An unexpected trip: there and back the story of Dodge

Ok, then … I must start allowing him to look behind the curtain (and a small discharge of responsibility. Black humor is one of my families that loves language)

I have finished the path … approximately 7 weeks ago (and losing myself a lot!) But something happened before that affected my motivation to blog while walking. . . Let me explain.

The whole trip almost did not happen. I had been training and putting myself in shape, going to the gym, making the mandatory ladder (not inverse, that is a level of Karma Sutra gym beyond me) and otherwise marking in my team. At first glance, everything seemed to do well. My accommodation was reserved and was building the anticipation prior to the train that goes before a walk.

Then my dad died.

I’m sorry to throw that a bit suddenly.

He had expected at some point soonᵗᵐ, he had had cancers of several quite important organs for 7 years and was going through cycles of being well while he was out of chemotherapy and then it is not right while he was in chemotherapy. He had reached the point where chemotherapy was not doing anything and made the decision that he wanted to prevent the treatment from feeling the best he could for the time he had gone. That was last summer. They had told us that it would probably deteriorate rapidly, but that it would cling stubbornly, mainly moaning about England’s Cricket scores, but otherwise it apparently was in no hurry to leave. Then he had three heart attacks in six weeks last fall and, therefore, we all think, this is. But he had other ideas and decided that he was going to recover.

So I kept planning my trip, I talked to him several times and he was very interested in doing so. He had spent a lot of time in Scotland while serving in the British army doing expedition training, skiing and running in another way in green that is paid for being outdoors. We arrived at spring time, my trip was planned for the last week in May, which coincides with what in Britain we call a mid -term vacation, basically a medium -term free week for staff and students to give everyone one of each other. My wife is a teacher and we have a preteen daughter, so I can only walk when my wife is close to be responsible (ISH).

Then, in mid -April, I receive a phone call that says that my father has been taken to the hospital and this time it is not very good and I need to take my butt to my hometown, quite bloody, which, of course, I do it and to hide a lot of details essentially deteriorated and died on May 5. I will simply add that he was peaceful, without pain and had put him in a home of care specialized in the care of the end of life (the staff there is forces of nature! I could not do what they do) and we were grateful for the care and dignity they gave him in the end.

So, not to put a point too well that knocked down the path on the head for probably a year, but it doesn’t matter, «there is nothing stronger than the family,» said an annotation of our time once. We skated in the funeral mode, we completed a lot of paperwork to register this and declare that and obtained a planned date for cremation that at the time all this had been done was about 3 weeks away (we had a family that came from abroad, so I needed to allow some travel logistics to occur), after the return date of my planned trip, it turned out. Then, sitting with my wife about a couple of wine glasses and a Martini … and a whiskey, he said: «I think you should go to Scotland, it will be good for you to clear your head. You will have something that you take away from thinking if you need it or in silence to process it if you need it too, everything is reserved. See.» I defended myself a little saying that it was not a good moment and the other half excuses, but my wife knows me very well and knows how good distance is to walk for my head and my soul.

So … thanks for discovering with me until this point

If you could play in your head for yourself, Wibbly’s wobbly musical effect from the topic of the Twilight area and establish your internal clock to Saturday, May 24

Saturday May 24

AND ….

The alarm goes out at 6 am I am not a person in the morning and this is not a welcome noise. But through the gloom, a hacking thought dawns in the back of my subconscious, it is a day of travel to one of my favorite places on earth, the Scottish highlands. I am out of bed without the 30 mandatory repetition alarms and then the wear of fatality and shower.

«UG …» comes from my side

My wife is less excited about the morning premiere in consciousness.

A few hours later, I have the car, a coffee made for the trip, supplies in the passenger seat ready for the trip and I am ready for the off. Then I have to wake up the preteen daughter … On a Saturday … before 11 am instantly, her behavior becomes the way of angelic daughter and jumps out of bed, hugs me and wants to lower the stairs and see all my things and shake me. We have a family breakfast, two thirds of us have a lot of caffeine, and I am exchanging hugs and promises to the video calls when I can and send a text message and send photos frequently. My farmer, who has no idea what is happening with the puppy intelligence equivalent to the 3 -week lettuce, runs between us with enthusiasm his tail … and then he seems confused while I say that goodbye gives him a hug and then enter the car.

And I’m leaving. For the background, I live in Exeter, a quite charming city in the southwest of England that I moved in 1995 to go to college and somehow I never left. Glasgow and, by extension, Milngavie (pronounced Mull-Guy!) The city at the beginning of the path is approximately 8 hours by car and I have to deviate to leave a friend of you to a friend in the middle of half. But it is a good day and left with a reproduced audiobook (the hobbit for the interested parties, seemed appropriate). The impulse is, sincerely, mostly uninteresting, but Andy Serkis’s narration helps a lot. They are 99% of the highways, which begin in the green lands of Devon, the county in which I live, for approximately 150 miles until I reach the massive urban expansion that is the center of England, then there are another 150 miles of gray concrete, congestion and service stops for a bad coffee and expensive lunches. And then … the district of Los Lagos explodes in sight. He ordered him to visit the district of Los Lagos if he is interested in the outdoors, and if he is reading this, I can do a sure assumption that you are.

It is the most beautiful National Park in England in my opinion in my opinion with broad hills, glorious lakes and impressive views, and the path of the engine the skirts around the east edge of it, giving a very beautiful background! After that, the Scottish border, passed beyond a wild haggis of grazing haggis on the edge of the road and another 100 miles more or less I am reaching Glasgow and finding my way to Milngavie, a small switching city on the north edge of the urban sphere of Glasgow and just on the border of the Lom Lom Trossachs.

I stay at the Premier Inn Hotel in Milngavie, if you make the trip, I would recommend it.

They allow him to park his car there while walking the way in exchange for a donation of charity. The rooms are clean as expected of a chain. The restaurant next door makes what we call «Pub Grub» style food. However, the most important thing is that this … It is only a 1/2 of one mile at the foot of the output line. I had a couple of Guinness and a video call with wife and daughter (the dog also made a guest appearance) and read Julia Sheehan’s novel about The Walking The Appalachian Trail (it’s very good! Recommended!).

He had reserved an early breakfast at the restaurant next door with the intention of stocking up and walking until 9 am there was a store where he wanted to enter to buy something very specific that I will reveal in the next publication (I always keep them in a Cliffhanger!). I wanted an early night, but the dream really didn’t come quickly, too much happening in my head. I read the rest of the Rocket book and put Andy Serkis again in a sleep timer to fall asleep as the battle of the five armies progresses. Tomorrow is the day of the path!

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