My Nomad Journey – Weeks 12, 13 & 14

Saludos de Florida! As has become more my “normal” than not, I’m posting for the last handful of weeks. I’m not going to worry about trying to update every week. Let’s just go with the flow! (He says to himself, for his own comfort. 🤣)

After being stationary for the majority of the winter, my journey has brought me back out on the road again. Now that I have completed that large-scale contract gig, I’m able to hit the road again and get back out visiting people. So read on to hear what I’ve been up to for the month of February, over the past few weeks!

Here’s what I did:

I made a brief trip back to Sacramento to attend to some business. I taught classes for a client in the Napa area and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. While there, I also rolled in some appointments that needed to be taken care of in-person, such as the dentist and other important matters. One thing that was fun about this trip was not having to pack a lot of clothes to carry. Since Sacramento is home, I was able to just use the clothes and personal effects that I already have at home while I was there, then put them away before flying back out again.

On the way back to Atlanta to rejoin my friend and my car, I had major flight issues. What a story! While at the airport in Sacramento, I started getting alerts about flight delays, due to “operations” or “incoming aircraft”. What started as a single delay, turned into more delays, and then delay notifications about every 15-20 minutes, continually pushing back the departure. Eventually, the flight was delayed past the point of making my connection in Denver. Okay, so now we rebook through Chicago instead, with about a 2 hour later arrival in Atlanta. No worries, right? We get underway to Chicago, arrive on time and settle in for my 2 hour layover. Well wouldn’t you know…? After only a short while there, I start getting the same notifications again, but this time for the Chicago-to-Atlanta leg. Different airport, different city, different aircraft, different route. Once again, “operations” or “incoming aircraft”. Now mind you, there was weather in the northeast, but this was never acknowledged or announced. (NOTE: I’m getting these updates on the airline’s app and text/email notifications, by the way.) At first it was 20 minute delays, then 30, then an hour and then pretty much every 30 minutes we were being pushed back by hours and hours. Instead of arriving Atlanta at 7pm, we went to 10pm, 11pm, midnight, then 1am, 2am, and so on. I started to think it would be wise to just switch my flight to the next morning and get a hotel by the airport. But it was below 20 degrees outside, I didn’t have a coat, and I was afraid I might miss the opportunity to get home that night. Also, the flights for the next day were filling up, so that had me worried too. After over 4 hours of this “game” of clockwork-like notifications, I finally broke down and braved the cold in only a long-sleeve shirt, to uber to a motel and get some sleep, before a 7am flight the next day. What’s crazy is that many folks stayed in the airport in the hopes that the flight would still board at 1am or 2am. From the comfort of my bed and pillow, I finally got a notification at 12:30 that they had canceled the flight and offered vouchers for food and hotel. What a mess! I suspect that they knew all along that flight was not going out, but they played the “game” of delays until well after midnight, when people could have already made other arrangements! I was certainly under not illusion, though, that there was anything special about this flight or me. This is just what happens and it happens all the time, all airlines. I was grateful that I got on the morning flight, no delays and got back to Atlanta by noon, 18 hours later than scheduled. How funny that I spent the night in Chicago, when i was never even supposed to be there!

Back in Atlanta, we had pretty cold winter weather, with temperatures in the 20s and 30s, off and on for the week. Work continued and I was also able to take a day or so to recover from the jet lag. This surprised me, because normally I don’t have much jet lag traveling from coast to coast. This one was like traveling overseas! I was tired for 2 whole days! It was good to regroup with my friend and her dog and spend some time catching up.

Next on the schedule was Florida. I had a plan for visiting a friend in Miami for a week, followed by another set of friends in Boynton Beach the following week. It was fun packing for the trip. While I was wearing seats and coats in Atlanta, I was packing shorts and t-shirts for south Florida. The day I left Atlanta, it was 23 degrees at 7am, but when I arrived in Miami at 7pm, it was 76 degrees. You gotta love that!

