On the road to Santiago: Lima man joins group on European trek

By Steve Schmidt • For The Lima News One hundred years from now, a pilgrim might pause under an ancient iron cross in Spain and reach with his hiking pole for a stone that seems to stand out from hundreds near his feet. He sees that it is a rock within a rock. Who placed it there? From where did it come? Next to it he notices a more lightly colored stone, with a small arrow etched in it. Jim Straub, of Lima, knows the stories of the stones. In one of his most spiritual moments of a two-week pilgrimage, he placed the stones among thousands of others along the Camino de Santiago. It is one of the world’s most famous walking routes, dating back to the Middle Ages. They represent thousands of stories that have been written into Europe’s most famous trail of pilgrims. They date back to the Middle Ages. But let’s start at the beginning of this fall’s 3,000-mile odyssey by Straub, his brother, Bob, and six friends from Ohio. Life-changing dinner About a year ago, 30 people gathered at a dinne