Day 66: Symbols

Get your kicks, on Route 66…

From the song by Bobby Troup

Or in our case, the camino. On day 66 it is fun to ponder some of the symbols that surround us. The scallop shell (concha in Spanish) is a symbol of the camino for many reasons. One is that many trails combine in Santiago de Compostela, just like the ridges on the scallop shell join at one point. The scallop shells we carry on our packs we found on a beach in Florida. They are very small compared to those sported on the backpacks by many pilgrims. We joke that theirs are ”Too heavy.”

On our backpacks we also have personal symbols. Mine is a rubber duck given to me by my last team at work (Sila Solutions Group.) In programming there is a thing called ”Duck debugging.” If you’re a programmer, you probably know about it. If you’re not, you should look it up. You wouldn’t believe me if I explained it. They gave me this duck because it had a compass in its stomach which is ideal for travel. Laurie has a Kokopelli, a symbol of American Southwest Indians. It’s a gift from our friends Woody and Donna.

We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary last Saturday and one enduring symbol is our rings. We bought them when we were in college and I sold my car to my parents to pay for them. Mine had brushing on it which is long worn off. I have often offered to ”upgrade” Laurie’s but she said she likes the reminder of our beginnings. They suit us.

Our Trail Today

The forecast was for rain all day—didn’t even have to put the rain covers on our backpacks. We saw several unique things in addition to the typical amazing scenery:

• Note the graffiti in the first picture. We saw Basque separatist graffiti a month ago. Last week some Antifa graffiti. But this is pretty funny. Anyone want to interpret it in the comments.
• Most Americans know Lamborghini as a luxury sports car manufacturer. But first, they made what you see in the next two pictures.