Day 3 - Colorado

Well, the camera worked! Here is the first picture of our entrance to the Rocky Mountains. Colorado is another beautiful state, and it was fun to drive through. My favorite town driving through the mountains was called Glennwood Springs. We saw river rafters, bikers, and just a few nice houses and buildings nestled among the hills.

We also drove through some of the big ski resorts, stopped at a dinosaur museum, and had our first experience with rain and fog in the mountains. That surprised me - I think I suspected it to be hot and dry the whole way.

The only disappointing thing with this leg of the journey is we got SUCH a late start and took SO long to get to Denver, that by the time we got there we decided to drive right through and now we are at a small inn in Fort Morgan, just east. It's so funny driving out of the mountains and experiencing the sudden change from constant hills and beauty to complete flat nothingness. Someone told me if I like the horizon I'll like this next leg of the journey. I told the kids there wouldn't be much to see so it could be a movie marathon.

Tonight, I really want to get my 8 hours of sleep, so will cut it short and tune in again soon!

Day 2 - Utah

Wow - Utah is beautiful. I have never seen such open space - mountains, canyons, amazing rock formations. I began to feel the like I could breathe again away from the crowds!

Tonight we are staying in a motel in Green River, Utah, which I think is about an hour or so east of the Colorado border. The drive has been amazing, and the kids did pretty well, as long as they had access to the DVD player and endless movies. Even they were amazed when we drove through Virgin Canyon, which I think was in Arizona near the Grand Canyon. Justin and Kaelyn both want to come back and live here, or at least show their dad. We stopped at several scenic view points along the way, and the kids were in "rock heaven". I don't know what compels Justin to want to pick up rocks and throw them, but he had fun doing that. Kaelyn, the adventurer, wanted to climb on the rocks and she always scares me because she thinks if the 20 year old tourists are up there climbing that means it's safe for her too. Luckily, I had the diving incident in my pocket to remind her that I have a right to be a neurotic mom and require that they stay well back from the cliffs.

We stopped in Cedar City, Utah for our afternoon break and went to this really cute park called the Discovery Park, which was designed by the families in the community. It had so many interesting things to climb in and on, that I would love to share a picture. Our camera never did start working, so I ended up buying a new one today, but that one wasn't charged yet. Do you know google images does not have a picture of that park? That's how small the towns are here - it's actually possible to find something interesting that someone has not taken a picture of yet and posted on the internet. Or at least not in a way that I could easily find it.

The picture at the top of this entry is one I found on the internet. Now, imagine seeing at least 50 spectacular views like this throughout the day almost everywhere you turn. I've never seen rocks this cool!

Tomorrow, we are off to Denver, and I believe we will be driving through the Rockies. Never been there either - so we are looking forward to the fun!

Day 1 - Nevada

Well, I'm glad I wasn't attached to any pre-conceived notions about how this trip would go, because our Lake Mead leg didn't turn out anything like I had hoped. But it wasn't too bad either.

I invited Mark to come with us since it was the weekend, and the idea was we'd leave super early Saturday morning, play on the lake all day and go our separate ways Sunday morning. He was torn at first, but then decided to by a new bimini (cover) for his boat so we could have shade on the lake, and decided it would be fun.

I hadn't given myself much time to pack on Friday since I had been in a training all day, and even though I had a fairly thorough list and most of the clothes washed, things took much longer than I expected, and before we knew it we were still trying to do last minute stuff at 10pm when we were planning on getting up around 4am. So at some point I had to let go of my dream of leaving a perfectly complete to do list, a perfectly clean and organized house, and trust Mark to take care of the loose ends when he returns after the weekend.

The drive itself wasn't too bad, and I figured it would be an easy start for the kids. Only about 4-5 hours the first day, each of them in a different vehicle with the entire back seat to stretch out in. But when you took into consideration the slower drive with the boat, a few extra stops for bathroom breaks, and not knowing exactly where we were going when we got to the lake, it was already after noon before we managed to get the boat into the water.

And then we had one little surprise after another. The boat ramp was shallow, the parking was on gravel with very deep pits and potholes, the temperature was well over 100 degrees, the wind was strong and gusty, the marina was crowded and didn't rent the inner tubes we had wanted, our fruit and some snacks didn't handle the heat, and neither did we. I was afraid the kids were getting heat stroke and kept trying to get them to sip water. Kaelyn started getting sea sick, and by the time I got sunscreen on everyone, our faces at least were already burned.

