Camino

Day 4 – Orrison to Roncesvalles
17k – 25k to date

I woke today when 15 people were getting ready before sun up, as the 16th in that room, I thought all were crazy. I am not in a hurry, I had only a few miles to go. Breakfast was toast & jam, just enough to start the day. When I started, it was a light but persistent rain and the fog was very thick with visibility maybe a few 100 meters. It stayed that way till I got over the mountain (I know it is a mountain pass, but when you go up and up and up, you can call it a mountain). That was about 14k of walking up, then there was 4k down that was steep and somewhat rocky. I took one spill going a little fast, guess I need to be more careful.

I arrived in Roncesvalles about 1:30 and checked into the Church hostel. This is the one shown in the movie The Way, however, they have added quad sleeping areas and don’t open the old dormitory, except in overflow situations. It is nice and clean. I plan on going to their mass tonight, a small blessing never hurts.

Today was much better than yesterday, I still am not 100% yet, but I moved OK today. After a couple of days, a lot goes through your mind as to just what are you doing away from home and love ones. Also, why did I chose this. I do miss home, I do miss family and friends and I even miss work, but I feel comfortable being here. Even if I had a German, ??? and an Italian quad mates today and none speak very good English. Sometimes God just says we need to stretch ourselves and I think I am doing just that.

Isaiah 45:8

continue to day 5

Day 3 – St Jean-Pied de Port to Orrison
8k – 8k to date

Got up after getting maybe two hours sleep, a storm blew in and the building creaked and groaned, along with young people not very excited about sleeping, guess that shows I am getting a little older. I started the day a little excited and a little not feeling well. I thought a little walk would help improve the feeling, but it just got worse and after 5k, I was moving like a turtle and throwing up every kilometer. Needless to say, this was a setback mentally and physically.

When planning for the trip, Divine guidance led me to reserve a bed at Orrison, a hostel that has to be reserved 30 to 60 days in advance as it fills up nightly. I thought no way do I need that reservation, but I was wrong. Travel or something got to me, so I ended up staying here. It is a nice hostel and they serve dinner and breakfast. There are 16 beds in my room and yes I did get a top bunk, I have practiced getting in and out twice today.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds as I still don’t feel great, but I will push on.

At dinner tonight they had everyone introduce themselves. The crowd was probably half Americans and they are almost all retired, a nice group of people. The other countries in attendance were Kazakhstan, Britan, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Scotland, France, Japan and a couple more. All spoke English and an Australian lady said thanks for all learning English as that was all Australians know (same for us Americans).

There is no wifi, so it might be a couple of days before the posts get done.

Tomorrow is one step at a time.

2 Corinthians 4:17

continue to day 4

Day 2 – Travel and Tourist

I woke up in Paris and headed out early to the Lourve. My first impression was that i liked the museums in Florence and Rome better, but after doing a two hour running tour, I decided this was a great museum for the diversity of cultures represented. It is still hard to see things as they are spaced far apart and the total museum must cover several acres. Still, it was definitely worth the stop and as many told me, I was underwhelmed with the Mona Lisa, although there was a line of at least 150 waiting to file past and that was at 9:10 just after opening at 9:00.

On the way back to the hotel, i saw the Eiffel Tower and several of the downtown historic areas. It would take a week to properly tour Paris. I am glad I fit that into my itinerary. After that, a mad dash to the train station and a 5 hour train ride at high speeds. The train system in Europe, from my limited experience is a great way to travel. When a 10 car train would pass going the other direction, you would feel a giant wind against the car, count to 3 and it would be gone.

Upon arriving in Bayonne, I walked in the terminal and wow, backpacks were everywhere. I will definately not be starting alone tommorrow. From there, we (all the sudden, it is we) took the bus to St. Jean-Pied de Port, a very nice village in the foothills of the Pyrennes on the French side. The village is really a small town, but the area we were in was the old historic area, small streets, old buildings and a beautiful bridge leading to it.

