“Off On Holiday”

Well we’re off. It’s been quite a while since we’ve been on a real vacation. When I retired , I thought we would quickly get into the swing of things and be off here and there. We were planning a trip to the Holy Land when the “Covid Dragon” snuck in and sunk our plans. But ready or not, here we go. 

As we wing our way to London, I feel like a schoolkid on the first day of school…”out of my element”. We woke up at 4:45am and headed for the airport…it was pretty much a madhouse, but we moved thru check-in and security pretty quickly….fortunately the  fire alarm blaring at Newark airport was a false alarm. After a brief respite at the gate we joined the throng looking to board….yes, we did find spots for our overhead bags and sat down with a sigh. I felt that we had really accomplished something…yet, we hadn’t even pulled back from the gate. 

It’s amazing to see all the people. The Boeing 777 was pretty full…. it seats 388 passengers, 10 across. There’s parents with young children and babies manhandling their bags, trying to find their seats, stuffing their luggage into the overhead that’s already full…yikes. All are God’s children…different nationalities, languages, customs… but beautiful in His eyes. Every person on the plane has a story. Where are they going? London is a big hub to other parts of the world…they could be going to the middle east, to the far east, to other parts of Europe. 

Well, we made it to Scotland after a few nervous moments going thru customs in London. Our hosts are wonderful and caring people who are treating us like royalty. We had a day of rest and some casual touring of Glasgow. We’re now in the Highlands of Scotland. Wow, Scotland is incredibly beautiful. We drove from a beautiful village near Inverness to the island of Iona… the gateway of Christianity into Europe. We saw St. Columba’s “tomb” and the Benedictine monastery that flourished until the Protestant Revolution/Reformation.. the ruined church  was restored in the early 1900’s, and is still a beautiful place to visit and pray. We prayed for all our loved ones and our church and country. 

Did I say that Scotland is beautiful? While we did get a nice dosage of rain showers, we have also seen the sun quite a bit. We have a good chunk of vacation to go, so I may report in later with some details. So far, it’s a A++.

But the main goal of the BLOG is to encourage each of us to follow the Lord not to do a travel log. So, I hope this vacation refreshes our soul thru the beauty of nature and the love of wonderful friends. Already I can feel my spiritual batteries charging. And that is a very good thing…. for me and for those who we bump into along the way. God bless you.