It’s Party Time! One of the last steps in our preparation, and one that is meaningful to both Allison and I is our Permethrin Party. What on earth is a “Permethrin Party”, you might well ask. Well it all started in 2017.

When you walk the Camino de Santiago Frances route you share the trail with several thousands of other pilgrims. You all walk in the same general direction although you are spreadout by days, weeks and months as well as your personal pace. But basically there are a lot of people sharing a lot of Pilgrim lodging albergues. As a result if there is even just one pilgrim that has picked up bedbugs, the entire route can become infected at a rapid pace. As a result, pilgrims are requested to treat all of their gear with Permithrin (a durable incecticide). Honestly, this complete overkill, but most people comply and I guess it works. We’ve never once had a problem.

So in 2017 on our second Camino, Cindy, Nadine, Ken, Allison and I got together the weekend before our flight and used that opportunity to hang all of our gear on a make-shift clothesline and it all got a coat of Permithrin. Because we were getting together anyway, we decided to make it a BBQ. We all shared our hopes and prayersfor our Camino. Ever since that date, we’ve concluded our public events with a Permethrin Party.

So we invited a few friends who had been following our preparation as well as some family and neighbors and we had a low key luncheon. The highlight of the event was the application of Permethrin to all of our gear.

< I know…it’s really weird>,

but traditions are traditions.

There will likely be only one more post before we hop on our plane for Europe. Thanks in advance to everyone who is praying for us and rooting us on in this endeavor.