Well, we’re off to see the Wizard.

Or very soon.

Our bus left at 1 p.m. for CDMX, the airport in Mexico City.  Our British Airways flight takes off at 10 p.m. for Edinburgh. There has been discussion over whether nine hours is leaving enough time to make our flight, given the capricious and precarious nature of highway travel in Mexico.

Our first roll of the dice. First of many in the next couple of weeks, I imagine.

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Right out the gate – literally right out the gate – the bus pulled over with a flat tire. They must have planned it. A team was on it with a hydraulic lug wrench like a pit crew out of Talladega. Boom, back on the road only a half-hour behind.

Making our flight in Mexico was pretty easy. Landing in London was not. After circling several times in dense fog and rain, Captain Howard of British Airways was dismayed to find no place to park his 787 jet. No planes were taking off, although plenty were landing. Heathrow looked like a used-jet junkyard.

Needless to say, our flight to Edinburgh wouldn’t be taking off either. British Airways rebooked us, for two days later. Can you imagine how long the lines were at customer service with no planes leaving one of the world’s busiest airport?

Now quadruple that.

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More scenes from Edinburgh Castle on a foggy day:

Through a small miracle, we quickly snagged a comp room at a Rennaisance Hotel and shuttle passes while hundreds still waited in line.

Planes were either not flying or backed up for days — but trains were running on time. The next morning, we grabbed the tube into London’s Kings Cross station and hopped on the 11 a.m. to Edinburgh.

Four hours later, we were hanging with our friends, downing cold beers and white wine over pulled lamb pie and fish and chips in the West End. Getting ready to celebrate Rose Alcantara’s birthday together the next day.

Ah yes, our friends. Rose and I and several friends of very long-standing will be hiking Scotland’s West Highland Way, covering 96 miles over 10 days.

I’ve never undertaken a long hike with anyone else (other than Rose) – I don’t think I always play well with others – so this will be interesting. I love these people dearly but wonder how they will respond when, by Mile 12 or so, I start turning into a cranky old ogre.

Will we all walk together? Will the strongest of us be sipping 12-year-old malts on the deck of a country lodge while I am still staggering forward on my walking sticks, miles from my bed? Will we run out of things to say? Will we be modern Boccaccios, inventing the new “Decameron”?

Why are we walking in this era of Ubers?

So, it came to me – at 3:30 the morning that we left San Miguel de Allende – we are in an all-new production of “The Wizard of OZ” and the Highland Way is our Yellow Brick Road. And, yes, we are walking in search of our own elusive and mythical Wizard (each for his or her own reason).

In my hypnagogic state, I cast the tall and athletic Brian Connors as the big-hearted Tin Man; his literary and compassionate wife, Susan Shors, as Glinda the Good Witch; the athletic and theatrical Kim Scholefield as the courageous Lion; and the peripatetic Rose Alcantara as Dorothy. I will be performing two roles: Toto, the yapping mutt, and Scarecrow, the brainless one.

About the Wizard. I know nothing. Yet.

Rose, as everyone knows, stays in a natural state of peak fitness through teaching Pilates. Brian and Susan are inveterate urban walkers who have stepped up their game in the hills of San Francisco. Kim kite-surfs and mountain bikes, and stars in superb comedic roles in local theater in Southern Baja.

Last week, I set out for a final 12-mile training hike and managed nine. My right heel hurt. My legs were tired. It was hot. I was thirsty. It was enough to make me wish I were still Catholic so I could offer it all up to Jesus and the suffering children in … where was that? 

Instead, I grumbled and sulked and made Rose’s walk miserable.

The truth is, my ego was the thing that was taking a real beating. It really hurts to think that at 74, I  can’t do the things I did at 24. Worse, I will never ever be able to do them again. Even worse still, I have a growing suspicion that this might be my last long-distance hike. 

Dear god. Stop me. I know I am sounding morose. And I don’t mean to be. I’m just tussling with the realities of being 74 and not 24.

I intend to employ the same motto I used in running marathons and half-marathons: Finish with dignity intact.

Always train hard enough to make it across the finish line in an upright position, with a smile on your face.

But I meander here. Much like I might likely meander on the open trail in Scotland.

Getting back to where all this started: Who is the Wizard?

The answer? I don’t know.

But, like the answers to so many Big Questions today, it probably is found in an episode of the TV show “Ted Lasso.” Like the episode in which the coach unveils the four principles of Total Football to his team: He cites only the first three  – 1. Conditioning, 2. Versatility, and 3. Awareness. 

Ted Lasso’s first three principles can apply to long walks in the woods, like this one. You don’t set off to hike 100 miles beside lochs and across moors and through vales and over mountains without some conditioning. You don’t stay close friends for decades without practicing versatility and awareness.

And the fourth principle? Coach Lasso leaves that up to the team to discover, as their season progresses.

When you know, you know.

That will be our Wizard. That elusive Number four. We’ll know it when we see it.

Tomorrow afternoon, we take the train to Glasgow and early the next morning, we begin our hike on the West Highland Way.

I can’t wait to hit the Yellow Brick Road with our friends.