[00:00:00] Tayson: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Live Ultralight Podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals today. We had the special guests of all special guests. It was a power couple, uh, the Stringers, Jeremiah and Bridgette Stringer on the podcast. And we got to talk about their recent trip to the Camino de Santiago trail and, you know, their time over there in Europe. So it was really fun to just talk through a totally different style of backpacking, hiking, long trail, and just learn about the ups and downs, talk about it from perspective of a couple. And, um, just, just thoroughly enjoyed it. Their wealth of information. Um, also had some, some fun stories to, to share and to tell. So join me as I interview, um, this awesome couple and we'll see you guys on the other side. Well, Jeremiah and Bridget, I'm super excited to have you on the Live Ultralight Podcast. Um, I can already tell this is just going to be a fun conversation with you guys. Um, I've, I've, I've listened obviously to The Backpacking Podcast and, you know, watched your channel and whatnot. But, uh, you guys, you guys, uh, make me always feel like I want to be a part of that conversation. So I'm glad to have you on here.
[00:01:08] Bridgette: Yeah. Thank you very much. I was very excited to, any chance I get to talk about the Camino makes me super happy. So I'm excited. Get to relive some of those memories.
[00:01:20] Jeremiah: Yeah, exactly. That's one of the most fun parts.
[00:01:25] Tayson: Totally. I mean, that's, that's what it's all about. I was making those memories and I'm sure you guys made just a lifetime of memories to relive out there. And you know, they, what did they say? I mean, they say this about ultra marathons. I'm sure they say about long trails as well. It's just like, uh, each, each hike like that or run, um, it's like a lifetime, you know, condensed into one, one trail, right? So I'm sure you guys had that the ups, the downs and everything in between. So definitely excited to get into that with you guys, but maybe let's, let's do a little bit of a background just on, on you guys. Um, you know, how you got into backpacking, if you guys always have backpacked together, or if, uh, one of you is dragging the other one along or anything like that. And I'll give you a little context here.
[00:02:09] Jeremiah: So, uh, Bridget and I, we've been married for like seven or eight years now and about, I don't know, it's like around 2017 or 18, her dad asked me if I wanted to go backpacking with him on the Appalachian trail for like the smoky section, half of it anyway. And I thought him, yes, and I borrowed some gear and I got into it. And then I guess it was around Memorial day or maybe it was labor day. I can't remember. I always get them mixed up, but a little later on, um, she, uh, I drove her along for her first backpacking trip during one of those three day weekends that we had off work. And, uh, I can't speak for her, but I don't think that she loves it as much as me, but we decided to take a turn and do a different style on this trip. I'll let you fill in the gaps there, Bridget.
[00:02:59] Bridgette: I was not interested in backpacking at all at first, mostly because I'm just too extra and missed my bed and missed my shower. But I love the time we got to spend together and I love the sides and I love the experience and having something new under my belt. So we've actually gone together way more than I think either of us realizes. I've been on several trips together with Jeremiah. I've never been solo. I'm not interested in that on a personal level, but, uh, Jeremiah definitely loves it more than I do, but that's okay. Um, I was really happy to do this big trail together because it was a, an in between vacation and backpacking style trip.
[00:03:41] Tayson: Yeah. Are you guys both educators?
[00:03:44] Jeremiah: Yeah, we are. I'm at the, I'm at the high school level.
[00:03:48] Tayson: She wasn't like, uh, she was your student or anything, right?
[00:03:53] Jeremiah: We're actually, uh, high-school sweethearts.
[00:03:56] Bridgette: Yeah.
[00:03:58] Tayson: Oh, say what, what am I supposed to call you guys? What am I supposed to call you guys? Kentuckians, uh, I mean, I love the accents obviously, but I, I was thinking about that. I'm like, what should I call these guys? I don't know if there's a certain title you guys have, but yeah. Okay. Okay. That's awesome.
[00:04:22] Jeremiah: So from high school senior year, you're saying, yeah. And then, uh, went to college together, graduated, both become educators. Now we get summer break. So we get two or three months off there in a row and that makes the backpacking possible, you know, for me, for the longer trails. I've done a couple of those and then Bridget, I think the longest that she's ever been with me, we did in the foothills trail.
[00:04:43] Bridgette: Yes.
[00:04:43] Jeremiah: That is a, it basically is the border of North and South Carolina for about 70 or 80 miles. So she got a little taste of what a week or so on trail is like. And, you know, got to get dirty and not shower for several days in a row and lose the proof. Style.
[00:05:00] Bridgette: It was good. It's a good first experience for doing a Long Trail. I end up injured on that trip on the Foothills Trail trip, but I didn't want to let it stop me completely from going backpacking. So we just opted to do shorter mileage, stays after that, whenever we did go together.
[00:05:21] Tayson: Like is this a I think you got injured on the Camino as well, right? Is this like a recurring injury or a different thing?
[00:05:28] Bridgette: No, it's different. Would you like for me to go into that?
[00:05:35] Tayson: Maybe we'll maybe we'll Circle back into it as we get into the rest of the story. But, yeah, just thought I'd check. But no, that's a big Endeavor jumping in 780 miles. You've really get your feet wet. In fact, we do what's called 100 Mile Challenge here and with a lot of our followers and To us. We feel like, you know, getting a hundred miles onto a trailer. It really allows you to get immersed into a trail 70, 80 Mi on trail, right? Five six, seven days, it gives you, it gives you a lot of getting immersed into a trail, obviously it's different and everyone that's like done like a, you know, a real true hike of a couple thousand miles. They're gonna argue with that. But, you know, everyone has a different preferences, right?
