Road Trip

For the last three and one half years, I've been commuting from Boston and then Baltimore to Scottsdale, Arizona for my real job.  I rented a two bedroom furnished condo in Scottsdale and split my time evenly between the two locations.  I usually fly from Baltimore to Phoenix on Sunday and then fly home the following Friday.  I spend one week at home and return to Phoenix the next Sunday.  In addition to racking up a bunch of frequent flyer miles, I  was often exhausted from the travel.  I have decided that as of June 30, 2011, I am leaving my job to pursue something closer to home.

In order to do that, I have to fly to Phoenix (which I'm doing the day after tomorrow) and drive my car back to Baltimore.  Hence, the road trip.  This trip is approximately 2500 miles.  In other words, I'm not just running out to the grocery store.  Even if I take 5 days to make the trip, it will still require me to drive 500 miles every day.  Arrrgh!

It isn't all bad, however.  I've asked my oldest sister, Fran, who lives in Dallas if she would make the trip with me.  She said yes so now I have a partner.  At least I'll have someone to talk to while I drive.  She isn't going to be much help with the driving because she isn't comfortable driving my car.  I drive a Lexus SUV and she is tiny.  I don't just mean short.  She is really tiny and just can't see well in my car.  I am, however, grateful for the company.

We have planned our route so that we can stop and visit some folks along the way.  Of course, before we can start that, I have to get to Dallas to pick her up.  From Phoenix to Dallas, is approximately 1200 miles.  I've planned two days for that part of the trip.  I'm leaving Phoenix on Monday morning so I should be arriving in Dallas sometime late Tuesday afternoon.  I'll spend the night at Fran's and we'll head out together on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, we plan on driving to Little Rock, AR or Memphis, TN, depending on how far we get.  We'll spend the night in one of those cities and drive to Ft. Thomas, KY on Thursday,  This will be one of our best stops because we are stopping to see my son, his lovely wife and all three of my grandkids.  I think we'll be in Ft. Thomas until Monday or Tuesday morning.  I'm not sure yet.  While we're in Ft. Thomas, we are planning to head over to New Albany to visit our dad's brother and sister that neither of us have seen in the last 30 years.  I'm also hoping we can take a grandkid or two to meet them.

Then on either Monday or Tuesday, we will drive from Ft. Thomas to Baltimore which takes about 8 hours.  My sister will stay at my house for a day or two and then fly back to Dallas.

I'm busily looking up bead stores along our route.  I thought it might be really fun to visit a different store wherever we stay.  When I started looking for bead stores, I realized we are only staying in one hotel on the trip from Dallas to Baltimore.  It didn't seem like much fun to just visit a store in Little Rock or Memphis.   Now I'm thinking we need to visit any interesting bead stores that we can find along the way.  This should certainly help break up the drive.

I'll try to post along the way but obviously, my business will be taking a few days off next week while I move home and get settled.

Let me know if you know of any interesting bead stores between Phoenix and Baltimore!