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!

One word sums up Sedona for me - WOW. And I haven't yet left the condo we're staying in - I've been catching up on work since we got here.
I can see beautiful rock formations out of our balcony in every direction. Once I get a few more things done we're heading to Bell Rock later today.
I'll be sure to post pictures to our Facebook page - so if you're not yet a fan, do it now!

We're in Flagstaff, Arizona this morning and heading to Sedona later. We had a lovely, relaxing weekend in Albuquerque with a fun side trip to Santa Fe. Yesterday we visited the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, and planned to stay somewhere nearby for the night. We soon discovered the closest towns are all casualties of the demise of Route 66, and chose to drive through to Flagstaff.

For nearly a week we've been following the ruins of Route 66 along Interstate 40 in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and now Arizona. In some places there are no visual cues that a community once thrived along a thoroughfare, other places are dotted with filling stations long closed, then there are sections still filled with shops and activity.

Route 66 is a great example of change - even during its heyday engineers constantly improved it as they developed technology to make the routes between cities more direct. As interstates were built, they first replaced rural sections of Route 66, gradually bypassing more and more cities. Businesses feared losing business once the bypasses were constructed, and rightly so. Just like in the movie Cars, communities did suffer, although there are efforts at conservation.

The Painted Desert National Park officially preserves a section of Route 66 within its boundaries, but there is not even a hint of where the road originally passed. I really enjoyed the 26-mile drive through the park and petrified forest, the sights were in the top few of my life so far (with Alaska still maintaining a significant lead for first place). There were scattered showers and even some hail when we drove through, which made the colors on the rocks more vibrant. The cloud formations casting shadows and splashing light on the vista made for some beautiful photographs even though we were just using our camera phones. Here is a shot of our tour bus in the park.

The last map was a big hit, so I've made another one as of today. We've driven about 3,600 miles, and it feels like it was all in the last two days. Driving from Dallas to Oklahoma City was fun (as was OKC), but the drive west through OK, the Texas panhandle, and northeast NM on I-40 was tedious. The road used to be Route 66, and there are spatterings of former landmarks here and there, then there are miles and miles of nothing.

We're taking a few days R&R in Albuquerque before heading to our next stop in Prescott, AZ. It is time for some time out, and I think this is the perfect location.

It sure is cold in Texas, and it's supposed to snow tomorrow! We've driven through 16 states so far, for a total of almost 2,900 miles. I've mapped out the route we've taken in this picture, with each of the stops we've made. I'll add to it periodically to show our progress.

I've been trying to really notice the differences and similarities from place to place. Different birds, trees, landscapes, but also the kinds of cars we see, and restaurant chains (today we saw the transition from Hardee's to Carl's Jr.). The similarities are striking - suburban America's shopping plazas are carbon copies. Going to Target in Memphis I easily found the items on my list with no surprises.

On one hand, this consistency is comforting, but on the other hand I wonder what kinds of unique local flavor have been sacrificed in the process. Communities frequently resist big box stores in favor of their "Mom & Pops" but I think many people just drive to the next closest location.

So much driving! We did push through and drive from Atlanta to Memphis in one shot, with a quick stop for dinner in Hamilton, AL where our Massachusetts license plates brought some excitement. We were able to relax for a bit on Beale Street in Memphis before getting back on the road today.

I'm on a very slow connection from a Hampton Inn in Arkansas, but it's not stopping me from getting things done. The hotel has an indoor pool, so I finally got to go for a swim. In between doing laundry, I used the business center to print out the offer letter for our house sale. It's pretty neat to be able to be halfway across the country yet still so connected that we can keep our plans at home moving along.

Tomorrow we'll be in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and probably will be in Texas for the rest of the week. I'm expecting everything to be bigger there, and to see some bright stars!

Well time flies! We drove to Gainesville on Tuesday night and had a nice visit with family Wednesday morning before driving to Atlanta. One member of our team is finishing his MBA online so Wednesday evening he had his first class session while in the car. He described it as unsettling, similar to the first time he used a cell phone in the car. We're hoping he doesn't have to do too many more classes in the car.

We have had a great visit with friends in Atlanta, and are heading to Memphis today for the weekend. We may push to drive the whole distance today, or we might decide to spend the night at a hotel partway. That is part of my flexibility lesson of this Tour.

We're ten days into the tour, and it feels like so much longer, but in a good way. I think we're settling well into life on the road, and it's good to set off on the next leg with clean laundry and a stocked fridge (yes, we have a fridge in the car!).