Walking Across Italy

Today, we hiked about 13 miles from Osimo to Filotrano, Italy. My fitbit says that I took 30,800 steps, I climbed 153 flights of stairs, and burned over 4,500 calories. I don’t care about the others, but I’m hoping that the last one is true!

The day started with our first test of flexibility. with a stop at local salumaria (delicatessen). We knew there would be no place to stop for lunch today, so we bought several panini sandwiches to take with us. The lady at the deli was so kind. She meticulously crafted each panini with different cheeses and bread. Then she labeled them, so we could find the right one fore the right person.

One of the bread choices was a “tartuga” roll, which means turtle in italian. Several of us had to have that, since we call ourselves the Old Age Mutant Ninja Turtles!

We left the deli as 3 “happy campers” and couldn’t wait for lunch.

The next flexibility challenge came an hour or two into our hike. It seems that this region got a lot of rain last week and several streams and rivers overflowed their banks. We needed to cross the Musone River on today’s journey, but the usually dry creek at the crossing point was filled with deep mud and water. So, we had to improvise. We took off our socks and boots. Quickly moving through the deep mud and into the river, where Stephen found us a shallow path. Then on the other side, we wiped off our feet and replaced our socks and boots. We all agreed that putting on the socks and boots was the hardest part of this little adventure. Here’s a video of my crossing.

I think the point of these little stories today is that life throws you curve balls all the time. You have to be flexible enough to deal with the issue and find a new solution. As I told my kids many times, “when life throws you lemons, learn to make lemonade.”

By the way, the panini’s were delicious. And when we got to Filotrano, we found a pastry shop and rewarded our “old man ingenuity” with some wonderful sweets. ( to offset all those calories I burned).

A domani (See you tomorrow)