Logistics of Leaving

Planning a 3-6 month road trip takes some serious preparation. Especially when planning to never stay in a hotel. I will have had just about 2 weeks from the conception of the idea for the trip to when I depart. These are some of the things I've been busy doing to prepare:

1) Smile.amazon.com has been a good friend to me lately as I've purchased many items utilizing my prime account to help ensure my trip is safe, while getting to support my favorite charity! Items such as: 

- Hands free head set for my phone

- Cooler that can plug in to the cigarette lighter in the car

- Dog ear cleaner, clorox wipes, shampoo/conditioner
- Various car plug/wall plug converters

- Hyperkewl dog bed to keep Bundle cool in the hot summer zones

I've also ordered other items like a car rack, boat cover...etc. Ensuring everything arrives on time has been interesting, but everything has!

2) My trusty yellow legal pad. I have three brains I use on a regular basis. The one on my shoulders is pretty good, but it definitely needs it's sidekicks the computer and legal pad. I don't really use the computer to make lists because I like being able to cross things off properly and add to it easily without having to boot anything up. There's also the added enjoyment of throwing away the list when it's done!

I ended up with a 4 page list of things I need to take with me on my journey. My mother is a big proponent of waiting after you pack. We've all been there, an hour out for a trip - or maybe just 10 minutes when we realize we left something vital behind. Therefore, she always recommends sitting in the car for 10-15 minutes to let everything sink in before you actually leave. This has saved our family a few times from forgetting things. I started my list in the first week of preparation, so I've had two weeks of waiting on it to make sure I don't forget anything. Everything from dog and human hair brush and nail clippers, to camping supplies, chargers, first aid kit and everything else I might possibly need.

Other legal pad purposes include tracking:
- Lists of to do items such as get dental cleaning, take Bundle to the vet, get prescriptions from doctors...etc
- Lists of important papers/documents I need to take with me and photo copy to have records
- The spur of the moment ideas and people that come to mind that I need to contact for the trip

3) Planning the route! I literally looked at a map, pin pointed the key places I knew I wanted to go and figured out routes between them that would put me in other rowing cities or places where I know people. I've been editing this continuously as I find more programs or people to visit. My mantra is Follow The Rowing!

I found a pretty cool site that maps out travel plans. They have a limit on the number of stops, so I had to break it down into parts. Here they are (dates listed are somewhat approximate)

• Part 1 (Pittsburgh - Pacific Northwest - Phoenix)
• Part 2 (Phoenix - Texas - NOLA - Pittsburgh)
• Part 3 (Northeast Loop & HOCR)
• Part 4 (Florida trip & USRowing Convention)

4) The amazing Google documents - specifically their spreadsheets. I have a sheet with a tab for each of the 4 parts of my trip. Each tab outlines the stops for the trip, the mileage and approximate driving time between stops, who I could possibly reach out to for housing, options for rowing and options for dancing, and finally everyone's contact information. This document is what I will live by for the trip. I'm trying to get to the point where I initiate contact with people a month before I arrive in that city to start setting things up. So many emails, so many phone calls. Setting this up is pretty much a full time job - and for me it's fantastic. I love logistics and people! When the two combine, it's just plain fun! :)

5) Clothes - how I hate dealing with clothes. I don't know how I have so many clothes, and t-shirts my goodness. I really want to take as few clothes as possible for this trip. Two of everything sounded great (shorts, pants, t-shirt, nice shirts, dress....) for a goal, but I ended up with a few more than that in some areas. It took a couple go throughs to finally get it cut down to size for the trip. I have it set up in the car so that there are bankers boxes acting somewhat like a chest of drawers. The "plan" is to then pick clothes for each stop and put them in my overnight bag. Great plan, although I think it may be challenging to execute as smoothly as it sounds.

6) It becomes real that you're choosing a homeless lifestyle when you pack all of your stuff into storage. It took most of a day to get everything into my recently rented storage unit. Then there were a couple random trips with the final things once everything got packed up and ready for the car. Very nice to know my stuff will be safe and will be where I left it for when I get back.

7) Before leaving, it's important for me to invest in my relationships here - in Pittsburgh. My family threw a fantastic party for over 100 people. Mostly rowers and yes, we did sing the Eton Boating Song :) Then I've been busy doing breakfasts, lunches, dinners, sculling, movies, hang-outs...etc with lots of other important people in my life. It has been so valuable spending time with my friends these past two weeks - I will miss seeing them in person.

There are so many other things I've been doing to prepare including closing on my condo that just sold in Austin, taking care of organizing the finances/budget for the trip, working on resumes & updating my LinkedIn profile as I will actively be looking for a full-time job to start hopefully January 1st, spending hours packing the car perfectly so everything has a place and I can still see out the back window and so many other things.

It has been quite busy, and incredibly enjoyable. A good day for me is one where I get a lot done - I'm learning how to appreciate the quiet days, but I sure do still like having madly productive ones. I leave in 6 hours for Columbus and the Greater Columbus Rowing Association for The Amputee Recreational Support Group of Central Ohio's Para-Rowing Sculling Clinic at 8am.

Let the adventure officially begin! Goodnight Pittsburgh! See you tomorrow Ohio!

Other ways to follow the trip:

• Search or give feedback/thoughts on twitter to #boatontheroad
• Check out boatfullofjoy on Instagram
• Subscribe to this blog to get notifications for when I submit my next entry

The Beginning

For the first time since college I find myself with a free summer. An adventure is required. 

