{"id":20001,"date":"2026-04-05T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/?p=20001"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:23:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:23:28","slug":"via-lemovicensis-here-we-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/via-lemovicensis-here-we-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Via Lemovicensis: Here We Go"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span class=\"wpsdc-drop-cap\">T<\/span>his morning, I\u2019m getting on an airplane to fly to Paris. God willing, I begin walking on pilgrimage from V\u00e9zelay, France, on April 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was Francine&#8217;s dream to walk the Camino from V\u00e9zelay ever since she heard about this route in 2022. We have been actively planning this pilgrimage walk since late 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Francine was an enthusiastic pilgrim \u2013 a volunteer for <a href=\"https:\/\/americanpilgrims.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">American Pilgrims<\/a>, she was for many years the design genius behind their magazine <em>La Concha<\/em>. She also served as an Hospitalera in Logro\u00f1o and Pamplona in years past. And of course, we walked four Caminos together, as well as one each separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the spring of 2025, my beloved Francine was diagnosed with a rare, incurable, and terminal neurological condition called <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Creutzfeldt%E2%80%93Jakob_disease\">Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease<\/a>. She died on June 21, 2025.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Francine was the most remarkable, most intelligent, and wisest person I have ever known. In her hospital bed, she made me promise to carry out all of the adventures we had planned to do together. She was absolutely amazing, and my everything. I am undertaking this pilgrimage for her and in her memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the schedule holds (and, spoiler alert, the schedule <em>never<\/em> holds), I will walk into Santiago on the first anniversary of her death on June 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can follow me on my pilgrimage blog at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/\">thomryng.com\/camino\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"649\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VL-route-photos-1024x649.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20002\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VL-route-photos-1024x649.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VL-route-photos-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VL-route-photos-150x95.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VL-route-photos-768x486.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VL-route-photos-1536x973.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/VL-route-photos-2048x1297.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, I\u2019m getting on an airplane to fly to Paris. God willing, I begin walking on pilgrimage from V\u00e9zelay, France, on April 9. It was Francine&#8217;s dream to walk the Camino from V\u00e9zelay ever since she heard about this route in 2022. We have been actively planning this pilgrimage walk since late 2023. Francine was an enthusiastic pilgrim \u2013 [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-francine","category-via-lemovicensis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20003,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20001\/revisions\/20003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}