My Nomad Journey – Weeks 23-26

I am writing this post from a diner on the main street through Princeton, New Jersey. It seems this is now becoming a monthly post! Although the last month has been very eventful with lots going on. I am officially back on the road again and moving locations frequently. So this post will have lots of details and updates. I’m experiencing the road again the way I had imagined it – challenges and all. See what’s new on my end in this latest report.

Here’s what I did:

The week before I left Atlanta, I got sick! I had always wondered what I would do with getting sick on the road and I was very fortunate to get sick while still staying at my friend’s house. It hit HARD and I spent an entire day in bed, after clearing my calendar. I slept for almost 24 hours. For some reason, the worst of it was in 2 days, but it took another week to recover. I was so glad I wasn’t in a motel or having to drive for 8 hours while going through this!!!

I spent my last half week in Atlanta at my friend’s house, petsitting while she was away for work. The week was filled with not only my regular work, but also planning my stops, booking hotels, making arrangements and thinking about my luggage routine again. I’d pretty much been “settled in” for the last 5 months. I needed to think about life in-and-out of a trunk and different stops again. I also spent a lot of time with the dog, Bella and making sure she would remember me. LOL! It was with very mixed emotions that I handed everything off to another pet sitter on Wednesday morning and hit the road. I could feel the “bigness” of what I was doing and felt such strange feelings that were difficult to describe.

My next destination was New Jersey, for some commitments I had there. I decided to break up the drive and stay in Richmond, Virginia. The 8 hour drive was smooth and uneventful, while also routing me away from some of the main routes to avoid traffic and accidents. I was able to see parts of the road that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen. This also now took me through part of the country I’ve not traveled before. I had a quick night in Richmond and ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant (looks like folks in that area don’t handle heat!) I also talked about travel with the front desk agent who travels around to help properties in her hotel chain.

Next I was on the road to New Jersey. This drive was only about 5 hours. I was very excited because a colleague who lives in Washington DC had been emailing with me earlier in the week. On a whim, we made arrangements to meet for lunch in the city, just a few minutes from the Capitol. It was exciting to be able to stop in the city spontaneously! I had also never DRIVEN in the city. While I have been through the airport many times and I have been in Georgetown while in my twenties, I hadn’t been through these parts of DC. I drove past the Pentagon, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and under the capitol building while on my way to meet my colleague for lunch. We had never met in person and it was a great time! We had great food, got to know each other on a personal level, share stories and histories, and we shared our hopes and plans for the future. I so appreciated deepening this friendship and all that she shared with me.

I arrived in the New Brunswick area of New Jersey by evening. After picking up some groceries, I checked into my motel and setup for work the next day, preparing to teach online classes and coaching clients. While not a fancy property, it was clean and I had a kitchenette and all the things I needed for a few nights. Friday’s workday was productive and I got ready for the 40th Anniversary event for New Jersey Orators the next day. I was on the board of directors for this nonprofit for 6 years until this year. I promised to return for this milestone event and offer my help in whatever way I could. It was great to see the President and Founder in person again, after a few years of only Zoom and phone. It was also great to see several board members and to witness this celebration of the hard work and talent for some many of these amazing Orators. While it was quite a bit of work helping setup, support the event and tear down, it was a pleasure and I’m so glad I made this part of my itinerary.

The next day, I was flying to Sacramento for a week of work, appointments and checking in on the home front. Since my travels will continue here on the east coast, I parked my car near the Newark airport, using an app to find and pay for reasonable rates. Parking at Newark Airport’s economy section is $30/day now!!! Despite the issues with air traffic control that Newark airport had been experiencing over the prior few weeks, my flight was on time and was a smooth 5+ hours to San Francisco, where I was connecting. I had a quick dinner of Chinese fast food (like what you’d have at the mall food court) and that came to a whopping $29 !!!! The 30-minute flight over to Sacramento was smooth and it’s always fun to see the delta and mountains that lay between San Francisco and Sacramento.

The week in Sacramento was BUSY! I had a full schedule each day. Also, because these appointments were booked when I was on the east coast, the time shift meant getting up extra early each morning. I had my usual virtual work – classes, clients, and meetings. I also presented a new workshop in-person for a group of 30 emerging leaders and was very pleased with how it all turned out. I’m so grateful to be able to do this work. Because of my schedule, I wasn’t able to do my usual social rounds and visit friends. I did get an eye exam and had a dermatologist appointment. I looked like I had been in a fight after having multiple spots sprayed with liquid nitrogen and one biopsy on my forehead. The curse of us non-melanated folks is that bad sun exposure from the first half of our lives will show up in the later years. After a full week, I caught my red eye flight back to New Jersey.

Arriving on Sunday morning, I picked up my car (without issues, fortunately!). This week I was staying with two different friends.

