Logrono to Najera

Another long mileage day, and a long day over all too. As we recover from walking too fast with our Swedish friend yesterday (she is probably 100k in front of us by now!), we planned on taking it slow today. And we sure did, we took 11 hours to get here!
The terrible weather today had us covered with ponchos head down and leaning into the wind. We finally found a place for cafe con leche and a morning snack after about 6k. A Spanish tortilla is a potato tart. The one this morning had cheese and ham in the middle...and it was the best food I've ever had! The coffee was fantastic too. We took a long morning break as we were reluctant to brave the elements again. We started out joining our new friends from Australia as they finished up, and staying while our friend from Nebraska, Judy, and her new friend from Toronto, Sonia, joined us. Judy and Sonia have had some rough times leading up to today and were both back from a day of rest and a bus ride between stops. Since we were on a recovery day ourselves, we decided to walk slow with them for the next 15k (as far as they would walk today)
We had great conversations and played the fun game of singing songs with the word "rock" then "star" then any colors, in them. As we traveled through rolling hills and patchwork of vineyards, we hardly noticed the cold wind and rain. Another fantastic break in a nice warm bar, where every one ordered the fresh squeezed orange juice, and Bob Marley serenaded us, was in store for us in the next town. Then we got to the town at 20k. Judy and Sonia weren't going to walk further, the Aussies were already checked in at a hotel, and we found a frozen Brazilian. We all had a late lunch together, more fun conversation! The Brazilian is an occupational health doctor and flamenco dancer! Judy, Sonia and the frozen Brazilian made a plan to share a taxi to Najera. We hit the trail to walk the last 11k of the day.
Now, some of you will wonder about our friends who are taking buses and taxis. As far as I'm concerned, that's part of the beauty of this trail, there are back up options!!! This is not a lesson in self reliance. We are not cooking dehydrated food on a micro-stove, we are not sleeping on the ground...and Wig and I aren't carrying all our stuff. Big confession here. We have a bag with our extra clothes, sleeping bags and toiletries transported between our stops. We are still carrying packs, they just have our snacks, water and clothing layers. But we aren't carrying big heavy packs. I'm a little embarrassed about that, but now that it's off my chest, I'll just live with it. We are still walking really far!
Anyway, that's one of the reasons we didn't stop at 20k today like almost all of the people that we have connected with, our stuff was going to be at 30k.! The Aussies will catch us, they will make up the distance on an easier day, and we will probably see the others as well. We will keep on schedule as long as we want to catch up to our luggage!
Wig says I'm rambling on too much. And he headed up to the room to turn in for the night. I better stop boring you for now! I still have a ramble about yellow arrows fermenting in my head, but will post that later!
Good night!