We gave notice of lease cancellation, we rented a moving truck, we reserved storage space but today it became real…the airlines tickets are purchased! No backing out now pending an emergency.

Ok you may say, this is not anything new for Ron and Denise. You may not be surprised but what are they doing this time – where, when, why….

The last you heard from this blog we had taken a great trip to Aruba via Cartagena, Columbia. Lately we embarked for Puerto Rico for about a week to visit our friend Margaret. We had a super time, met some fun people, and saw some neat sites.

Well now things are really getting shaken up. We have been living in a condo at a real nice Marina for the last 8 years. At the time we chose to rent instead of purchasing a place especially since our rent was quite low compared to local costs. Since the Condo Association rules only allow for 12 month leases we had to establish a new lease annually. A few years ago we had asked the owner if he was interested in selling the condo and he said ‘no’ since they were going to retire move here from NY. Our plans were to possibly buy a place when we could no longer lease our current condo.

Last August (lease renewal) our landlord said he and his wife were not planning on ‘coming down’ for another 3-5 years so we were set to rent for a while…at least we thought. Two weeks after signing the new yearly lease our owner notified us that he decided to sell the condo. He didn’t really say why but we believe he wanted to take advantage of the greatly escalated property prices. Lucky for us any new owner had to honor the year of the lease. Long story short…that lease expires this September.

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Property prices in Jupiter have gone from stupidly/unbearably high to very obscene. Since Covid all of New England fled the draconian policies of their current states for the free state of Florida. We had been watching the market during this last lease term and didn’t really see anything we wanted to buy. We actually witnessed prices of properties, at least in proximity to the beach area, double in a 6 month period. We really really like the area we live in so we are in a bit of a quandary. So what is one to do…well beside pray! Since we have always been taken care of we said it is in God’s hands and he will show us what to do when the time comes. In the mean time we made some plans.

We decided to ride out the lease, and then pack all our household stuff up and put it in storage, and today it became real as I bought our tickets for Spain. We are going to be gone up to 90 days as that is all that is allowed via a tourist visa anywhere in the EU (see Schengen visa).

So why Spain and what are we going to do? Spain was on our top 5 list to explore and we planned a grand adventure. Have you ever seen the 2010 movie called ‘The Way’. It stars Martin Sheen and is really good. The movie follows and highlights something called the Camino de Santiago. It is a very popular pilgrimage with many routes all ending in Santiago in the NW of Spain. If you watch the movie, which we highly recommend, you will get info on it. You can also search on youtube for Camino de Santiago.

We are going to WALK the same route the movie highlighted called the Camino Frances. We will start in St. Jean Pied de Port in southern France. Our route is approximately 500 miles long. We will go up and over the Pyrenees Mountains and down into Spain. We will follow a well traveled trail through towns and villages ending at the Cathedral de Santiago where St. James the Apostle is interred. You can look up the detail if you are interested or again just watch the movie. One of the towns we go through is Pamplona where they do the running of the bulls (July). There is also a monastery where they make wine that has a fountain that runs wine vs water and you can help yourself. In the end, we are actually planning to walk an additional 50 miles past Santiago to Finisterre on the Atlantic Ocean to a place known as “The End of the World”.. We estimate that this should take us 30-45 days. After that we will head to the south east of Spain to places like Valencia, Malaga, Seville.

So now my opening lines should make more sense. We each have our ruck-sacks packed and ready to go. We have been taking practice walks, upped our gym work out by adding the stair stepper and elliptical machines since we have some severe elevation to climb our first couple days.

A couple things people say or ask is #1) where will you live when you get back, and #2) you should post a blog of your trip.

Our answers, #1) we have no idea where we will live upon return and aren’t going to worry about it. We will know what to do when the time comes. We still desire to stay in this area. We have options like renting again, buying something to live in, buying a used RV to live in for a few years and/or buy a used live-aboard yacht. The yacht seems most exciting. I was thinking of something like a 46’ Hatteras or an older Trumpy. The prices to buy used are reasonable but the price for any local moorage is as obscene as buying property so unless we leave the area that option is probably out. Same thing with an RV. Purchasing used is reasonable but resorts to park the RV are very few here and quite far from any beach. Again we believe we will know what to do when the time comes. We always have been and always will be watched over and will wait to see what God has in store for us.

#2) a Blog? I have a channel on Telegram called https://t.me/rbillockchat that you can join and see some pictures and short observations. I plan on posting to this channel during our trip. You can join the channel if you are interested.

We will certainly miss living on the Marina and a 10 minute walk to the beach but we know a new adventure awaits us and – The Best Is Yet To Come!

Buen Camino

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