[Editor’s note: The 100 Mile Challenge statement above was recorded in September 2023 and describes the program at that time, not a current challenge or registration offer. Check current Outdoor Vitals primary sources for any present program details.]
[00:06:14] Tayson: Like some people that's never going to be a possibility and, and or even a desire, right? But no, I think that's that's that's a pretty good background. I guess to go on a something like this next like that, you guys have done. So before we get into the actual Camino, I do. Gotta ask was Jeremiah's hair always this good.
[00:06:32] Bridgette: For as long as I can remember, he's had a pretty good hair. Yeah,
[00:06:38] Jeremiah: I don't think it's a college that I actually started styling. It, it looks yours, man. Your hair looks great as well.
[00:06:47] Tayson: No, I just have this. I just have this, that's it. No, no. Styling needed, right? But Okay. So let's jump into it. What got you guys interested in the Camino? I I have, you know, I've heard of it off and on and I realized just even in doing some research leading up to this. That there's a lot of there's different Trails, I didn't, I didn't really even realize that I feel like everyone kind of talks about it. Like, there's this one Trail and everyone does the one Trail, but there's some different trials, but I'm curious, you know, which one you guys did and what got you interested in it to begin with.
[00:07:22] Jeremiah: Sure, yeah, I'll start. So like you said, there's a number of different routes you can take, and just a little background on the Camino, Camino in Spanish means, like, I walk. So, you're walking to Santiago Camino de Santiago. And originally, historically speaking, you know, there wasn't just cars, you could drive across Spain once a year, if I'm correct, there would be a pilgrimage where everybody would travel to Santiago to a church. and, They would travel from different parts of Spain as well as France. And that's what kind of creates a different routes
[00:08:02] Bridgette: and Portugal.
[00:08:03] Jeremiah: Yeah, Portugal is well. So those are all kind of their together, Spain, Portugal and France, and I'm sure other countries as well, but they would take this pilgrimage and since they're coming from different places. You know, you kind of had the main route and those main rounds became the different paths. So we chose to take the French route, called the Camino Francés and we decided that when I think probably because it's the most popular and would seem videos online and the entry level for it, there was so much information since it's the most popular that it was a little bit less intimidating because you're going for several weeks, you know, it's around 1000 kilometers. If you do all the way to the coast and I think that's mostly why we picked that route. You want to take over from here?
[00:08:54] Bridgette: Sure. Um, whenever Jeremiah first started backpacking before I got involved, we were doing research on different trails around us that were nearby and doing a lot of research on YouTube honestly and came across the Camino through some other people's videos. So it's been an interest of ours for a few years. We just never planned accurately for like we never made this the decision for that summer until this past summer. So we saved up some extra money to make sure we were good to go for it and then we decide to make it happen the year. I'm really glad that we did
[00:09:32] Jeremiah: and I'll add the biggest deciding factor in 150 and instead of some other long trails that we could, we could choose from is put Bridget close to civilization. Like every night we can see in a real bed that you could shower every day. You don't laundry every day. So you always had on for the most Part clean clothes, and a clean bed. And you know, it's Walking all day in the environment but then you have climate control in some of the places where we stay.
[00:10:07] Tayson: Yeah. Now it definitely is a unique Trail in that aspect of things, right? The to be able to get back to civilization every day and and Approach such a long hike, or or pilgrimage right in that way. So you guys kind of been planning this for a little while you get over there, you start off on the trail walk me through like day one and how things shook out and if it was like that's just nailed preparation. If you felt like just totally ready to go or yeah I just kind of get me get me to the trail and on day one then,
[00:10:43] Jeremiah: all right. Well first we started in Kentucky and then we had walked all the way across now we had to take a like a connecting flight, right? And we were one hour into our connecting flight and had to do an emergency landing in DC and then said, oh wait for like three hours, so that kind of delayed
[00:11:05] Tayson: and then you still get to fly over the Atlantic.
[00:11:08] Jeremiah: Yeah, you had to fly over there, which was still seven or eight hours after being on the plane four hours. So it started off a little rough and then we actually, we flew into Paris and decided to do like A little, I don't know, the city of love a little romantic getaway before we started this big adventure. So how many days we stay in Paris?
[00:11:33] Bridgette: We're in Paris for two nights three days, ish. But the third day we were starting to travel down South toward where our Trail started.
[00:11:41] Jeremiah: Yeah. So we took a train or a number of trains down to the almost the border of France and Spain and you stop in at. You can go to a number of different places. We went to the pilgrim office and got a it's like a little pilgrim passport and it basically it allows you to stay at the different hostels and albergues, they call them whenever you're there. So you don't just have like homeless people wandering in and taking advantage of you know, six dollar bed every night. It's Supposed to be reserved for pilgrims. So we had everything planned out but we did have to take a taxi from the pilgrim office in the town where you start to a nearby town and then the next morning, taxi back, and then we decided to the first day is like the hardest day.
[Editor’s note: The pilgrim-office, passport/credential access, roughly six-dollar lodging, and taxi details above are the guests’ recollections from their 2023 walk, not current Camino instructions or prices. Confirm current credential, lodging-access, transport, and price information with current primary sources.]