I spent the first half of the week in northern NJ with a colleague and friend who graciously invited me to stay. While we have known each other for years, we have never spent any significant time one-on-one and socializing. We had a delightful few days of telling stories about our pasts and getting to know each other more, outside of the work circles. Also, on Memorial Day, he suggested we drive into the city (NYC) to see an exhibition at the Met. While I’ve been to NYC many, many times before, (I lived about 35 miles outside of NYC for 2 years) I had never DRIVEN into Manhattan! However, as locals who lived in close proximity, this was normal for him and so we did. We were lucky because there was no traffic due to the holiday. So our little journey to the city, across the George Washington Bridge, down the Westside Highway, across the upper West side, through Central Park and into the parking garage under the Met was so “normal”! It was like driving to the grocery store! What an adventure. LOL. The museum and exhibitions were amazing. From leaving his house to returning, we made the whole trip in under 3 hours. Crazy! I interspersed my work schedule with visits on his porch. I was also fortunate to visit another colleague for coffee who also lives in the region. She and I have worked together for years and never met in person! What a treat.

Midweek, I moved to Central New Jersey to pet sit for a friend. I was looking forward to this visit because he has 3 cats. You may not know, but I had cats my entire life, until 2021. As a child there were cats everywhere. As an adult, I tended to always have 2 cats at a time, sometimes there was a 3rd. Sadly, one of my cats passed away suddenly in late 2020 and the other cat also passed suddenly in May 2021. I haven’t really spent time with cats since that date. So the prospect of hanging out with three of them was exciting! One of the three, an older kitten named Benji, is an exact duplicate of my sweet Jackpot, who passed in 2021. I still carry a lot of guilt and hard feelings about her passing, as she was very special to me. Benji looked, acted, talked (a little), and felt so much like Jackpot. I thought it was interesting (fate???) that I began this petsitting stay on the anniversary of Jackpot’s passing 4 years prior. After a few days, I took it as a sign that Jackpot was telling me it is time to put down the guilt and know that I did the best I could for her. Benji was a gift for me in so many ways, even if she was sometimes annoying, as kittens can be.

On the Saturday of my stay, I decided to drive to Brooklyn and explore. Of all the time I’ve spent in NYC, I’ve never explored Brooklyn or Queens. So, given our adventure on Monday with the Met, I decided it would be easier to drive there than to try all of the transit legs and connections. From central NJ, you can actually go up through Staten Island and skirt around Manhattan to get to Brooklyn. However, on that day, there must’ve been significant traffic issues, because the navigation took me up to Jersey City, through the Holland Tunnel, across the Financial District, over the Brooklyn Bridge and into DUMBO Brooklyn (stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). What an adventure that was!!! Again, because it was Saturday morning, traffic was light. So I lucked out. However, that “adventure” was a PRICEY drive: New Jersey Transit was $10+ for that stretch. The toll for the Holland Tunnel is $18+. Parking in DUMBO was $42 for three hours. And while I did go the south route to get back to NJ via Staten Island, the toll for the Verrazano Bridge was $11+. Worth it for one time. I wouldn’t do that more than once! I walked around the waterfront of the East River, with panoramic views of lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. I had lunch at a food hall and then a coffee and donut at a local spot a few blocks to the east into Brooklyn. I walked through a flea market, explored the streets, sat on the river and watched the people and just enjoyed the day. Visiting and walking around NYC always awes me. No matter how many times I visit and spend time and transit through here, it still seems like an amusement park to me. AND, even more important than all the high rises, I am always humbled by the melting pot of cultures and languages I see. I love thinking about how many people from all over the planet have traveled these streets. It was a great day. After, I went to the gym for a workout, then back to the apartment to tend to the cats and relax for the evening.

To end the week and this post, I transferred to my hotel for the week ahead, where I will have a busy work week and focus on meeting some looming deadlines, while also planning out logistics for the next month. I’ll also share below one funny story about how my luggage routine has changed – again!

Here’s what I learned:

I’m always talking about my journey with uncertainty. This month was no exception. I continue to live in uncertainty and discomfort, because I’m making this journey up as I go. There is no master plan. I don’t have hotels and resorts pre-booked. I don’t have a huge budget to ensure I always have luxurious places to stay. And I don’t really know where all this is going or what I will do after this runs its course. However, I am challenging myself to recognize that I chose all of this. I am doing it the way I wanted and allowing myself to do it in unconventional ways. I also want to acknowledge myself for the fact that I can choose discomfort in the ways that I am. Because ultimately, this discomfort is part of a larger Comfort – my freedom. And it feels also like I’m training myself for something that I can’t quite predict yet. But overall, I am really living week to week and month to month. I have a sketch of the plan, but it changes regularly. And I’m okay with that… most days.

