Most every journey is more fun with good traveling companions. Among the things I look forward to most while walking the Camino are the people I expect to meet along the way. Fellow peregrinos. Local residents.

But with days to go before I reach Paris and my best compañera, I am striding the forest roads of northern Minnesota in the company of our dogs, Emma and Dylan. They are sturdy and stalwart, minding neither the mud nor the remaining ice.