There were so many simple delights on the trail this day. We were in wine country and the grapes were ripe.

At day’s end I had this deeply grateful feeling. “Now I am on a pilgrimage,” I thought.

Then suddenly relief from the heat. A piercing, drenching downpour erupted from the clouds.

A few blocks later I arrived at a major 5-way intersection. No arrows. Now I knew. It was time to turn around.

It was a rich day. The highlight was meeting and walking with Javier from Argentina. How does one explain Javier?

I didn’t know what answers I would find, but I did know that I was trusting that “the Camino would provide.”

I was curious how it would be given the controversy over bathrooms in America and transgender individuals. Here gender didn’t matter. Just respect for privacy.

I knew pilgrims would be starting on the trail before daylight. The Camino Frances presents a particularly difficult challenge.

Immediately as I emerged from my albergue, I saw a lanky man with a headlamp and a backpack just below me on the road. Following him made sense.

“What is your intention for walking the Camino?” That is the question I knew I was going to be asked when arrived in Saint Jean de Pied Port to get officially registered for the pilgrimage.

I had nearly eight hours on the train which led to a rich time of reflection. One question surfaced almost immediately. It was “Where can I best serve?”

I knew I didn’t want to do this alone anymore. I would be starting out alone, but I wondered…

Pilgrimages really start the day that you commit rather than the day you take the first step on the trail.

I was feeling calm. In fact, not only calm, but liberated! I wrote in my journal on the flight from Calgary to Paris, “Opening! Opening! Opening!”

As I boarded the plane in Portland to Paris with a quick layover in Calgary, my heart was swirling with varying emotions associated with letting go.

It was my executive coach who first noticed that I had gone strangely silent.

“It feels sort of funny to write this—to say that I spent five weeks walking across Spain for two really good pictures…

It got so ridiculous at some points that I was thinking about my experiences in blog titles rather than the purer language of feelings, descriptions and honest reactions.

On Wednesday, August 30 at 7:00 p.m. (Pacific time), Brandon will host a “sendoff” for me as I embark on the Camino de Santiago for a pilgrimage that is both personal and missional.

Paris first. Then off to St. Jean Pied de Port for the first night of the formal Camino. At least that is what I thought.