Jenni & Joe
The Itinerary
The Journal
The Travelogue
Practical Info
Write to Us

The Departure
JOE: ABOARD AN AIR FRANCE JET OVER THE EAST COAST OF THE U.S. "'Ding.' Please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts … and prepare for the turbulence."

It's a bumpy ride as we prepare to cross the Atlantic. We've just finished dinner on our Air France flight to Paris. It's a scrumptious display of salmon and potatoes with bread and cheese. That's right, French food! The in-flight music I've chosen is a collection of original songs from the African continent being introduced by a French disc jockey. Wow! We're finally on our way to our big adventure! We'll arrive in Paris in about five hours. This is the "big trip" -- the voyage we've been talking about for years now. The dream we've had almost since the day Jenni Neal and I started whispering our future dreams in each other's ears in Lubbock, Texas, back in the summer of 1995. Ah … 'vive le diference' ('celebrate the difference' -- as the French say) … The 'diference' is that most people only whisper -- if they even talk out loud about accomplishing a dream like this.

But Jenni and I are now well on our way to making our fantasy come true. It has been so much work, though … Jenni is sleeping now … I hope when she awakes she'll finally have a chance to get excited about the trip because she's been so stressed out working on packing and preparing. I'm so proud of her because she's so incredibly organized. But the millions of details of this trip - which she's been headaching over for the last week - have taken their toll on her. I hope she will soon relax and enjoy herself. I hope she can get past the turbulence and begin to enjoy what should be the vacation of a lifetime.