Camino: Start all over again.

My first 50th birthday present, six months early:

Joanna gave me a $1,000 travel certificate, to go to London to mark my completion of half a century in 2011.

She earned it by giving up her seat on a flight home this summer, thus being forced to spend the night for free in a swank hotel.
(How come they never offer these swaps when I fly?)

With her amazing gift, I got thinking I could do a different trip instead:

I could walk the Camino de Santiago again, as I did when I turned 40.

(The actual time on the road is cheap--hostels are about 5 euro/night, and besides food, there's nothing to buy ...and you wouldn't want to carry it if there was.)

bink could scrabble together frequent flier miles to go again too. Yesterday she made our reservations to Madrid. So, we're going, in May.

Here I am, dusting off my old backpack.

When I walked at 40, I said maybe I'd walk the pilgrimage every decade. But for a long time, I had no interest. (It's uncomfortable, to begin with.)

But now I do.

Not sure why.

Not particularly for spiritual reasons, like the first time. Maybe something more like wanting to shake off the dusty answers of this past decade.

Even if just to make room for fresh dust.

____________

Here's Fred pretending he can't dance–

"Maybe by the time I'm fifty/ I'll get up and do a nifty..."

– so he can woo Ginger, who sings "Pick Yourself Up" (dust yourself off, start all over again).