[00:12:29] Jeremiah: Really you're supposed to start and then you end up in Roncesvalles at this giant old. Yeah, it's a monastery that now. Host, pilgrims and there's I don't know like several hundred beds in there and it's like four or five floors. It's just giant old church that's like on a compound. And you cross the I think I would say it's the second highest point but you're literally walking up a mountain all day for. I don't know, 15 miles or so. So you can you can stop short of that and stay at a place called Orisson
[00:13:06] Bridgette: and there's actually one more albergue that was just another kilometer further. But we opted to stay in Orisson on the first time
[00:13:13] Jeremiah: and we picked Orisson. There's a YouTube channel called Homemade Wanderlust. A girl that runs it her name is Dixie I'm sure a lot of your listeners have heard of her and she stayed there as well. And I actually spoke to her about it and she was like, yeah, you You should definitely check that place out and reserve it a couple months in advance, we followed her boss and booked it out and the problem was we arrived. Remember, it's supposed to be a whole day walk but we cut it short. So we arrived there at like 10:30 a.m. and then he
[00:13:46] Bridgette: will say it. Yeah, that's true. It's a rainy day like you. You can't check in yet. We haven't even kick people out yet.
[00:13:58] Jeremiah: The only thing we had to do you could drink beer and coffee all day, all day, that was awesome. No pick out whatever bed you wanted, take a shower and yeah
[Editor’s note: The recommendation to reserve this stop months ahead and the arrival/check-in experience above describe this 2023 trip. Current reservation windows, check-in rules, lodging practices, and availability may differ; verify them with the lodging provider or another current primary source.]
[00:14:12] Tayson: stacking mattresses
[00:14:13] Jeremiah: actually Really awesome because some of the other people that stayed there, you know, you build relationships with. So if you have all day to hang out you see it have a drink talk to each other. We met some lovely people that day that we kind of crisscross with for the next week or. So, one person in particular that really kind of became part of our Trail family, quote unquote, if you will,
[00:14:38] Tayson: Trail family—the right verbiage here. Before we get
[00:14:43] Jeremiah: We put together a little trail family starting from day one. So I think the first day I would consider a success. What do you think?
[00:14:51] Bridgette: It was definitely tough. And I was like, oh my gosh. I don't know if I can do this for five six weeks, but I was That I did. And it was exciting, super fun. And it was the best part was meeting all the people in the afternoon. And in the evening time, I think dinners were probably one of my favorite things on trail. Because I had a chance for you to really connect with the people who are around you. You get to rest and relax and then prepare for your next day mentally, and it's just a super great. Super great first day.
[00:15:25] Jeremiah: Yeah, and she's right about the dinner. It gives you an opportunity to really sit down and meet people from all over like, Bridget and I were like to dinner. Not on purpose. We were actually a few minutes early, but everybody else was already there. And you have a communal meal in the down stairs of this like hostile or albergue or whatever. One call it and They they give you, you know, Bread and Wine to start off with and it's like a two or three course meal and you're kind of sitting at tables with everybody, but with the table that we were set at it was just us to. So we had everybody around us that were sitting and getting to know each other from all over the world and then just us two sitting at a table by ourself and we're like, well, this is crappy and and then in case somebody late, it was actually her second time doing the Camino. The first time, she had had an accident and collapsed on trail and had broken her orbital bone and had to have a surgery and be in the hospital in Spain. For, I think it's like six or seven days, maybe
[00:16:29] Bridgette: a while
[00:16:30] Jeremiah: and she was an Aussie, she's from Australia and they seated her with us. She arrived like didn't get to shower or check in or anything. They're like it's time to eat just once the Mills over, you're done there, I mean, there's no more food you're in the middle of nowhere. So they sat with us and we got to know her and like I said before, she became part of our family and It was amazing. One of bridges. Favorite people, out of everybody that we met.
[00:16:57] Bridgette: We got along super great from the get-go and later on down the trail, she had to go ahead of us because she had a deadline to me and we were more or less taken our time. So it's heartbreaking to split up. We had to leave each other. It was is really difficult because you don't even realize how close you're getting to people until obam, you're about to leave one another, it's kind of crazy and then it's real.
[00:17:21] Tayson: Yeah, no. There's there's absolutely something to being in situations like that that just break down walls and barriers and allow you to connect to people really quickly, right. So that doesn't. That doesn't surprise me at all. I feel like sometimes you can share like five miles of someone on a trail and feel like you've got their life story already, you know, it's just so interesting in that way.
[00:17:42] Jeremiah: Yeah, it takes away all the distractions of the real world and it gives you a common purpose. You know, you and that person are going through hardships together, you're walking through the rain together and you're, you're bonding, you can't, you can't, but help. On like that. Yeah,
[00:18:01] Tayson: totally. So you mentioned like this meal thing, I'm really intrigued by this. So these hostels you stay at do they all feed you?
[00:18:08] Bridgette: Oh no, but it depends on where you stay at. Their the albergues are the ones that mostly did. The communal meals. Those are the cheaper stays and they had the most bunk beds usually in their facilities. So most of them they do a pilgrim menu or some kind of a communal meal. Now, Pilgrim, menu is the same sort of situation, it's just at a different restaurant, and it's like three courses. So you pick your first, your second, and your dessert, and you get wine and bread with every single meal, but you always plan to meet with people and eat with them. It was very rare that it was ever just me and Jeremiah whenever we were out there eating
[00:18:50] Jeremiah: yeah you kind of have a few different choices on your meal options. If you want to go as budget as possible, you can cook your own foods and typically there's going to be a kitchen in each of your albergues are hostels or hotel or whatever you decide the book. And if dinner is included, Normally, it's like an extra 10 euros or like 11 12 dollars US. And when you're booking the last, you, you know, if you got a, if you want to be part of the communal meal and sometimes that's your only option because if you're in the middle of nowhere and there's no stores or anything, you're either going to eat there or eat what you brought with you. And it's not like the traditional Backcountry backpacking that we do in the state. You you're only carrying like enough food. To make it another five or ten kilometers because you're going to walk for another town. So if you want to pay the up charge and you want to meet some awesome people, a lot of times, these places offer the communal meals and you sit down dinner is at 7:30 or 8 or sometimes, it's really late, sometimes the kitchen shot like, So dang. And you have your communal meal and they give you usually like one bottle of wine for three or four people and it's all red wine. So it wasn't the highest quality but it's included and you know, drink start flowing and you start talking, you hang out with people and you have a great time.
