[Gocamino] bad luck twice!

[David Hough on gocamino]

The mailing list has been quiet so I'll use the opportunity to register
a complaint with Santiago Peregrino.

It was unfortunate for me that the annual Gathering of Pilgrims was 
scheduled on the same weekend as the Winter Meeting of the Yosemite
Convervancy (formerly Yosemite Association (formerly Yosemite Natural 
History Association)), namely this coming Saturday.   I've been going to
the Yosemite meetings for longer than the Camino meetings, and they are
scheduled further in advance, so I signed up as usual, even though later
the Pilgrim Gathering was announced to be conveniently in Santa Barbara
again, a lovely 
venue that I've enjoyed twice before - the dates never coincided in
the past.     So I reluctantly passed on the opportunity to sign up for
Santa Barbara.      (Yosemite meetings are always held in Yosemite,
oddly enough!)

Then second back luck:
3-4' of snow fell this last weekend in Yosemite Valley, where a 
typical winter snowfall is 3-4" that quickly melt.    In this case it
was heavy wet snow, and the net effect was that numerous trees broke and
took out all the power lines into the park and quite a few in the
gateway communities just outside the park.      With no power... and 
a load of snow where they weren't used to dealing with it - the
park service closed all the roads into the park, 
and it looks like the Winter Meeting
will be cancelled, probably the first time ever.

But now it's too late to register for the Pilgrim Gathering.   Of course
they have to cut off registration at some point to make definite commitments
for food and lodging.      But the probability of precipitation is only
10% in Santa Barbara this weekend, vs. 20% in Yosemite.

I would just like to think that there is some valuable lesson in here
of the sort we learn on the actual camino.      As in the times where the
albergue is full and something wonderful and unexpected happens, and not
as in the times where something dreadful and unexpected happens.