We are sitting in the DFW airport in Dallas, Texas as we watch the minutes tick by.  We had a 3 hour layover in New York before the 7 hour trek to Lisbon.  That cushy 3 hours has been cut to 1 hour and 20 minutes as there was a lot of flights delayed in and out of JFK airport.

Jude with 8lbs of books he had to jettison

Up to this point things have been running pretty smooth.  We got up at 3:30am this morning to hit the road at 4am.  We saved about $400 per ticket by flying out of Dallas instead of Wichita.  As I am accustomed to having a new born, usually I would not trade sleep for money, but…. 

We made a quick stop to stretch and get breakfast in OKC.  We were able to enjoy the sunrise at the Father Rother Shrine before picking up a bite and then back on the road.  We tried to get inside of the Shrine as I wanted to show the group some of the Camino imagery that you will find in side.  It has a heavy use of shells (symbol of the Camino), pilgrims (hat and staff included) going toward the high altar, and the Cross of the Order of St. James is everywhere.  But alas, it was locked up tight at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning.

We know that Europe awaits, so our final stop was the most American thing we could think of.  25 glorious acres of Buc-ee’s Gas station.  We spend admittedly much too long staring at the wall of beef jerky and other snacks.  In the end we settled for Bohemian Garlic beef jerky.  Can’t get that in Kansas!

Well our time is up and we are being called to load the plane.  Hopefully no more delays from here on out!