[00:20:16] Tayson: Yeah, no that's awesome. So like would you say that the food on the trail like as a whole is was really good. Was it averaged like how to how did that sit for you guys?
[00:20:28] Jeremiah: There's so much variety. It's hard to. It's hard to light it with one label.
[00:20:33] Tayson: Yeah. I guess what I'm thinking here is like if someone is, is the type of person that loves to You know, it's kind of a foodie, right? Like that, could make this Trail more attractive to him, right? Get over their experience culture and food at a high quality or is it like experience, culture and food at a low quality, right? Like I've traveled a lot and I've had both ends of the spectrum, just kind of wondering what it's like.
[00:20:58] Bridgette: Sure. if you're cool with that
[00:21:00] Jeremiah: yeah go ahead
[00:21:01] Bridgette: and I feel like we had all of the above so they have a couple of very A cultural to Spanish dishes. Like paella and tortillas, and those things are great but they're so common that you don't want them every single time it's old and depending on the location, sometimes one was better than the other and then there's chicken everywhere. Literally Chicken in every single meal was possible.
[00:21:31] Jeremiah: Yeah. And
[00:21:32] Bridgette: that was my usual. My go-to was the chicken and now, sometimes it's great chicken. Sometimes it was a mediocre chicken. It just kind of depended on where you were at what you were doing.
[00:21:43] Jeremiah: Yeah, for your communal meals. Sometimes you're staying at a place that's just run like an older couple or something, and they're going to do that's gonna be home, cooked food, it's gonna be authentic to wherever they're from. So like we stayed at one place that was run by a couple of Italian people, and they made amazing food. You know, three of them and other places, you know, they're cooking the same thing every single day for those communal meals. So whenever you're eating it, sometimes they have it dialed in and you know the consistency of everything is great and then other times they're like I mean I'm gonna make the same thing tomorrow. These people are going to be gone at 6 tomorrow morning. You know, why bother? So a lot of times you look like, you know, if you're booking the place Booking.com I found was the most popular place that, you know, you go on the day of or the day before and be like, okay, I want to stay here tomorrow. It's 25 kilometers away or 40 kilometers away or whatever and then you booked it and you can check and see, does it have a kitchen like in our communal meals included? Can I pay extra for it? Does it have a kitchen? I can cook in now, in the You're going to hit like I don't know, five or six big cities. So in those cities, typically we would break up the Spanish cuisine because if you're eating tortilla which is like That's like an egg cake. It's like eggs
[00:23:09] Bridgette: with potatoes and sometimes she sometimes onions and peppers.
[00:23:12] Jeremiah: Yeah. And they whip up these eggs and then they baked it in like a cake. Yeah, it looks like an egg cake. So sometimes that's amazing. Sometimes not. But you get to the bigger cities and you're like, I'm so tired of eating tortilla. Like we go get Indian food or go get Chinese food or
[00:23:29] Bridgette: one, die order. Papa John's,
[00:23:31] Jeremiah: yeah. Yeah, that's true. And then there's one city. I don't remember which one we were in, but we went to a really, really nice restaurant, which I was a little bit embarrassed because my shoes, I had two pairs of shoes, I had the shoes. I was walking in every day. Trail runners. And then I had Crocs. So, those are my choices, you don't have any nice outfits. So, you know, you try to dress up the best you can if you got to go one of these nicer places but it's always awesome asking the locals. If you're in a town, a lot of towns, we stayed in would be like, 60 people live in this town, you know? So they're economy is this Trail or if you stayed in a larger town, you can kind of ask the locals, you know, if there's a few different restaurants, hey, where would be the rest? Best place to go? What's the best thing here? So you can get whatever experience that you want. But sometimes you got to pay a little extra, of course, to get the authenticity and the higher higher quality foods if you will.
[Editor’s note: The communal-meal formats, meal times, roughly 10-euro dinner price, day-before Booking.com use, kitchens, and restaurant practices above are personal recollections from 2023, not current prices or booking guidance. Confirm current meal, lodging, and reservation details with primary providers.]
[00:24:32] Tayson: Yeah, I think that sounds super interesting and I like that I actually like to experience all ends of the spectrum. You know, I I find that kind of like you said sometimes you can get what might be a you'd classify as like a lower energy food. That's just hits the spot. It's so good. So authentic. But you can have, you know, complete trash as well. Just so, no, I think that sounds super interesting. The the little part of me that that really loves food or the inner Foodie in me is intrigued by that. So that's, that's really interesting. So take me through like your typical day on this Trail. Like what does it look like when are you getting up? How long are you actually hiking? And, you know, you touched on a few of the things that that? I'm sure you'll cover again here. But yeah, I'd love to just hear kind of what the typical day is and and what it might, how it might be different than per se, you know, Vermont Long Trail experience.
[00:25:29] Jeremiah: Sure. What time we normally get up.
