The Shopper in Me

Yesterday four of us went shopping.

Shopping for clothes is something I've always disliked. Yet, since committing to doing this walk the shopper in me has awakened. I hope it goes dormant once the adventure is over. This is not my cup of tea...Not my bag so to speak.

One of the important aspects in preparing for the walk is purchasing the equipment and clothes that one will need. Everything you take on the journey you will have to carry on you or on your back for the duration. Thus, it is important to carry the bare minimum and anything you carry should be as light as possible.

During the last few months, as I have been purchasing items for the trip, I've learned a bit about purchasing clothes. Turns out that technology has also been having an influence on clothing manufacturing. There are extremely light weight garments that will keep you cool whet its warm and warm when its cold. They will wick the sweat from your body and will keep you dry. There are clothes that are treated to protect you against insects and even provide some level of SPF (Sun Protection Factor.) Waterproof clothes, waterproof shoes, blister proof socks (more on this later,) etc.

Many of these garments have "Performance" stamped on them. I have to admit, that for the most part they work pretty well as advertised and they are very light compared to cotton or wool.

Yesterday Larry bought a lot of stuff, Ed and Emilio a few items, but I only bought socks. I bought a pair of socks that claim to be blister proof and two pairs of sock liners that also protect against blisters by acting as a friction-reduction layer. Picture this: foot, foot coated with vaseline, foot coated with vaseline inside a sock liner, foot coated with vaseline inside a sock liner inside a dry-foot, no blister, no odor, cushioned-sole hiking sock. And of course all that goes into a waterproof hiking shoe.

You have to feel for the pilgrims that walked before us... Yet they did reach their destination.

My brother Jose will also be walking the camino with us. He lives in Spain and has been to Gilroy a number of times. He is friends with the rest of the guys. Today he sent me this sketch that he drew on the iPad using an App called "Paper 53." How do you like it? I've tried using paper 53 but there is nothing I've drawn that I would be proud to post here. This kind of stuff is his metier.

Let me know if I'm boring you. It should get more interesting once we start walking exactly four weeks from today!