Decisions, decisions

I  leave in just 3 days, so I thought I'd better get off the pot and think what I'm taking on the Camino.  Wait, stop laughing!  Okay, I'll take that back.  All of you who have hiked with me this winter know that this is all I've thought about (and talked about!) for weeks and weeks and weeks.  But now I have to get serious and actually start packing.  The first dilemma was which backpack to take:  the one from my last Camino with all it's handy side and front pockets? 

or the new, fancy 2-lb lighter one with everything tossed in the one center compartment.... 

I took them both for a test drive here in Vancouver and oh my goodness, I should have done this several days ago!  The new pack clearly won as I hardly felt the 16 lbs.... for the first hour.  Then my knees and thighs started saying 'hello' and I realized that hiking day-in and day-out in California with an occasional 5-lb pack wasn't quite enough training.  But I do have exactly 6 days before I take my first Camino steps so I will walk every day (including airport days and the royal wedding day) wearing pack #2 and I'll be fine.  Just need a little conditioning tune-up...

The packing itself was pretty simple: 2 bottoms, 3 tops, a light layer, and my fleece.  A couple pairs of socks & undies, toothbrush, sleeping bag and 10 lbs. of accessories.  Really, I'm not kidding.  The clothes are minimal but it's amazing all the stuff you think you can't live without.  My electronics-kit, my first-aid kit, my sore-feet kit, my laundry-kit, my cold-weather-hat-glove kit, my kitchen kit (knife, spork, sandwich bin), and I can't tell you how much time I spent dithering on whether or not to take a corkscrew - I know, most of use would classify this as essential gear but the darn thing is heavy!  Has Spain jumped on the screw-top bandwagon yet?  But it all fits in and although the pack is a tad heavier that I had hoped, it's still several pounds lighter than last time so all is good.

Last item to check out is my rain poncho.  Again, I have two - a new and the old.  I swore that the one old wasn't very waterproof as I remember feeling quite damp on the inside during a heavy downpour in 2007.  So I'm just going to step into the shower and try it out....