[00:25:32] Bridgette: Well towards the end we got a little bit lazier, I will admit that but that's the beginning. It was around 6 a.m. I think most days six to seven somewhere in there. And you have to be out usually between 8 and 10 a.m. somewhere there. It's different for every albergue. Generally the night before we would contact the luggage Transport service because we had a big bag with us from where we stayed a couple days in Paris and you could Send it ahead to wherever you were sleeping at the next night but you had to contact them the day before which we use WhatsApp for most of the time. So you contact the luggage company. You go to sleep, you wake up the next day, pack your stuff up and typically you've already showered, some people do morning showers, and most people do them. They're not before and then you just get started. Walking and generally, we would start with coffee and some kind of pastry for breakfast and
[00:26:29] Jeremiah: yeah,
[00:26:30] Bridgette: on occasion. We would eat it on the trail on the way, sometimes we stop and if we had other people with us and it was a shorter day, we would just take our time eating it. Wherever we were at
[Editor’s note: The checkout timing, day-before luggage-transfer contact, WhatsApp use, and morning routine above describe the guests’ 2023 experience. Current lodging rules, transfer services, contact methods, and timing may differ; confirm them with current providers.]
[00:26:41] Jeremiah: yeah, like like she said in the mornings, it depends on where you're staying at. Like if you stay at a place that has a lot of bunk beds in your kind of sleeping as a community, then you're going to get up whenever everybody else does just because like there's 100 people around you all packing up at 6:30 in the morning or whatever and there's like 50 alarms going off. 6:00 six, 15, you
[00:27:09] Bridgette: know, even before, 5 a.m.
[00:27:10] Jeremiah: yeah. Some are really early risers, which is not very
[00:27:13] Tayson: curious. Those old retirees. They don't,
[00:27:18] Jeremiah: you would get up depending on where you stayed at and Bridget. Um, we we decided we wanted a little bit more privacy. So as often as possible, we would try to do like a private room. So sometimes you can stay at the hostel, but they have a separate room that if you want to pay a little extra for most of the time. Though you would have to like push two twin sized beds together which I'm 6-3. You know. 220 twin size bed. That's like Preteen. me, I just like push the two beds next to each other, so, you know, we could lay next to each other but not on the same bed and You get up in the morning a little later. If you got a private room and Bridget, she's mentioned coffee with their Cafe on leche, it's coffee with milk, you know? They like they steamed the milk and We would I would try to wait wait till you got some miles under kind of like whenever you're backpacking? You know, when I was on the Long Trail, you might start at one shelter that you slipped at and then six miles later. There's another shelter and you're like, well, I won't get going that way whenever I get to the next shelter. I can go ahead and eat breakfast. And I've already got six miles under my belt. so we try to either get a coffee to go or you know, a pastry on the run but if you're with people like she said they it really slows you down because then before you know it you sat there for an hour just take It out and the sort of it is you sleep, you wake up 7 a.m. or so eat you stop for dinner or lunch. Maybe like 10 kilometers in
[00:28:54] Bridgette: is usually around 10 whenever we try to stop.
[00:28:56] Jeremiah: Yeah because there may be a town every five or ten kilometers so every three to seven miles somewhere in there and then you would walk. Try to get there before it's too late, because if you're staying at a communal place, you know, with a lot of beds, sometimes that's a little cheaper. So the people that are on a tighter budget, they'll get their early kind of like a Bed Race, if you think. so, I don't know what time we'd really get done. Maybe like four if you got there by four, that's pretty good. But a lot of it depends on when you got up.
[00:29:35] Bridgette: And if you were dealing with injuries along the way,
[00:29:37] Jeremiah: yeah, the blisters and all that.
[00:29:41] Bridgette: And how many people you stopped and talked to along the way. And, and how long your Lunch. So, it was actually a super, there's a big variety of times of when we ended, I would say. Well, the earliest was like that 10:30 morning. The first day, that was the only day we were ever there that early. But most often it was somewhere between two and seven PM.
[00:30:02] Jeremiah: Yeah. So, right. Sevens are lighter but we mostly booked ahead. So that Bridgette said we could ship our luggage to the next place. So, like the night before you book a place and then you contact the luggage company and then you'd leave it at wherever you stayed and they would come pick it up and drop. It would be there by the time you got there as long as he's after 2 p.m. so then you could stop and check in the first thing you need. Whenever you get done walking for the day is your passport and your pilgrim passport. So your real passport, they don't all they do is just like
[00:30:35] Bridgette: They have
[00:30:35] Jeremiah: an app where they can take a picture of it or they write down a passport number or something off of it and then they take your pilgrim passport and it's basically like a giant pamphlet and they stamp it. So once you get to a certain point To get a certificate at the end. I think it's the last 100 kilometers.
[00:30:52] Bridgette: It starts in Sarria.
[00:30:53] Jeremiah: Yeah, so once you get this idea, you have to get two stamps every day in there. In order to pick up your certificate at the end and you get a free certificate or you can pay extra for a fancy one to get both and, you know, the hostel or a restaurant or something can stamp that passport. But typically I would just give it to, you know, the people whenever we arrived for the end of the day and they would stamp it, they check that passport and then they show you to your bed show you around and then you'd have the rest of the evening. And typically, first thing I would do you is get situated and then shower. And then you're clean so you can kind of have a little bit more grace as you're going through your luggage, you know, because you've been walking your sweaty all day. You don't want to be swamping up your luggage. and then, Then you'd relax for a little bit. Maybe chill and it's dinner time. And if you're lucky, you get a great dinner and you get maybe an hour before everybody starts, you know going to bed because they're getting up 5:30 6:30 and the morning getting ready to walk another and 20 miles or whatever. That's a normal day on trail.
[Editor’s note: The later booking, luggage pickup/drop-off timing, passport handling, pilgrim stamps, certificate, check-in, and lodging practices above are personal recollections from a 2023 walk, not current Camino instructions. Confirm present credential, transfer, lodging, and certificate requirements with current primary sources.]
