Weather prep

It's T minus 6 days until departure.

I freaked myself out by reading "what to bring" lists again. I saw one post where it said your camino would be "over" if your feet got wet during a rainstorm. I looked at the forecast for the first 2 weeks of the camino and there are days with 40-60% chance of rain, so I had to go buy some waterproof shoes. This is probably the 8th or 10th pair of shoes I have tried and returned. Thank god, I left my other camino shoes in Canada when I went to visit my sister so I had an excuse to buy some new ones anyway. I will use those on another trip. Then I had to buy rain pants and a rain jacket. The only thing worse than being cold is being cold and wet! Now my gear is ready (again) and I can ditch the rain poncho as these should be much more effective, since I already have a rain cover for my backpack. Speaking of the backpack, I haven't weighed it lately but it must be approaching 9kg (eek).

Then I took a 3-mile test walk in an-almost-driving-rainstorm here in Austin. No gear, just the new goodies to test out their wet worthiness. Everything passed, even when the trucks drove by and drenched me and when I stepped off the curb into inches of water. People felt sorry for me as I think I must have looked homeless, but hey, they didn't know how utterly dry and comfy I was. Tomorrow, I will take a long hike with the pack in the rain. Can I get any more ready than that? May the odds be ever in my favor! ;-)