more than once.
And you are going to make it.
But maybe she wasn't supposed to know.
Maybe I needed every mile between her and me.
What I thought was bringing me here turned out to be so much more than that.
I thought I was coming to bike the Camino.
I thought the hard part would be the hills, the miles, the traffic, the rain.
Those things were hard.
But today I'm carrying two rocks.
And these feel different.
One is for the grief of estrangement.
I think one of the hardest parts of estrangement has been knowing there was nothing I could do to make everything okay.
I couldn't fix it.
I couldn't repair everyone's hurt.
I couldn't find the perfect words, love harder, explain better, research enough, or work hard enough to create the ending I wanted.
And God knows I would have tried.
That kind of helplessness has been harder for me than any hill I climbed in Spain.
Because give me a hill and at least I can pedal.
Give me rain and I can keep moving.
Let me get lost and I can find another road.
But some things in life don't get repaired because we work harder. Some things hurt and we have to learn how to walk with them.
So today I'm laying that rock down.
The grief may still walk with me.
The love will too.
I just don't want to grip the weight of it quite so tightly anymore.
And the other rock is for Dad.
He will forever be a memory.
I don't need to make that prettier than it is.
I miss him.
I love him.
And I'll carry that love with me after I leave the rock behind.
Maybe that's why the bike called me first.
For 278 miles, I learned how much I can carry.
I learned that the body I once feared would fail me could carry me across northern Spain.
I learned I can do hard shit.
I have 278 miles of proof. 😂
But maybe I needed to learn how strong I was before I could understand something else.
I don't have to carry everything just because I can.
And maybe you needed to hear that too.
Maybe you're really good at doing hard shit.
Maybe you're the fixer. The helper. The one who keeps trying, keeps showing up, keeps searching for the thing that will finally make everything okay.
I know that woman really well.
So maybe you're carrying something today that you can't fix by trying harder.
I'm not going to tell you to just let it go.
Some things matter too much for a cute little sentence like that.
But maybe you can ask yourself the question I'm asking today:
Do I have to carry this the same way?
Tomorrow I start walking from Sarria toward Santiago.
And it feels like a whole new Camino.
I'm trading pedals for my own two feet, and I'm sure my body will have some thoughts about it. 😂
I don't know what this part will teach me.
For once, I think I'm okay with that.
Because tomorrow, when my feet hit the Camino, those two rocks won't be in my hands.
The memories will still be there.
The love will still be there.
Some of the grief will probably walk with me too.
But my hands will be a little lighter.
The bike taught me I can do hard shit. Maybe the walk will teach me what I can finally put down.
Talk soon, friend.
We've got a whole new Camino to walk. 🥹🐚
Sending Care from the Camino 🤎🐚
Buen Camino. 🇪🇸🐚
I love you, just stay sweet ~ Jenn
P.S. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I realized how closely this Camino has been walking beside the story I wrote in Silent to Spoken. I wrote about finding my voice, learning to trust myself, surrendering what I cannot control, and emerging differently. Then I came to Spain and had to live so much of it with my own two feet, and apparently for 278 miles, my own butt on a bike. 😂
Silent to Spoken: A Woman's Journey Through the Pause releases October 6. I thought I had finished writing the story before I came here. Maybe some parts of a story can only be understood after you've lived them.
The deeper we dive, the sweeter it gets. 🤎
What Are You Still Carrying?
You don't have to put it down. Just tell me whether you have to hold it the same way. Nobody else sees this.