100 days to go. Now it gets serious.

It was about a year and a half ago that I made the decision that I was going to go on a pilgrimage of faith. That plan has gone through many twists and turns and the underlying faith that motivated it has been pushed and pulled but now, here I am on Sunday, at the 100-day mark.

I received an email commemorating the occasion from 206 tours and promising that hotel and flight information is going to be coming soon.

100 days (now 99 as I continue after midnight) means a change for sure. The trip I long wanted to go on turned into the trip I felt a had to go on. Now, it is the trip I am about to go on. The countdown clock has begun; the sands are falling in the hourglass. Starting now, I have to accumulate every little thing I need and make sure it has a place and that I will know where that place is.

Not being properly prepared and packed would be disastrous and I am not going to have the opportunity to correct it if I get off to a bad start. Every document, every charger, every t shirt has got to be in the right place and quickly retrievable because of the uniquely frenetic nature of this particular trip.

If I am fortunate enough to get my bags checked and loaded and get in and out of Dulles Airport on time to leave, I have to do the same at the airport in Lisbon, Portugal about 8 hours later, bags recovered, needed documents secured, onto to the arrival hall to load those bags onto a bus.

There won't be time to relax with a cup of coffee.

The bus will take me to the first of 10 different hotels I will be staying at in the next 2 1/2 weeks. That fact alone is making me more nervous than I can express. 10 times I have to fully pack up everything and load it on a bus. 10 times I have to take everything off the bus and check it in a hotel room. The anxiety of all those times I will feel rushed and all those opportunities to miss something is considerable. What if I leave the passport on the nightstand of the hotel? What if accidently pack my dirty socks in the same cube as my clean socks?

More than 34 hours will be spent on the bus, winding through Lisbon, Santarem, Fatima, Albe de Tormes, Avila, Borgos, Loyola, Lourdes, Toulouse, Rocamadour, Paray-le-monial, Nevers, Chartres, Normandy, Lisieux and Paris. I have to have my antacid and my back pills retrievable and the same with my prayer books and my rosaries and chaplets.

The phones won't last the day unless they and the portable chargers are charged, and I have to have the cash to pay for lunches, tips and incidentals. Not Dollars mind you, Euros.

It's not just that there is so much to pack and unpack but it has to be done in a strategic way so I can get what I need, when I need it. All that work starts now, and I am feeling the pressure, for sure.

I have one shot to get this right.

The immensity of this trip is overwhelming, and preparation is going to be a lot of work. I am going to push myself past exhaustion to get the logistics right before hand so once the trip starts, I can focus on all those graces and miracles.