Boundless horizons

Before I leave La Mancha, I think that my computer is going to "learn" to autofill that term whenever I touch the B key.

Albacete --> La Roda 39.3 km  10.5 hrs

Tried to get an early start.  Left the hotel at 7.  But it took 2 hours to get even somewhat out of Albacete.  I had to walk all the way across the city and then I hit a huge disorienting road building/construction project that made my map obsolete and had destroyed any waymarks (if there ever were any).  I kept trying to figure out navigational directions,  looking at my map, totally confused.  I noticed that there was a big highway leaving the city way over on the left but I finally concluded that the road that was getting paved was the road that I should follow and took off.  Then all the paving and construction trucks behind me working on the road started honking their horns and the workers were yelling.  I turned around to see what the hay was going on and they were yelling "Alli!  Alli!" at me and waving and pointing at the road way over to the left.  OK that settles that.  As annoying as Spaniards can be,  they really can be helpful when you need help.

I made my way over to the road far away but within sight (due to, you know, those boundless horizons),   zig zagging down roads and farm tracks until I finally found a yellow arrow.  Put my head down and just walked out into the flat treeless plains.  Not my favorite area even though it was actually pretty nice.  Just reminded me too much of an Illinois type scene (although I don't remember ever seeing mountains on the horizon in IL).  Made it to La Gineta in 3 hours.  Good time.  Stopped to have lunch in a park there.  Then on to La Roda.  This section was much nicer.  More trees.  Beautiful grain fields with the wind swaying them back and forth.  The mountains had come in a little closer so it felt a bit less wide open space.  Made it to La Roda about 5:30.

Two discoveries while in Albacete.  One good, one not good.

 I couldn't find a laundromat (because they hardly exist in Spain) so I let the hotel's laundry service send out my little bag of smelly, stained hiking clothes to be cleaned.  The charge ended up being 31 euros.  About 40 bucks to have my shoddy stuff cleaned.  So never use a hotel's laundry service in Spain.  Lesson learned.

The other thing was that I had been thinking that it would be great to find some Gatorade in Spain.  Maybe alleviate some of the heat and dehydration effects.  I had tried to keep an eye open but had never found any.  Then I was in the Mercadona and happen to notice that they had  a sports drink in their own Hacendado brand.  Tried it and it's pretty good.

But sports drink or no, 25 miles is just too long to hike on a warm day with a pack.  Today more blisters showed up and I personally couldn't have found any places on my feet to fit any more.