It’s always hard leaving home and strangely it’s harder when the two of us travel together.  It means we are leaving our home and sometimes placing it in the hands of others.

The days leading up to travel are hectic and at times my body struggles to keep up with my mind. The physicality of taking your possessions from one place to another and corralling  them into a soft sided rectangle with a zip to confine them is immense.  I spend days going from one room and building to another and then up that darn spiral staircase 50 times a day.

I don’t make too many mistakes, but I did leave all my underwear home once… that was a little inconvenient.

 I have 100’s of people with great expectations resting on my shoulders relying on me and if I leave just one thing out of the list it could be a disaster. On the other hand, once I’m in the plane and in the process of travel, it all fades into the background and I just get on with the journey. Sometimes it’s a week journey, sometimes a month and often 3 months with multiple projects to juggle.

Our family is very large by most standards and there is always an urgency to visit with them all before leaving. This week has been filled with such events. Every night, has been family night, but I caught myself just sitting watching them all interact Thursday night and my heart leaps. Daughters, sons, in-laws and grandies. All are equal and bring their own delight to the table. Our middle group of Grandies are now in their teens and its so interesting for us and I listen  the woes of the parent with a degree of sympathy and a sense of payback.

We went through it more than most so I figure it’s all relative.

We’ve been here in Durango just 24 hours, the jet lag has gone, and we completed a full day with wonderful sights and sounds and a short respite before the next stage of out trip.