Finally we got the boat cover up, which gave us a little shade, and we got out on the open water. Since we were so hot, we went to find a cove immediately so we could swim. It was really nice getting into the cold water and it looked like everyone was going to have fun, but then the headaches hit, and then I got seasick. Funny thing is - I had brought wristbands for me and Kaelyn just in case we needed them to drive through the mountains, but it never occured to me that we would need them on the lake, and I didn't bring them onto the boat. We always take them with us when we go out on the ocean, but since I've never gotten sick on a lake - even a rough one, it was the last thing I thought of here.

Instead of the calm, peaceful, desert lake I had imagined, we were contantly being hit with waves or wind from all sides. And no matter how much we drank, the sun found a way to dehydrate us. The mountains around the lake didn't look as beautiful as I'd expected. The one thing I noticed was how low the water was compared to the water lines on the land. It kind of gave me the feeling that the poor lake was evaporating to death. I had planned to just relax on the boat and notice the landscape, but we just kept getting tossed around. Finally, after it became apparent that I wasn't going to get better until I could lay down in a cool, still place for an hour or so, we finally decided to leave the lake and find a hotel. Thankfully, we had decided not to camp, because pulling together all that extra equipment would have taken too much time. And we wouldn't have done it anyway. The car registered 130 degrees when we finally left. Ugg!

Despite all of this, there were lots of nice things that happened. Like the fact that the hotel we had been thinking of staying at simply showed up on the road within minutes of leaving the marina. It had a beautiful view of the lake, and free wireless internet! After getting off the churning water, it only took me about an hour to recover, and we were all showered and on our way to dinner. We got to see the Las Vegas skyline on the way back, and now everyone is asleep. But me.

Tomorrow, our goal is to reach Grand Junction, Colorado. If we could make it all the way to Denver that would be really awesome. But I've scrapped the idea of making an early start. Although I want to get to my friend Donna's in Iowa by early Tuesday, the whole point of this trip was NOT to stress out. And so far, it's been kind of stressful. So we're just going to wake up when we wake up and get ready when we get ready, and go when we go.

By the way, another surprise for us today was the camera not working. It had worked fine the prior night, but when I got the kids all set up to take our first picture, it kept trying to get itself oriented, and asking us to turn the power on and off again. Neither Mark nor I could figure out what was going on. So there will be no pictures for our first day. I'm recharging the battery as we speak, so perhaps that will do the trick and we'll have some pics by tomorrow.

My goal tomorrow will be to divide the trip into 2-3 hour segments and see if we can have fun with it.

Closing up Shop

In my business owners group this week, this trip took on a new meaning. "You mean you are really closing up shop and just taking off for a month? So you actually mean all this stuff about setting boundaries and creating life balance?" We've been talking about productivity, time and energy management, and running a values-based business for quite some time. We've discussed books like the "E-Myth" and "The Four Hour Work Week. But I'm not sure one business owner in the group actually believed it could be done.

One participant told me that if I could actually do this it would give me ten times more credibility in terms of having practiced what I preach. So, now this is a business trip of sorts as well, as I conduct the personal experiment of whether a small business like mine can thrive and still go dark for a month every year.

Of course it's easier said than done. I had to turn away business in July that I would have loved to take on. Although I've handled most of the major things on my to do list, there are still some things that simply didn't get done. They will have to wait, and I may lose opportunities as a result. Although I've decreased my client base, I still have long term clients that I would like to support while I'm gone if they need me. And, I have to trust that when I return in September, I will be able to make up for lost time. Being gone for one month actually cuts into three months of revenue.

In order to get to the point where I was willing to risk something like this, the main thing I had to build was personal confidence, trust in myself, and a longer term perspective. In the long run, once this month is over and I've gotten back on track, my absense in August wont mean much to other people. But to me, in the long run, this will mean a lot. Yes, there will be inevitable missed opportunities and losses. But overall, is it worth it? Absolutely.

So the e-mail auto-responders are turned on and the vacation voice mail is activated, and I am now immersed in packing, taking care of last minute errands, and worrying about what I'll miss. Luckily I realize that in this day and age, almost everything I miss can be fixed in some way. It's probably a good thing that I only have a few hours after my training to pack tomorrow evening - less time to stress!