The road trip from Atlanta to Miami takes about 10 hours, but I make frequent stops for eating, peeing and stretching my legs. So I generally add an hour of time to every 6 hours of drive time, just to be safe. The drive was nice – sunny weather and smooth roads. Once I crossed the state line into Florida, however, the drivers became much more “assertive”. Now mind you, I’m not a timid driver. I drive with a sense of purpose! 😁 But these folks on this day were making me feel slow and timid. Normally, the quickest route would take me through Orlando, over to the east coast, and then down through Ft. Lauderdale and into Miami. However, the navigation revealed a huge traffic situation in Orlando, with an hour delay. So instead I rerouted to drive down the west coast of Florida, through Tampa, Fort Meyers, Sarasota and Naples, eventually crossing the Everglades into the eastern Miami suburbs. This route was only 20 minutes longer and I was able to drive through a whole side of the state I’ve never been to before! Nomad journey creates another opportunity to see something new.

In Miami, I stayed with my friend and we had a mostly domestic schedule. She worked in the office during the day, while I worked from her living room or the downstairs lounge in her apartment building. Work aside, the weather was awesome. Unlike the blistering Florida summers, we had temperatures in the 70s most of the week. Sometimes it went up into the low 80s. We were able to get out and walk in the evenings and go to nearby restaurants. During the week, we enjoyed Indian, Italian, Cuban, Vegan Cuban, brunches and the somewhat rare Mexican restaurant. Lots of great food (how about having a vegetarian Patacon for the first time???). We were able to get over to Miami beach one evening for some sand and water time. I took an afternoon to explore downtown Miami, the Miami river and Brickell City Center, while taking advantage of Miami’s light rail transit system. My friend took me to “The Grove”, which is what the locals call a village-like part of Coconut Grove, filled with trendy restaurants, shops and more. We visited the Saturday farmers market there, which was very impressive and I enjoyed that a lot. I also had a meeting with a prospective client in the Miami area, which I’m excited to see unfold.

I can’t talk about Miami without speaking about the culture and the languages. Miami is truly a melting pot with people, culture and influences from all over the world, but particularly the Caribbean. Hay muchos hispanohabladores ahi, y hay muchas dialectos que hablan. There are many types of spanish spoken there, with influences from Cuba, Puerto Rico and many other spanish-speaking countries. It was a great opportunity for me to continue to practice my spanish. I got lots of practice and enjoyed being able to challenge myself. It was also nice to be someplace where I could sit back and just listen to all the different forms of spanish and see what I recognized. Of course the culture showed up in so many other ways, including how people treated each other, the music, the food and even how people drive. (Honking is a thing in the Miami area!) There were also lots of other island cultures and influences, especially Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Bahamas, and so much more. I didn’t get to explore these communities as much, but their influence was evident everywhere in the city.

After a week in Miami, I drove up to Boynton Beach to stay with friends there. While the entire South Florida coastal area is one large metroplex, the cities and communities from south to north are distinctly different. So there’s a whole different vibe in the northern beach communities than in Miami. All good, of course. Like in Miami, my schedule in Boynton is work during the day and we did our socializing and visiting on the weekends and evenings. On the first full day in Boynton, I was surprised with a visit to McArthur State Park on the intracoastal (the body of water that separates the mainland from the keyes and the ocean). There, we rented kayaks and paddled out on the water for a few hours, watching the sky, the local bird life and some larger birds diving for fish. (I can’t remember the type of bird we googled.) No alligators though! That was a lot of fun, even if it showed me how weak my upper body/shoulders are. Paddling is not a motion I perform in daily life – at least not outside of my head and my thoughts. 🤣 After, we had an overpriced brunch with tasty food and some people watching at a marina. We were so full and tired, we were pretty lazy for the rest of the day and never even cooked dinner. Well, I did have a lot of peanut M&Ms, if that counts.

So I bring this diary to a stopping point here, since I have the rest of this week in Florida, before heading back to Atlanta and my travels from there.

Here’s what I learned:

People are generally nice and have positive intentions. I have now traveled across a broad swath of the country and have found most people to be kind, welcoming and sincere. If they are not that, then the worst I’ve experienced is people who just want to mind their own business. I’m not sure that I was looking for anything different, but I’m experiencing something that is very different from what a lot of my social media would have me belief.

