Day 1

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