Day Two: I'm Taking a Road Trip

I have decided to take a road trip across the country.  I have to acknowledge that my friend Mat has served as some inspiration, but there are so many compounding factors that have solidified my realization that now is the time, if ever in my life, that I am going to do this.  The most recent influence in my decision was a conversation I had this afternoon with a woman named Colleen at the Ralph Lauren store.

Now, I know that I shouldn't be shopping the day after being laid off, but I need some new casual clothes.  I am not going to wear business formal for five days a week anymore. 

I'm on my walk with Lyla and I see a sale sign in the window so we step in to look.  As Colleen rings me up, we chat about New Years and I feel compelled to her tell her about my plan to travel across the country.  She tells me that she has made the trip cross-country to her home in Colorado a few times, with friends and by herself.  She will probably never do it again in her life but she is so happy she did. 

"Get some books on tape" she suggests, "see the country and kill the time by getting through some books."  With that, she reinforces what I thought I wanted and scratches the small itch of hesitation I had about actually doing it.  

I picture it.  Lyla and me, driving with the top down through the Florida Keys, checking out the music scene in Nashville, stopping in Charlotte to visit my old friend Cat, watching the sunset on the Grand Canyon, learning to surf in California, visiting some business schools in the Bay area and skiing down the Rockies in Colorado.  

The agenda this week:

1. Start a blog.  Check.
2. Make a book list.  I will have a lot of time on the road so I am going to put together an ambitious reading (listening list).  Any suggestions are very welcome.  The book list so far:
   1. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
   2. The Great Gatsby (one of my favorites)
   3. Churchill: A Life
   4. Pride and Prejudice
   5. War and Peace
   6. Undaunted Courage : Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
3. Map out the trip (loosely).  I’ll start to plan this tomorrow morning.



Comments

[Abel]

Congrats on deciding to embark on your journey, very exciting. I recommend making sure you have a spare tire & AAA along with navigation enabled cell phone with car charger before embarking.

Audio books are great, I haven't read the 1st or last on your list but the rest are excellent driving choices, a few others i would suggest:

1. Bill Bryson's At Home, his Random History on Everything or any of his books
2. On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins
3. A book on Teddy Roosevelt
4. 50 Philosophy (the ones on genetics and on physics are pretty good too) Ideas You Really Need to Know. Ben Dupree does the Philosophy one.
5. The Next Decade: Where We've Been . . . and Where We're Going by George Friedman (comes out tomorrow, 1/25)
6. From the later 90s but if you haven't read yet, good- Built to Last (Successful Habits of Visionary Companies)
7. And many good ones, such as Made to Stick, from this list courtesy of NASA's APPEL- http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/appel/knowledge/forums/250.html