[00:32:00] Tayson: Yeah. No, I like that. That pacing sounds pretty pretty comfortable. Like, you're getting time on trail, but you're also getting that time at the end of the day to I don't know. I wouldn't say wind down but kind of just, just have a little bit of downtime reset. Get some good food. I did want to point out though, I'm sure sure Bridget's aware of this, but I'm not sure if he's pushing those beds together Bridget to sleep next to you, or just steal part of your bed, Atlanta
[00:32:29] Bridgette: diagonal,
[00:32:30] Tayson: a little bit. You're probably the first YouTuber I've met that's that's a bigger stature than I am. 63 Got Me by an inch man. So
[00:32:38] Jeremiah: it's on the shoes, you may get me. In the hair,
[00:32:43] Tayson: he's 6465 with that.
[00:32:47] Jeremiah: Well, my feet hung off literally every single day from the start of the country, to the end of the country. Every even the queen size beds, I felt were a little bit.
[00:32:59] Bridgette: Oh, and we only experienced a queen size bed, maybe three times,
[00:33:04] Jeremiah: I think twice. Yeah, I got a queen size.
[00:33:06] Bridgette: Yes. The rest of the time they were full or twin size beds and once we realized we liked the Privacy better, we just kind of opted to not use the bunk beds anymore
[00:33:15] Jeremiah: and you know, you're sleeping in some people would do like the Both of you sleep on the bottom bunk. And remember, it's a twin size bed. So one one person's head at one one in one person's head at the other end.
[00:33:30] Bridgette: Yes, we saw that
[00:33:32] Jeremiah: one. Yeah, then you could use the top top bed for storage if you wanted to. But usually, you know, during the downtime sometimes we would if we had a bunk bed, Bridget would I typically take the bottom one?
[00:33:44] Bridgette: Oh yeah. So
[00:33:46] Jeremiah: she would crawl into my bunk bed and I took an iPad with us. So we would sit, maybe watch a little Netflix, or little YouTube or something, wind down, and then she crawl up in that top bunk and then it's good night. See in the morning, you know here. So we're you have a stranger land above you. Oh, I got a good one for you. Know, you don't get to pick sometimes, sometimes they say your bed 113 and bridges bed 1808. So you might be in the same like little cubicle area, but you're not really above or below each other and then other times, you just walk in and pick whichever bed you want. So there was one time Where I got to sign the top bunk in this town and Bridget was all the top bunk, but there's four beds in each cubicle. So two sets of bunk beds right so she is Feet away from me, to my left butt on a top bunk. so, Gear wise. We are sleeping inside and I was like, how cold can it be? But just in case I'm going to bring a sleeping bag. I was originally just gonna go with the liner, you know, I'm not sleeping in a tin, a single night. So, Here's the liner but I sit my sleeping bag out next to me. Just in case I get cold about three or four. Am you know? It starts dipping into the 50s like oh windows are open. It's a little chilly. So I'm I'm asleep I wake up but I'm prepared. I got that sleeping bag next to him. I'm in my liner, I reach for my sleeping bag and it's not there and I'm like oh I'm on the top bunk it must have fell off. So I look over and idiot is, it is laying down below me, it's between me and the wall. So I reached out there and grab it. And I get it about three quarters of the way up, and then it gets tugged, back down, back down to the bottle. The guy that's sleeping below me only speaks Spanish. So I talked to him a little bit and broke in Spanish you know said hello. How you doing his son's? Poking English but we hadn't really got to know each other very well at this point on the trail or maybe a week you're just you're still in his covers in the middle of the night man. He knows somebody So I'm like, oh, I'm a little bit chilly, but I pull it up again, again, it gets tucked down and I say, well, I'm just gonna, I don't know how to dress the situation. Both of us are half asleep and we don't speak the same one. And there is a hundred sleeping people around us in the middle of the night. So I say I just screw it, I'll curl up in my little sleeping bag liner and I'll tough it out. Well, we get up the next morning and it's maybe 5:45 6:15. Everybody's starting to wake up, except the guy below me. He is not waking up. He is like dead asleep. So I get totally ready. And the last thing you do is pick is like pack up your backpack and your love. It's alright. You got all your clothes that you're selling away. So I'm ready to pack up and this guy's still in the bed and so I literally have to wake him up. You know. I I try to pull my sleeping bag off of him and he wakes up, right? And he's like, super surprised. He's like looking at me and he's like pulling the sleeping bag back and you know I'm trying to explain to him in Spanish. The best that I can like this is my sleeping bag. It belongs to me. You know, he's just waking up and so, he's tugging it back and he's laughing and, you know, finally, I'm able to somehow communicate that like his sleeping bag is falling into the floor, on the other side of him, it's between him and the wall and he has mine. So I get to sleep with that back and pack it up. And then for the rest of the trip, you know, as we crisscross each other, we had a fun little story and experience from that night.
[00:37:44] Tayson: That's that's epic, right? That's I can only imagine that didn't happen. On the Long Trail never had that that fighting over sleeping bag. Just sleep on a bunk bed though. It's got to be something. I I had to sleep in a on a bunk bed like A few months back and do those things didn't Shake nearly as much as they did, when you're over 200 pounds, versus when you're like a little kid class. Like you got on there, like collapse on me. It's a little treacherous to get up there as an adult.
[00:38:24] Jeremiah: It's Bridget climbed up.
[00:38:29] Bridgette: AI climbed up.
[00:38:30] Jeremiah: There was one bunk bed that we got a private room but it still had two sets of bunk beds in it, which is the worst and it was in like a basement. Kind of
[00:38:40] Bridgette: it was the, in my opinion, the worst room we stayed in on.