I continue to observe and practice adaptability. It has been fun to move from location to location and witness how I adjust to different people’s homes, schedules, pet arrangements and more. Everyone is so gracious to make space for me and I really enjoy finding ways to make my footprint lighter so that I can fit into all different shapes and sizes of bedrooms, bathrooms and work spaces. It is also fun to “be a roommate” to so many different folks and spend time with people in different ways. All while also getting my work done!

Speaking of work, I continue to find new ways to adapt to working from the road. Sometimes, I really need to spread out and have significant privacy for teaching, complex work, and private client calls. Other times, I realize I’m “holing myself up indoors” when I could just as easily accomplish what I need on a patio, at a coffee shop, or even in a park. I’ve enjoyed challenging my old beliefs about how I “should” be working and where it’s possible to get work done.

I’ve continued to practice my spanish. I keep my spanish lessons each week and have challenged my self to ask for permission to practice with spanish speakers in restaurants, stores and other settings. It’s not always comfortable, and some days are better than others, but at least I’m keeping the habit going. I also focus on trying to communicate with the vocabulary that I have, rather than try to say things they way I might say them in english.

While driving around different places, I don’t have the same number of walking opportunities that I used to have in a downtown setting. However, I’m loving my gym membership and still manage to get into the gym at least 3 days a week. It’s pretty easy to work this into the schedule and/or make a stop when I’m between destinations. I think I’ve worked out in 5 or 6 different locations now?

I’m also finding myself feeling a pull toward maybe canceling all of my social media accounts. I’m having some honest conversations with myself about the value they actually offer. I mostly keep them active for professional reasons. Socially, I don’t really use them to interact with others anymore. Professionally, I’m mostly using them to publicize the podcast. Overall, I don’t really know that they are doing anything useful anymore. And to be clear, I am NOT willing to shift into jumping through all the hoops that it would take to change the algorithm and make them more active. I haven’t made any decisions, but I’ve already deleted Facebook. I’ll probably keep Linkedin and definitely Substack, but I’m seriously considering deleting Instagram and TikTok. To this point, while I was in Sacramento, I renewed my library card and have started reading novels again, using the Libby app. Since I’ve been reading on breaks and at bedtime again, my scrolling time on social media has dropped a LOT and I don’t really think about it as much. I also don’t feel like I’m “up to date” as much, but that really doesn’t bother me like I thought it would. Like when I quit drinking over 3 years ago, I am pretty confident that my life would be just fine if I were to just quit. What do you think?

Here’s what’s next:

Now that springtime is approaching and the summer thereafter, the road calls!

In March/April, I have several work trips that will have me flying from east to west and back.

In April, I have some petsitting commitments, but it’s also open for me to potentially make some short road trips and explore places in the southeast parts of the US.

In May and June, I plan to work my way up along the east coast to New Jersey and the New York City area. I’ll spend some time catching up with friends and colleagues there. After, I want to drive through Vermont and Maine, then into Canada. My Canadian friends strongly suggests driving up to Nova Scotia.

In late June/July, I would like to catch up with some friends and colleagues in Ohio and surrounding states. Based on some changes to my work schedule, I would like to drive over to North and South Dakota from there. I’ve never been through these states and this would be an ideal opportunity to explore, based on proximity.

I have a work trip back to Orlando, FL in late July. I’ll decide whether to build my travels and drive there, or fly.

In August, I have commitments in Sacramento again. From there, I would like to make the drive from Sacramento to Anchorage, Alaska. I had planned to do that last summer, but scheduling and budget pushed that to the “later” list. Now I have time to plan!

Other commitments bring me back to Sacramento and the west through September.

By October, November and December, the schedule is open. I would really like to make some overseas trips at this time of year, which I have done in the past. It’s a good time of year to do it.

Overall, the schedule is open and flexible. That’s the plan, until or unless something else comes along. I’ve already flexed a number of times since my original departure. I’m really enjoying the “discovery” and even just the visualizing of where I might go next!

Until my next report, I hope this message finds you safe, healthy, and well. Things are crazy in our country, so I believe that if we focus locally, touch the people in our community and family and stay focused on how we can help those in need, we can go a long way to improving our mental and emotional health, along with others who depend on us also.

Be safe and reach out to let me know how you’re doing! As always, please interact with this post. I love getting your questions, your thoughts, and your comments. I’ll reply when I’m able.

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