1, 2, Breathe... annnnd JUMP...

...into the Great American Road Trip (en GART)!

Tomorrow is my last day at work - they aren't renewing my contract, and my manager - who is the kindest man on the planet! - gave me a 4 week notice instead of one or 2 weeks, so I've had time to organize finances and my sea of STUFF, most of which is already in storage. I'm going through what's in my room now and wondering why in the heck I kept all this. Besides the books. You can never have too many books... I will miss him and my teammates. I know I keep saying it, but the people in this office are just... well, I've never met a kinder, more connected group. Truly excellent human beings. Thomson Reuters has been a wonderful place to work.

Hankering to leave LA for colder climes in the last few years, I never intended to stay more than 5 - 10 years in the first place, and since leaving Burbank last year and putting all my stuff in storage (minus the $300 chair I bought 3 week ago! :) A gal needs her creature comforts! Hey - it was on sale down from $500 and it's marvelously comfy and cute.)

It's a Sign! How's this for tidy continuity? I arrived on 1 June 2007 via Interstate 10, and am leaving on 10 June 2017 via I-10. Ten years and ten days apart on I10. It tickles my sense of synchronicity. So is that 10 cubed? Or binary? Does the "I" make it irrational? "i AM irrational!" But you knew that. :) Haha! "It's a sign!! I have no idea what it means, but it's a sign!" That should be a bumper sticker. haha - now THAT should be a bumper sticker! "i AM irrational!" :) ...I hear you giggling over there.

Da Plan. When I decided to go back east, my son Patrick said he couldn't drive with me because he has to work (I was going to leave on the 3rd or 5th), so I asked my friend Caitlin (we are Team Caitliyn!). Then Patrick let it be known that he could come if we leave on the 10th. So Caitlin is flying in from Philadelphia on the 8th, we'll spend 2 days saying goodbye to LA. The Body Works exhibit is at the California Science Center along with the space shuttle Endeavour (I wonder if they had Capt Cook in mind?) and my favorite favorite place in all of LA: The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. They have a rare books room with a Shakespearean manual, documents signed by the Founding Fathers (Thomas Jefferson, et al.), original Audubon drawings of birds... The botanical gardens is 50 acres (about 20 hectares) with different areas representing different ecosystems around the world - including Sonoran desert. The Chinese and Japanese gardens and tea houses are just scrumptious! If I got lost at the Huntington and they never found me and I died, I couldn't ask for a happier ending!

I'm sorry, what was the question? :)

Oh yes. So Caitlin and I will drive out on the morning of the 10th through Las Vegas to Flagstaff, Az. As it happens, my parents will be in Flag for 3 weeks, and they are driving up with Patrick that same morning. Caitlin has never been to Las Vegas, and I haven't been since college, so we'll have lunch and poke around a bit. After picking up Patrick, we'll head to the Grand Canyon (which Caitlin hasn't seen yet either), putz around there for a few hours, then spend the night in southern Utah, in Kanab.

We'll have lunch the next day in Salt Lake City, and spend the night of the 11th in a tiny town in Idaho about 45 minutes outside of Yellowstone National Park (which is in Wyoming). None of us have been there. Actually that's not true. Remember when I was in Wyoming about 25 years ago, training horses in Cody? Cody is nestled against the back side of the park. We rode the horses in and spent the night at a hunting campsite one weekend. It was a 3 hour ride. So I have not been to the visitor's centre area, Old Faithful, and all that on the front end of the park. Apparently there's a bear and wolf centre too. Gotta check that out! :)

From there we'll go to Crazy Horse National monument that commemorates Crazy Horse, a Sioux freedom fighter. We were going to stop at Mt Rushmore, but apparently traffic crawls in for 2 hours, and then out for 2 more, and it's not all that impressive. Patrick has close friends from South Dakota and Montana who advocated for Crazy Horse instead of Rushmore. Rushmore is kind of associated with super-uber patriotism and this day and age, that is something I'd just as soon not participate in. Ugh!!

Next stop is Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We'll drive from Yellowstone to Crazy horse (which is only 16 miles from Mt. Rushmore) to Sioux falls, South Dakota, through the Bad Lands. None of us have through this area at all. Yay! New territory!

The next day, we'll drive to Chicago and have dinner with a good friend Ben and his wife. Ben is one of my brother Nathaniel's best friends. The 3 of us used to work on a landscape screw together when I was in college. Ben's a musician. So on the way to Chicago, we're going to take a small detour to Spirit Lake, Iowa for a lunchtime hike. We'll spend that night in Toledo, Ohio. Or possibly Grand Beach, Michigan. :) The next day, the 5th, we'll go to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and drop Caitlin off, and hang out, and then Patrick and I will noodle our way to Baltimore, Maryland, and stay with my dad's cousin Patty. She's about 10 years older than I, and we haven't seen each other since I was about 18. Baltimore is lovely. :) So looking forward to it!! Turns out, Patty plays the ukulele! I sent her some Irish sheet music. I don't know if she'll take a stab at it, but it'll be fun. So yes, I'm taking my violin. Patty's son, Piper, is 17, so hopefully he and Patrick will hit it off. Patty's very excited, too. :)

Digression... I don't remember if I told you this, but a few years ago, my mom gave me my grandfather's violin, than I bought a 5-string green acoustic/electric violin, and then later, a blue 5-string acoustic/electric. I also ended up with 2 amps! Last Friday, I sold the blue one + it's amp (I made a $70 profit), sent Grandpa's violin to my mom with Patrick and am putting the green one and its amp in storage, and am taking my violin with me. :)

So on 17 June, Patrick is flying home to Tucson. I've been having some phone interviews for jobs, so I'm hoping to have a face-to-face interview lined up for Monday the 19th. I'll spend a few weeks with Patty in Baltimore, and then a few weeks with Rindy in Washington DC. She works at the Library of Congress, so I'm hoping she can give me a private tour! Hopefully by the end of July I'll have a job and my own place. I'm job hunting where I have friends and family: From Boston all the way down to DC. Well, I have family in North Carolina, too, of course, but I wouldn't want to live there.

The Big Battle. So that's the story thus far. :) Will keep you posted as the journey continues. The big battle is getting Patrick to accept the fact that I'm not using GPS. We have maps. Yes, we'll use GPS if things get sticky, but not as a rule. The goal is to drive 12 hours a day. Since there are 3 of us, and lots of stops for walks and hikes and all, it's totally doable, albeit ambitious. We'll be on the road from the 10th - 15th, and spend 2 days in Baltimore before Patrick flies home.

The List. Yes, THAT List. One neat aspect of this trip is that it will add 9 more states to my List!! Yes that List. The List is one of the quintessential American Things: All the states you've visited, and a layover in an airport doesn't count. My list so far is Ca, Az, Wa State, Hawaii, New Mex, Colorado, Wyo, Utah, Nevada, Tex, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Tennessee, N Carolina, S Carolina, Georgia, Mass., Connecticut, NY, N Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. 24 states. This trip will add Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

SCORE!! :>

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#Breathe