The Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage 9/17/13-Nov.4, 2013

Its the evening before Carol Allen and I take our flight from Chicago to Lisbon Portugal.  We've both weighed our backpacks about 700 times, checked our packing lists and checked them again...and we are almost positive we aren't forgetting whatever we will need for the upcoing pilgrimage walk from Portugal to Santiago, Spain, the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage that many travelers schedule each year. 

One year ago, new friend, Bruce Jones from Long Beach,CA, recommended that I see the movie "The Way".  I did...and I started plotting a way to make this pilgrimage happen in my life.  And of course, what you think about, YOU BRING ABOUT!  It wasn't even hard for me to talk my dear friend, Carol Allen, into going with me.  Thank God her husband, Dave, likes me enough to entrust his precious wife to me for 3 weeks as my walking companion.  Thank God for my friend, George Orr, who believes in my wild ideas and happily helps make them happen.  Thank God for my wild side and for this adventuresome spirit in me that flings me around and around this beautiful world of ours.

So, our backpacks are packed, our tickets are ready, and our minds are racing with the details of this upcoming adventure.  Carol will be with me until Barcelona, and then I'll continue on my own for another 3 weeks, taking in the South of France, including a visit with Thich Nhat Hanh at his Plum Village Community for walking meditations for a week, and then the exploration of Provence from Bordeaux to Nice. 

I hope to post along the way, and share my travels and to have the trip of my lifetime.  I've told several friends recently that,so far, my 60th year has been my favorite year of life!

May the adventure continue!