We enjoy the Corri con Paolo again, this time as seasoned veterans

With eyes on the prize, we entered the Corri con Paolo for the third consecutive year. Not exactly like that. We did enter, not to compete, but I just wanted to say ‟eyes on the prize” once in my life.

We walked as a group of six, with cousins Frank and Annette from Gig Harbor and some new friends from Lucca, Paolo and Giuliana. This is the second year in a row that Frank and Annette were here at just the right time to join us. Giuliana is the author of a children’s book (‟On Two Feet and Four Paws” is the English version), and we met her at a meeting of an English book club in Lucca. We had also registered cousin Rita Spadoni and her fidanzato Giulio, but Rita had a headache and had to stay home.

We had also accompanied Frank and Annette prior to the race on a search for a geocache that is located in Montecarlo. Geocaching is a kind of treasure hunt using GPS-enabled devices in which participants use coordinates to attempt to find a hidden container. Directions for the geocache hidden in Montecarlo included a puzzle to solve, and we had tried unsuccessfully to de-code the puzzle last year.

We still weren’t able to solve the puzzle, but we used some visual clues provided by others who had found the geocache and had taken pictures of themselves holding the prize. We were able to use our knowledge of the city to find the location, and Frank found the cache in less than a minute of searching for holes in the stone wall. It was the first geocache Lucy and I have found, but maybe the 100^th for Frank and Annette.

Back to the Corri con Paolo, the weather was absolutely perfect, around 72 degrees F. Since I’ve given details about the walk in previous blogs (2015 and 2016), I’ll skip the background details. The only real difference between previous years is that Lucy and I were able to practice speaking Italian to Giuliana and Paolo. Luckily, Giuliana is bilingual, so she could help out when we had trouble communicating details.

‟It was truly delightful,” Lucy said. ‟People of all ages were having a great time. We saw a little baby that looked like he had been born just a week ago. The local band was marching and playing, and there were clowns and people dressed as Pinocchio.”

We did win a prize (34th place based on our group size), a large laundry basket, and individual packets for participation. But the best reward was the chance to feel part of the crowd and watch the people—one of our favorite pastimes.