[00:38:44] Jeremiah: Oh, come on,
[00:38:45] Bridgette: a personal level.
[00:38:46] Jeremiah: It's telling telling why.
[00:38:48] Tayson: I don't know. I heard a story of some bugs that you guys found.
[00:38:51] Jeremiah: Oh,
[00:38:51] Tayson: himself
[00:38:53] Jeremiah: may have been the
[00:38:54] Tayson: West gotta be the worst,
[00:38:55] Bridgette: the worst outcome, but it was a comfortable place, that was one of our two points. It was
[00:39:06] Jeremiah: Separate bunk beds both on the bottom.
[00:39:08] Bridgette: Well, here's why.
[00:39:09] Jeremiah: Okay,
[00:39:10] Bridgette: so there's two sets of bunk beds and the top one on the one side didn't even have a mattress on it. Just had the bottom mattress. Yeah,
[00:39:17] Jeremiah: so
[00:39:17] Bridgette: originally, we were just gonna sleep on the bottom bunks and we're gonna be separate, but it was gonna be fine because it's just for the night. And there was a giant I'm telling you giant brown spider above that bed and I was like nope I can't do it I can't not sleep on this side of the room so I did not take care of the spider or you just let it live on her. Well
[00:39:41] Jeremiah: it's like soaring you're in the basement, the spiders like
[00:39:46] Bridgette: The wood up on the,
[00:39:48] Jeremiah: it's like up on the ceiling. Like, I don't know how many feet that was too far too much. This is a, you know, we have basements here in the states and you have some people have unfinished basements, so it's kind of like Except like downgraded to, like if you could give five stars, five, star rating system, whatever rating you would give an unfinished basement downgraded. Like, at least two and a half stars and that's kind of what you're living in, you know. There's like, I don't know. It's totally amazing.
[00:40:15] Bridgette: Yeah. And it's kind of creepy and it's just weird.
[00:40:18] Jeremiah: Yeah, there's like a stall or a shower and a stall for the bathroom. It
[00:40:23] Bridgette: didn't stay on for longer than like two minutes.
[00:40:26] Jeremiah: You shower the water's hot and then just whenever you're getting under there and getting soaked up, it goes cold for two minutes.
[00:40:34] Bridgette: Yeah,
[00:40:34] Tayson: gotta wait it out.
[00:40:35] Bridgette: Yeah, just sleep on the top bunk. Even though I wasn't going to because it was away from the spider sleeping situation out there. Yeah,
[00:40:45] Tayson: could you sleep in a tent if you opted to like was there even options to do that?
[00:40:51] Bridgette: There were
[00:40:52] Jeremiah: yeah it wasn't it wasn't super tint friendly not because of like The people, it's just because like the opportunity of where you would have to Camp, you'd either have to get permission from the owner of the hostel, and that could be a little bit dice. You might have to throw them a couple bucks, you know, to say, thank you. Or there wasn't really that much Woods. Like there was only one time that I had to stop and drop a deuce. And there was not a bathroom like you know there's there's always a bar open. I have to get like a orange juice or a beer or something to use their bathroom.
[00:41:30] Bridgette: Yeah but
[00:41:32] Jeremiah: there's only one place where I had to stop and go to the bathroom and luckily, you know, there was only like three or four places along the whole trail that there was wood where you could go in and actually you know, do your business. So what
[00:41:47] Tayson: was the scenery, like then out there like is just desert like really open like that or
[00:41:53] Bridgette: really open mostly flat, especially in the Burgos, and Like different. Station. So the kids divided up into stages every day. So like a little chunks of
[00:42:09] Jeremiah: Mileage that most people can handle. So you can get like by a guidebook and it's like, here's the 33 days. Here's the stages, you walk? Here's all the towns Etc. So the different stages have different sections. So like the first part that you go through is kind of the mountains between Spain and France, they kind of divided the two countries and then the next stage or the next section. It Bridget mentioned it's the Meseta and you want to describe to him kind of what the Meseta sort of like
[00:42:38] Bridgette: well it's very, very flat, very open. It's a lot of fields, some greenfields wheat, Fields, whatever, I don't know, cornfields along the way
[00:42:46] Jeremiah: a lot of wine vineyards to.
[00:42:48] Bridgette: Yeah. There's a lot of Vineyards there. Um, you were mostly walking in a like a gravel section beside of a road. So there'd be a main road and then you would be walking in the gravel section and every now and then you need to switch side, just depending on the train but mostly you say on the one side and it was straight stretch for a really long time. Yeah, and like she said it's super flat and it's basically just Farm country but it's totally exposed.
[00:43:16] Jeremiah: So there's like one section for 13 kilometers, there's just nothing. You're just walking on a gravel road through
[00:43:22] Tayson: whatever fields that happen to be there. Did you become the ultralight umbrella guy then?
[00:43:29] Jeremiah: Oh my gosh. Yeah, so I had the silver ultralight umbrella right?
[00:43:35] Tayson: Okay,
[00:43:35] Jeremiah: I had my sternum strap and I would just tuck it in there. I have the attachment too where you can do hands-free but I just tucked it in my sternum strap and let my umbrella just shaved me and I would, I became friends with some different people but at the time you know, we didn't know each other and they were like secretly taking videos of me. They you know, there were like laughing at me. Like what who is this big tall white guy which is umbrella you know
[00:44:03] Bridgette: not even raining.
[00:44:04] Jeremiah: Yeah and I said We Are The Crazy Ones. I'm the only one out here walking in shade all day while you are getting sunburned. So you enjoy, you know, somedays it was like in the nineties and you're walking all day, you know, if you have to walk 20 miles in exposed sun and it's not 93 degrees. I mean that's Drink enough water. It's yeah, but to answer your question, I did I did get a little taste of the The kind of desert lifestyle of walking and that umbrella. It worked out great.
