THE JOURNEY CONTINUES 29 MARCH 2012

I know its been a while since my last blog but I am back and getting ready to go again. Since I stopped walking a year and a half ago, a lot has happened. The civil trial has come and gone and numerous speaking engagements have also, numerous trips across the country and back and forth to Europe and the UK, and morned the loss of close friends of mine and my family. I have also been very busy beating myself into the ground at every possible opportunity, which may explain why I have been down for two weeks with some type of flu/cold thing going on. One of my buddies I served with in Central America recently returned from Afghanistan and we celebrated by conducting drink and destroy missions from San Francisco to Laguna Beach. It took me about six hours to drive to SF Airport to pick him up and two weeks for us to get back and it all ended, like many things do, in Las Vegas. Welcome home 1SG Todd Sullivan, I may forgive you but my liver never will, 19 days I will never forget.....or remember?. Now for the business at hand. Before Mackenzie was killed, we had spoken about spending her next summer vacation walking the Camino de Santiago from Paris, France to Santiago, Spain and on to Fisterra. After her death, I decided to walk the United States with her ashes, but it was always the plan to walk the Camino next. For the last couple of months I have been really thinking about the Camino and different things have been happening that are telling me I should walk this before walking the U.S. again. It started with friends from Spain asking if I was still planning on walking the Camino, followed by a newspaper article in our local paper and then a show on television in which they mentioned the Camino and showed some footage on it. This is where things really started to get weird. One night , my mom said lets watch a movie tonight so I went over and we decided on a movie called "The Way." The movie was made by Emilio Estevez and starred him and his father, Martin Sheen and was about the Camino de Santiago and a fathers journey for his lost child. I told my mom how blown away I was and that this has to be another sign that I am supposed to be doing this now. Two weeks later, I am in Solvang at the Solvang Brewery spending time with my friends that work there and I am speaking with one of the owners and she asked what was next with my walk and I told her that I am being pushed towards the Camino and that I had researched it since 2007 and was now having these signs telling me I need to do this first. She told me to go with my heart and I told her I wanted to. Now I had told her about the signs and about the movie and tv and articles and friends etc. I was sitting at the end of the bar with my buddy Todd 30 minutes later and I see this guy walk past with his wife, its about 11 o'clock and no one is really paying attention, so I know what I just saw, so I get up and follow them to the parking lot. I say "excuse me, I don't usually do this but I need to talk to you," and who turns around? That's right.... Emilio Estevez. I spoke to him and his wife for the next hour about the Camino , the movie, Mackenzie, our journey, etc. I finish with them and they leave, I return inside and begin freaking out with my friends and it wasn't 10 minutes later I hear my name called. I look up and its Emilio walking back in. He told me that they had walked back to their hotel and got in his car to get me his copy of the movie and then proceeded to sign it and tell me "buen camino" which is the universal greeting on the Camino, what an unbelievable couple. Now this sounds unbelievable I know but everyone who saw it happen, are with me on FB and they will tell you the same thing. I know it was a long way to get to my point but my point is that I will leave at the end of April and begin the next leg of Mackenzies Missing Miles in the first week of May, if all goes as planned. I am happy to tell you that Spot will be with me again and he is supposed to sync with Google Earth over there, so you will be able to watch in real time on our website @ www.mackenziesmissingmiles.org as I walk the Camino. I apologize that the website has not yet been updated with this info but my web guy is on it and it wont be long until we are updated. I will blog and post pictures as often as I can, as I did before. The website is fully operational still and I will give updates until my departure. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela is a religious pilgrimage with a history that dates back to the Crucifixion of Jesus and every pilgrim walks for their own reasons and mine are obvious, if you are interested in knowing more you can Google/Google images it or check out http://santiago-compostela.net/ , or check out the movie if you can. I am really excited for this journey and Mackenzie and I are looking forward to sharing it with our friends as well. I miss her and hurt as much today as the day she left me. I will keep you posted.