To go deep or not?

So today has two sides. Let's start with the physical journey, EASY!

OK OK, yes there are more details but not much.  Walking out of town in the pitch black is one of my favorite activities, of the clouds are clear, and they have been, you can really really see the sky clear. Couple that with a photo my brother-in-law posted that he took off the Andromeda galaxy and we'll cover in the second part.

Walking into the next town we started seeing signs, none of this "BEST BREAKFAST ON THE CAMINO" but a very playful "Possibly the best breakfast of the Camino"...  Ok, now I want to go past a visit on shear principle...

"PANCAKES"... Bastards! 

"CHAI TEA LATTE"... ALL RIGHT ALREADY, YOU HAVE US. 

"ALL HOMEMADE"...  We're going, were going, just let us GET there! 

It

Did

Not

Disappoint

OMG!  Those pancakes were dangerously delicious, maybe because we were on the Camino, but oh so fluffy and with maple syrup...  Oh my that breakfast was good and invigorating l just sat, no bed race today, and savored the moment. 

Back on track we went into town, 

paid a visit to the beautiful town chapel

 and continued on our way to the San Antonio site and enjoyed another break.  

Leaving there, on the last run into Castrojeriz I passed a Camino-side photographer and enjoyed totally unplanned Camino photoshoot for €15

...  I had a lot of fun as the laughs suggest and thought the moment was total with worth h time and money if for no other reason then I had fun.

After that, it was a quick walk into town where we eventually found our albergue (not pictured)

At dinner, and what a treat that was, we went all over the place for dinner, either closed or all reserved, but we landed at a wonderful pizzeria and had a pleasant meal shared with the company of a wonderful but distraught German lady.

She echoes the same sentiments about the bed race and the very same fondness for the Camino  Portuguese and was considering a swap...  Like I did..  herself a three time veteran was giving the bed race situation altogether to stressful.  Our company may have provided enough information for her to commit to one path or another, we didn't know and probably never will and that's okay, it was that moment in time that mattered. 

Oh, you want more?  What is crawling around in my head on the Meseta?  Cyclical self referring universes with black holes not leading to nothingness but to alternate versions of our universe or alternate universes altogether...  Just pondering latest science theories that we night already be INa black hole and that may explain some of the limits of why we see what we see and why we didn't see things we expect to see in the night sky....   You know, nothing major, just trying to sort out the secrets of the universe, nothing deep or physolofical...

HEY!!!  You wanted to know!  Have fun trying to sleep while you lie awake pondering the mysteries of a self referring universe...

Milky Way: Think Boston. About 12 miles across.

Andromeda: Think New York City. About 24 miles across — roughly double Boston’s width.

Distance between them: About 2,500 miles — the same as Boston to Los Angeles.

Collision timeline: In 4 billion years, Boston and NYC (our galaxies) start drifting into each other at 250,000 mph.

Result: They merge into a super-metro that swallows the eastern seaboard.

That’s the cosmic equivalent: two city-sized spirals separated by a continent, barreling toward a future super-city. 🌌

📊 Camino Stats – Sat Sept 20, 2025

Day: 17

Location: Castrojeriz

Distance today: 19.9 km (Hornillos → Castrojeriz)

Cumulative walked: 325 km

Remaining to Santiago (~770 km): 445 km

% complete: ~42%

Avg so far: ~19.1 km/day

Needed avg to finish by Oct 13: ~20.0 km/day ✅