Time to get some sleep. Good to be here.

Thanks for following the blog.

Hebrews 12:1

continue to day 3

Day 1 – Goodbyes and Travel

I actually left Amarillo yesterday evening. It will be hard to describe my feelings of leaving friends, partners and family for what hopefully will be an extended period of time. Josiah and Benjamin, two of my grandsons came to the airport to see me off, they definitely were hard to say bye with. They are used to seeing me several times a week. Saying bye yesterday morning to my business partners was surreal and hard. The night before, I had said bye to Harrison, Ashley and Jayson, I believe all of them are extremely excited for me. Saying bye to my parents was great, they have been so supportive of this adventure. Jason and Shalyn said byes over the last couple of days, I think they know it will be difficult telling the grandsons “pops” won’t be home for awhile.

The hardest goodbye was my wife, we have been apart on travels before, but this was different in a big way. Maybe the length of time, but it was difficult to say the least. I told everyone being apart from my wife would be easy because we have such a great relationship. It will work, but it won’t be easy.

Back to the travel. A short flight to Houston set me up for the overnight flight to London. Why London, because I have never been there and my Camino, my adventure, began at my doorstep. I spent a total for four hours in London, one getting out of the airport, one riding the tube to the rail station and a couple of hours at the rail station. I did step outside in central London and immediately saw four red double decker buses and knew i was close to the tourist district. The little is saw left me impressed with London. Nice people and fairly nice big city. I now have visited London, rode the tube and I got a British passport stamp.

I completed the second leg of my journey, I have taken the Eurostar railway under the English Channel to Paris, where I will overnight. I can say that I love traveling on trains, they are smooth, efficient and great ways to see a lot of the countryside. Once in France, the countryside was “pastoral” and farm land until the outskirts of Paris. Once we got close to Paris, there was a small industrial area and then all the sudden tons and tons of old houses, I would guess that a lot of them were close to 100 years old. Once in Paris, I was hit with the big city atmosphere. I took the subway, in a round about way due to repairs, to the central downtown area to be close to my train station for tomorrow’s travel. Once I exited the subway, there were three sidewalk cafes. Being a Saturday night, it was very active. I walked around after checking into the hotel and I am amazed at the diversity of the people.

A good day traveling, but planes, trains and subways is catching up to me.

Proverbs 16:9

continue to day 2

It is a hard thing to describe preparation for this adventure!
First to think about was the physical, I had plans to go to our cabin in Colorado every other weekend and do mountain hiking, but as always seems to happen, life interfered and this summer didn’t allow those trips, so I did road work around home in the heat of the Texas Panhandle. This was great physical exercise and hopefully good preparation for the walk.

But next, comes the more important preparation, the mental part, this was the toughest part. First I had to deal with myself and the guilt feeling of taking time that was solely devoted to “me”. I have never really done that and it took a long time to justify to myself that it was acceptable to take time for myself and remove me from my normal life, my normal responsibilities and my normal relationships. Secondly, the aspect of staying away from work for up to six weeks was totally unfathomable, but I have great partners and all of them fully support this sabbatical, so that makes the being away from work a little easier. Will the office survive without me, of course, but we all think we are indispensable. Lastly, but of more importance to the mental was leaving family. What would my wife do without me for that long, what about the grandchildren or what about my kids. I know, my kids are not kids, they are grown young ladies, but we always think they still need dad. Truth is, my wife will be fine, my girls don’t need me that close and the grandchildren, well, that is a different story, that will be hard. Hello Skype..

My last preparations were the aspects of what I would take and what I needed done while away. For What I needed done, I am just dumping tasks on my partners, sorry guys. For what I would take, I must say that has been fun and frustrating. I wanted to be comfortable, but cut weight, I may be failing at both, but has been a blast trying to “balance the load”

These are the Colorado mountains I love to spend time in:

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