It is said: "Don't ever go off half-cocked on a pilgrimage."

another lousy ancient suggestion
I surmised. . . .

. . .  my last pilgrimage
thrived
on the heat
the dust
the lust
the sand
the money owed
to the ugly Big Man
the clicking clocks
the ticking clocks
the Hottentots
the red cabbage I ate
the small holes in my sox
the wind and the grit
and the howls of gathering silence

. . . . it was a terribly ancient pilgrimage
by modern standards

I felt the same
except slightly unsettled
and a little smaller.