[Editor’s note: The temperature, distance, sun exposure, hydration, and umbrella comments above are Jeremiah’s personal 2023 recollections, not verified product-performance data or heat/hydration guidance. Conditions and individual needs vary; use current qualified guidance for heat and hydration planning.]
[00:44:41] Tayson: Yeah.
[00:44:42] Bridgette: So
[00:44:43] Tayson: go ahead.
[00:44:44] Bridgette: Oh sorry. I was just trying to finish answering your question. The session that was a little mountainous too. There was another mountain range that we definitely went over but it, we were just in it for like a couple of days but even with all the trees around you, they're Strategically planted so there's like specific space between them so there and they're not big enough to hide behind if you needed to be on the bathroom or anything. A lot of times you had to go on this little side road and so I might have to watch him. Make sure that no one's coming. Yeah
[00:45:13] Jeremiah: you just pitch it on its side and you
[00:45:17] Bridgette: Took a lot of people breaks. I can't help.
[00:45:21] Jeremiah: Yeah, we
[00:45:22] Tayson: got a drink a lot when it's that hot, right? Pounding water. So all so what's it like to be walking just on a road? I don't know. 10 miles straight hot desert like A lot of people here that and think like, that doesn't sound fun or that sounds a little miserable, right? But, but I know that you guys are gonna have some something profound to say about that.
[Editor’s note: This brief hydration remark is preserved as a historical conversational comment, not a universal intake recommendation. Hydration needs vary with the person and conditions; use current qualified guidance.]
[00:45:47] Jeremiah: well, if you're walking with other people, it can be really entertaining but a lot of times I kind of have a routine that I like to do when I'm backpacking the first hour or two, I like to not do any music or podcast or anything like that, and I like to just reflect, you know, pray, you know, talk to my Creator, get in touch, try to get in touch with nature and really connect. And then, you know, as the day starts, eating up starts getting a little hotter, maybe a little more miserable, you want to throw in some distractions, you know, maybe an audio book or maybe a podcast or maybe you want to
[00:46:30] Tayson: what is Jeremiah Stringer into when it comes to audiobooks that's math equation. And
[00:46:39] Jeremiah: I don't know. I Really enjoy the non-fiction audiobooks. So something that's going to teach me something that any any topic that I'm interested in? But I can't give you any specific titles of the ones that
[00:46:57] Tayson: you're good, you're good. It's like fiction or not because I I listened a lot of nonfiction but I also I can find myself really just like wanting to check out on fiction. I think for me from time I was like a kid just reading Whatever it was you know, I was I was a better, the pride grew up I'm like Harry Potter. You know what I mean? So like I'll even sometimes I'll have like a desire to just read something super super like that and just kind of like fully check out, but
[00:47:23] Jeremiah: I was curious. You can veg out on the fiction, like fiction wise. I typically will go with either post-apocalyptic maybe zombie, maybe not or something spicy, something like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy kind of that five so good store but also kind of sci-fi
[00:47:44] Tayson: Ya. Nice awesome.
[00:47:45] Jeremiah: But anyways distracting in the middle of the day. Yeah. And the best thing about Being in the next state is you learn your limits but you all so there's only one person you're depending on and it's you. So all you have time to do is think and it really I don't know. It gives you a chance to walk out all the distractions of, like this synthetic world that we live in with. all of the pressures that you get from social media and just the daily, the daily life, the grind that, you know, everybody is on and gives you a chance to just Be in your own head and try not to get too deep in there, but it gives you the opportunity to just think. Because if you think about your normal day and every day life, you're always busy doing something, and how awesome
[00:48:42] Tayson: the noisy.
[00:48:42] Jeremiah: Yeah, it's yeah. All the noise. So how often you have the chance to just sit down or, you know, walk for eight hours and not have to worry about any of those problems. And really make big boy decisions. Like you know, you may want to do a job change or you may want to have a child or you may be dealing with the loss of something. Maybe a loved one or, you know, you may be going through something and you really get the chance to You know, not have to not having any of the daily problems to really just deal with what you need to deal with, what you have to.
[00:49:20] Bridgette: My favorite thing during that section was listening to the music, anything that was beat. And then it first off. I made me go faster. I think it's because I was in a better mood. The second I could just do my little dance moves, and make my way down the trail, as well as a lot more fun space umbrellas out. Just that's not my favorite. But I like a good fiction book. Just say add to that conversation. If I can get a good book, that's intense mystery, something that draws me in with the character and I'm like, all about it.
[00:49:55] Tayson: Mm-hmm.
[00:49:56] Jeremiah: Yeah. And I will give a little Pro tip here if you're going with your spouse.
[00:50:02] Bridgette: Oh no.
[00:50:03] Jeremiah: Sorry for the music wise, if you want to, you know, do a little bonding, you want to have a little fun together and you don't want to use like a Bluetooth speaker. Then you can do, if you got an iPhone, which both of us had iPhones, you can get AirPods or, like, Beats. Beats are on the Apple. So, anything owned by Apple, you can do the shared audio on. It's very user friendly and you just click a button. And now you're listening to the same music, you're singing in your dancing together. You're having fun and it's like a little Bond.
[Editor’s note: The shared-audio feature and device-compatibility comments above describe the guests’ 2023 experience. Current compatibility, setup, and safety guidance may differ; check current manufacturer documentation and remain aware of your surroundings.]
[00:50:36] Bridgette: That's what I
