Dear Friends

Having not qualified for today’s Boston marathon, Kathleen and I are departing on our own marathon, a cross country and back, long awaited, retirement road trip. It will be a chance to see family and friends, historical sites and parks, and, of course, the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of our country, “the land that we love”.

Thankful that family is close by to regularly check on our home, we will be gone for a few weeks, with no definite timelines, but heading to Florida first to see Kathleen’s 98-year-old mother. Then it will be up the east coast, including a stop for lunch or dinner at the Open Kitchen, in Charlotte, NC, the site of our first date 48 years ago. We plan to go to church at our National Cathedral in DC, and eventually reach Belfast, Maine, to see dear seminary friends, just an hour from Acadia National Park. Then, it is wandering back to California. I want to stop at Field of Dreams in Iowa. Kathleen wants to stop at Skeins of Yarn in South Dakota. We’ll figure it out.

We are so thankful to be able to do this now, recognizing there will be a day when we can’t. Having finished another wonderful retirement ministry at St. Andrew’s in Fullerton, we had to take advantage of this open window before my next job in June and July at St. George’s in Laguna Hills.

The Hetch Hetchy water bottle is a reminder of my marathon hike---7 days and 47 miles to help raise funds for Restore Hetch Hetchy. The Cross Country sweatshirt is a reminder that I used to be able to run several miles at a time! The green sweatshirt I am bringing was my dad’s, including the name tag sewn in when he was in skilled nursing at Plymouth Village. We will be traveling with him in our hearts, along with my dear mother and sisters, dear Christopher and Emily, remembering all the wonderful road trips, near and far, we enjoyed with them.

And now, following a family tradition of late starts, it’s off to our first stop. We missed the Coachella Festival, so it will be Hesperia, Barstow, or Needles CA, or Kingman AZ!

Thank you for your prayers as we embrace and/or dodge whatever weather may come. I’m sure Kathleen will be posting pictures along the way.

John