The Camino will provide

You hear this often along The Way and as you plan this wonderful journey. I assume it meant if your funds ran out or you lost earplugs someone would come to your rescue. This experience is so hard to explain, the beauty and most of all inner peace you experience from the second you decide to do this is so intense. From the second you decide to do this your journey has begun...the willingness of strangers, other pilgrims who have gone before you to assist you is something magical.
So the week before I left I started getting a little anxious about my time away, you would suspect it was related to how long I will be gone (forty days) ,but it was due to possibly not giving myself enough time. Ideally I thought I needed four more days to insure a WALK to Finesterre and Muxia on the coast. Not going to the coast is just not an option for me, though the Camino is complete without it, in Santiago. Walking it from Santiago and enjoying my Camino at the pace I wanted with certain city/region stop was stressing me out...would I have the time? So on Friday Steve dropped me off at the airport and I was the first to the gate...there with no staff even present yet was a sign asking for volunteers to give up their flight to depart about thirty minutes later. The offer was a $250 voucher, raised to a $350 voucher with discussion to raise it to $500. I approached the wonderful attendant and said "if you add four days to my trip you have a deal", she barely looked up clicked the key pad and all was done. I would arrive at JFK thirty minutes later,with time to catch my flight over the Atlantic. The Camino will provide, I was happy, content and just thrilled more than words can explain. American put me on a Delta flight and we piled on, the doors closed and I was on my way. All of a sudden they came over the loud speaker to say lightening was spotted and they were going to have to wait till it cleared to take off. Did I mention there was not a cloud in the sky when I arrived at the airport? No huge worries, I had a nice buffer to get to JFK and make my connection. Then about forty five minutes later they opened the airplane doors and said they had no idea when the flight would take off, I panicked. I hopped off the plane retrieved my backpack which I reluctantly let them put in a cage to go under the plane and I ran crying to the wonderful gal at American airlines. She was in a frenzy boarding a plane to La Guardia and I witnessed the conversation between her and the crew urging her the doors needed to close on the plane so it could depart. Her fingers were like magic over the keyboard as she was searching for options to get me to some/any airport that at this point could fly me out to any airport in Europe. Instantly I knew I would probably not make it to Paris in time to catch my flight to Southern France...if I missed that flight my Camino and my first two days of dreamy reservations (the only reservations one can make) would be ruined and my Camino would happen not how I had planned or imagined. There were two passengers on standby trying to rush the flight attendant as they wanted on that flight, this wonderful flight attendant called out, "do not give up this one seat left it is hers...I don't know what plane flight you will be taking over the Atlantic but getting you out of Raleigh and up to New York is our only option...run get on that plane I will have details booked when you arrive to New York...run"! I could hear them barking at her that the doors had to close "run...you'll find out the plan in New York". She then came running on the plane handed me a ticket and said a taxi will take you to JFK from there you have a close connection. I took a deep breath to look down to see she had two agendas for me a late flight out to Paris that would allow me to take my flight to Southern France and another that would take me to London then to Paris with no time for my flight. For hours I was in a rat race...I got the taxi to JFK got my flight to Paris had to catch a bus to Orley the smaller airport in Paris and caught my flight to Southern France. In the end the Camino provided but much like the journey it was physically challenging. I would arrive to Saint Jean de Pied for one of the most amazing evenings of my life...I would arrive having had no sleep in about thirty six hours.