I am currently working with my coach to challenge my tendency to catastrophize. This has been a lifelong issue for me. I often default to a negative mindset about future outcomes; fearing the worst, assuming disaster and generally thinking somehow I will end up in failure. I know this is common for MANY people. I also know (intellectually) that there’s no way to predict this. But the feelings are there, especially when I can’t see what the future holds. So I’m actively working on being present and reminding myself, through interruption of the negative voice, that things ARE working out for my best good. It’s hard in this current world we live in. There are so many reasons to be anxious and fearful. So I will work on choosing a different path. I suppose I should apply my “weirdo thinking” that I’ve said I want to live by to this, as well. Rather than go the “easy” way toward negative thinking, I should “go my own way” and remind myself that whatever the future holds for me, it won’t be whatever I’m thinking. It will be something different.

I am also getting more and more comfortable with living in a state of work/life fluidity. I maintain a work week and keep my weekends free, but because I use my virtual tools and apps, I’m able to “work” when inspiration strikes. I keep Apple Notes for almost everything I work on, so if I’m out and about and think of a task, reminder, note or logistic, I can easily log these things, along with making calendar appointments, etc. I also do all of my bookkeeping using mobile apps. Gone are the days of setting aside time each month to do my accounting. When I have an expense while traveling, I log it and take pictures of the receipts as soon as I’m done tapping to pay. I also regularly find myself in “inspired flow”, where I have ideas for workshops or content or questions or more. I’m able to quickly capture those thoughts in notes. I’m able to quickly make edits to powerpoint decks, using my phone. While this isn’t how I manage my work when I’m in full productivity mode, it gives me peace of mind knowing that I can quickly capture my creative inspirations when they strike. Airplane time and coffee shops can be powerful, even if I only need 10 minutes.

One of the earliest posts I wrote in this series was about my packing and luggage plan. Knowing that I would be hauling things in and out of my trunk and into hotels and houses, I originally wanted to make it simple for myself and reduce the number of bags. I purchased a large rolling duffel with lots of pockets and room. This bag worked great, acting as my “mobile closet” for the first 6 months of my journey. While the simplicity of having everything in one bag seemed like a good idea, the reality of hauling it up multiple flights of stairs over and over again was NOT a great experience. Also, it didn’t function well in the sense of getting things in and out of it on a daily basis. (I like to live “out of my bag”, rather than unpack everything and repack it.) So during this last weekend, I shuffled everything out of the big duffel back into 3 smaller ones. One for clothes ONLY. (Just the fabric. Nothing else.) One for toiletries and things I use on a daily basis. And a third one for “extras”, stuff I only need situationally. This includes extra cords, hardware, emergency items, and seasonal stuff. My backpack with my computers and accessories always stands alone. I also have my roll aboard suitcase that I use for flights. I keep that in the truck with my dress clothes/shoes (for presenting in-person) and some seasonal things like jackets. I swap it all out when I need to fly. Let me tell you, this new system seems to be way more comfortable and functional. I might need to make 2 trips to unload, but the bags are lighter and it’s so much easier to access what I need quickly. I just had to share and acknowledge how I’m always looking for “a better way” and willing to scrap old systems to create new outcomes. I should acknowledge myself for that in other ways in my life!!!

Here’s what’s next:

This week I have lots of work from my motel room. Classes, clients, meetings and booking logistics and some flights for client trips. Midweek, I will meet an old friend from NYC and we will go a few hours north of the city for the rest of the week and weekend. I’m looking forward to that!

I have two weeks in the middle of June with no plans, so will be deciding how I want to spend those, before flying to Miami the last week of the month for a work trip.

From Miami, I will return to NYC area to pick up my car and I plan to drive to Maine and spend a few days (or more?) there, to explore for the first time.

In July, I will be driving my way back to the west coast, via the northern states. Making stops to visit friends along the way. I also have another “fly to” trip for a client at the end of the month.

August I will be in Denver for a work engagement. I would also very much like to make the drive to Anchorage in August, before their winter sets in.

September will be in Sacramento, with a trip to Philadelphia for a client engagement.

After September, the canvas is blank and I will be thinking about what the next year looks like.

These are very uncertain times for all of us in the United States, regardless of affiliation. I am appreciating my journey and listening closely to myself and my surroundings while I move around. I’m still not sure where all of this goes, but it occurs to me that, perhaps, I won’t know until I get someplace and look back at it. An idea occurred to me the other day that perhaps I’ll make my own little movie or something. Narrating the adventure in retrospective. I don’t know. You all know how good I am about keeping up with posting along the way. Please keep yourselves safe and healthy. Reach out and let’s connect. I’d love to see you if I’m coming through your town!

As always, please interact with this post. I love getting your questions, your thoughts, and your comments. I’ll reply when I’m able.

Please enjoy yourselves in this week ahead and look for another update from me about the adventures of the journey. Be well my friends!

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