Testing a new way to blog

As I’ve mentioned from time to time in previous posts, I’ll be walking
another pilgrimage trail in Spain this spring. This time, I’ll be
traveling on the Via de la Plata, which runs north from Seville
through Extremadura and Galicia to Santiago de Compostela.

When I walked the Camino Frances in 2006, I maintained a list of
friends to whom I sent regular email updates. This time, thanks to
the marvels of the internet, I’ll be blogging and sharing my
adventures via Facebook.

The one problem I had when trying to send emails from rural Spain is
that my website –and hence my email account– is hosted by Laughing
Squid, a local internet company. They do an excellent job (my site
has only been down once in the 7 years I’ve been hosted by them) and I
would highly recommend them — but trying to access a smallish company
half a world away when you’re on dialup in a tiny pueblo proved to be
challenging. I ended up using my Yahoo account instead.

Technology has changed a lot in the intervening 5 years. This blog
post is a test of a new system I’ll be using. I will be using my
Google email (ok, I do have too many email accounts. I think it’s
something like 7; I’ve stopped counting) to send my blog entries to a
top-secret email account at my small local host. Somehow my the magic
of the internets, my WordPress blog will see the arrival of this
email, and make a blog post from it. And, the final cherry on top of
this web-magic parfait, Facebook will scoop up any blog posts and put
them on my wall.

If you are reading this blog post, the system worked.

Now all I have to do is go out and hike!