During summers in high school, as soon as I was 16 and later while attending college, I went on long road trips. Alone. With my bike. In high school I went from Austin, TX to Pittsburgh, PA. In college I traveled from Austin, TX to Seattle, WA. I always took a different route so that I could see other family and friends, get a different view and see more of the country. My family, being avid road trippers all my life; were okay with me going off without a cell phone or anyone to accompany me.

Sometimes I took a while to get to my final destination so that I could see the sites and visit people, and sometimes I just wanted to get there as fast as I can. Once, I drove from Seattle to Austin in a total of 40 hours - stopping on the side of the road in Cheyenne, WY to sleep for 6 hours in the backseat. 

Trips to Seattle were always rowing oriented. I began rowing there in 9th grade at Annie Wright School in Tacoma. I developed my passion for sculling there during my summers in college with Frank Cunningham and Bill Tytus at the Lake Washington Rowing Club. My trips to the heart of rowing in Seattle were a bit frustrating. I would pass bodies of water and wish I had a boat instead of a bike on my car. I really wanted to be able to "row" across the country from one lake, river or pond to the next. 

Enter adulthood and work life. As a rower, you never get away from the sport--it always draws you back. At the site of still water, all rowers are reminded of their best rowing moments - perfect water, the bubbles on the hull of a shell as you soar with your friends and/or foes across a finish line.  You can't escape those treasured memories. They always pull you back to create new ones. This is what drew me to the sport full time; and the fact I was about to get laid off. In my adult job in 2008 as an on-the-job trainer, I didn't have a new hire class on the books for a year, the economy was tanking and it was likely that I was to be laid off. I decided to preemptively strike and leave on my own before that happened. 

At this point, my sister and mother moved back to Pittsburgh, PA where my father was born and raised and I was the lone Nix in Texas still. Since my dad died in 2007 and Austin was full of some great but also terribly sad memories for me, I made the decision to take the northern plunge too. There was a part-time job offer with a club in the area to start an inner city school-year program. I jumped at the opportunity and was looking forward to diving into the community bow first! Gradually after arriving, I was able to add to this community programing, making it a proper full-time position. Growing and developing programs is so much fun! Teaching people to row and scull…. not just row, but really develop a passion for the sport and respect what it has to offer is the best job in the world. Some shining moments that I will always cherish include:

• Getting an adult to race a single for the first time at the age of 65
• Taking a team of adaptive/adult athletes to race at Head of the Charles for the first time
• Seeing a high school athlete change her behavior at school and home because of what she was learned from rowing
• Helping an athlete with a disability find a way to be active and work out when she had NEVER found a way to be active that was safe or effective
• Putting an athlete with quadriplegia in a boat for the first time (for me and him!)
• Seeing an athlete with Autism Spectrum Disorder transition from the adaptive program to the able-bodied team
• Seeing that light bulb or spark in people's brains, not just when they understand what they're doing, but when you see their love for the sport turn up a notch
• This list could go on forever by the way…

Enter June 2014.  The club decided to change directions that did not include my being Director of Outreach anymore. This news came as a bit of a shock, but it won't stop my passion or mission for the sport of rowing. Now I have an opportunity to see more and perhaps even do more. 

When people tell me I'm an expert in the field of rowing outreach or adaptive rowing, I say, "We are all experts in retrospect." If you pursue something with your entire mind, body and spirit - you can't help but look back and see that you've become something of an expert. 

When I started full time coaching, my experience consisted of having a kinesiology degree, rowing and sculling a lot for different coaches and rowing for a Division 1 college team. I had really never worked with city youth or people with disabilities.  I was also without formal training to work with these communities. I was very interested in working with these groups and so set myself on a mission to not only lead these programs, but to learn as much as possible to do it well. Over the last five years, I have pursued a lot of information, talked with and learned from many leaders in the community. I asked a lot of questions of athletes, volunteers, engineers, medical professionals and played with various equipment and program designs to see what works and what doesn't. The programming I developed worked well and has been pretty successful. There is so much more I still want and need to know about working in rowing with these communities though. I want to experience what other clubs have created and learn from them; possibly achieving a higher standard of expertise.

My plan now is to travel the country - road trip style. This time, I'm taking my boat and my dog. I'm going to fulfill my college dream of "rowing across the country." Instead of stopping at just random ponds, I want to stop at key cities to see their rowing clubs and continue my pursuit of "more input" as Short Circuit's Number 5 robot would say by:  

1) Observing team practices, learn from the coaches and observe their coaching methods in running practices

2) Talking with staff/coaches about their clubs; especially outreach/adaptive teams. Learn their techniques to ensure accessibility of the sport as well as paths to competition for all athletes.

3) Putting my single in the water and/or going out with a team to check out the local waterway. 

I am an over-planner. I find that by over-planning I can then be spontaneous. If you have 5 paths outlined in detail, then at any time you can choose which one you want to go down, right? So I have planned and am still planning. The trip to Phoenix is mapped out pretty well in structure, although I still need to edit some. 

I hope to never stay in a hotel. Lucky for me, rowing and swing dancing have given me friends all over the country who are willing to host me. Also, the rowing community is a tight group of amazing people, with many friends of friends or members of clubs who are willing to host Bundle and me. Finally, I am my dad's daughter. Everyone said that if you knew my dad you didn't have 6 degrees of separation to everyone, but rather just 2 degrees. He sure had a lot of contacts in his rolodex and I am continuing some of those relationships to this day.  I’m investing in some of them during this trip. 

I leave on June 28th to head to Columbus. Stay tuned. This will be interesting. We'll see how much of the country I get done before adulthood calls me back to reality. 

Pictures will be posted HERE
See plans for Part 1 of my journey HERE
Connect with me on LinkedIn HERE