We arrived home yesterday. Here's the final map of our tour route. We drove 10,000 miles, through 31 states. We made stops in:

Simsbury, CT                        Amarillo, TX                        Sonoma, CA
Fredericksburg, VA                Albuquerque, NM                Incline Village, NV
Murrells Inlet, SC                   Santa Fe, NM                     Winnemucca, NV
Savannah, GA                       Painted Desert, AZ               Boise, ID
Orlando, FL                           Flagstaff, AZ                        Salt Lake City, UT
Gulfport, FL                           Sedona, AZ                         Ogallala, NE
Gainesville, FL                       Prescott Valley, AZ             Lincoln, NE
Atlanta, GA                           Palm Springs, CA                Iowa City, IA
Memphis, TN                         Santa Barbara, CA               Chicago, IL
Arkadelphia, AR                    San Luis Obispo, CA            Simsbury, CT
Arlington, TX                          Monterrey, CA                      Ashuelot, NH
Oklahoma City, OK                San Francisco, CA

Tomorrow will be my last tour post, full of reflections and learning from the trip.

I wanted to give a quick update that we made it all the way to Connecticut yesterday! I am having a "recovery" day today while my son plays with his grandma. We were in the car from 9:30am central time to 2:45am eastern time, and I feel like a pile of mush.

Although the tour won't officially be over until we are back in Boston, we are packing up now to depart Chicago for the drive back to New England. I feel a great sense of accomplishment, having let creative tension draw me towards my own Higher Purpose and personal vision. Creating Practicing on Purpose LLC was just the first step, now I need to mold it and grow it so it can reach its full potential as a change agent in the legal community.

I have about 900 miles in the car over the next couple of days to review, reflect and recharge and I'll keep you updated on the progress.

Sweet Home Chicago!

We arrived yesterday afternoon, for three nights. Tomorrow we have the Passionate Practice workshop, and there are still spots open if you're able to make it.

This will be our last stop on the tour, so I'll be posting some reflections of the trip on the last leg home. Just looking at the map (covering about 8,000 miles!) reaffirms that Legal Wellness, and this tour, has nourished my Purposes, especially my Higher Purpose. I've had lessons large and small, met scores of new people, and seen vistas more fantastic than science fiction produces.

Thanks for being with me, at least virtually, during this phenomenal experience!

Wow have we done a lot of driving in the past few days! I'll have more time to update our map later, when we'll be in Lincoln, NE or thereabouts. Tuesday we had an excellent workshop in Boise, then hit the road for Salt Lake City. After a day being tourists in SLC, we did a marathon drive yesterday to beat a winter storm coming through Wyoming. We drove 600 miles and made it to Ogalalla, Nebraska, where right now it is just raining, with a dusting of snow on the ground.

We only have about a thousand miles left on the trip, after driving over 7,000 so far. We have seen some beautiful parts of this country (and some boring ones too).

Yesterday brought us out of Nevada, through a bit of Oregon and into Idaho. We turned 6,000 miles on the trip, and hit our 24th state. The weather is beautiful in Boise and we are having a down-time day getting caught up on laundry and work. Tomorrow I am giving my Passionate Practice workshop, and I look forward to meeting the new people that will attend.

After Boise, we'll have a week to get to Chicago for my next Passionate Practice workshop, which will be about 28 hours driving time (~1750 miles). Doing more than 5 hours a day is a big push with a toddler, so we'll be just about maxed out that whole time. The big trick is timing the stops in locations that have facilities. When we drove from Tahoe to Boise, we stopped in Winnemucca, NV even though we could have endured more driving for the day, because we knew that we wouldn't see another hotel until we hit Boise's outskirts 5 hours later.

When we're in cities we usually use Priceline to get a good deal on a hotel, but that's not really an option for the more scattered parts of the country. In those situations I stick with Hampton Inn, where I know we'll be able to get an upgraded room and a free breakfast. Plus, for every 4 stays we get one free which offsets a bit of the lack of price savings.

After almost 40 days on the road, hotel living is definitely second nature. Good thing, as we'll be in hotels for the rest of the trip!

After a fun-filled day in San Francisco, we spent a day in Sonoma before our first leg on an eastbound interstate to Nevada. Driving over the Sierra Nevadas was thrilling, and I can't imagine what it must be like with new snow on the ground. We're now in Incline Village, NV on the shores of Lake Tahoe. We are going to get a big storm today, which hopefully will be cleared from the mountain roads before we leave tomorrow.

The rest of the trip back home is going to be very busy, with workshops in Boise and Chicago, and an IAHL retreat in St. Louis. We have a lot of miles to cover, but going east is easier than going west as the afternoon sun isn't shining in our toddler's eyes and he is much more tolerant of being in the car after 3pm.

I'm dreading the time change this weekend, with the change to Mountain Time right on its heels. It's so much easier to adjust to gaining an hour than losing an hour, and with Daylight Savings on top of it we'll probably be a bit out of sorts for a few days next week. By the time we get adjusted, we'll lose another hour in Central Time. But being flexible is part of the lesson (and the fun!).

We're in San Francisco today, which brings our mileage past 5,000 for the trip!

We had a nice, relaxing weekend in Palm Springs, then headed up the coast on Sunday. We stopped for a break in Santa Barbara before bunking for the night in San Luis Obispo.

Yesterday we chose to make the rest of the trek to the Bay area via route 1 instead of 101, hoping to enjoy the beautiful ocean scenery. We got to enjoy more of it than anticipated as Route 1 was under construction and reduced to one lane in a few spots. Then there was a rock slide blocking the road at one construction site, which put us at a complete standstill for an hour. We were out of cell service, but fortunately the satellite radio still worked. That delay made the rest of the ride seem more tedious as we were all tired of being in the car.

Today we were supposed to have a workshop in San Francisco, but it didn't get enough registrations, which surprised me as there had been quite a bit of interest. So San Francisco, you missed your chance this time!

Here is the map as of today. We have driven about 4,500 miles and hit 20 states!

I was sad to leave Sedona, but fortunately had good things to look forward to. Yesterday I gave a workshop in Prescott Valley, AZ for the Arizona Women Lawyer's Association. I met a great group of women and we had a fun time talking about passionate practice in the 90-Minute Makeover for Women.

When we left Prescott, headed towards Palm Springs, CA, our GPS sent us the scenic route. For about 20 miles we wound in and out and up and down mountains. We never realized Arizona had so many mountains! We hit the CA border right when the sun was beating in the front windshield, and stopped for a break to let the sun set. Even on the AZ border, California sunsets are beautiful. The clouds were shadowed in pink and the sky turned every shade of blue.

This morning we arrived in Palm Springs to visit family for the weekend. It's been 2 weeks since we've had hosts and it will be wonderful to visit and re-set ourselves.

Make sure to visit our Facebook page to see photos of where we've been!