Building the Itinerary


I’m currently immersed in the project of putting together my next road trip. I love this process. I connect with so many people across the country and drop the suggestion that River and I come by and visit their Nia studio. I offer to teach my Rockin Nia routine or something more. I don’t press the issue; I want everything to unfold organically and naturally, so I have vowed not to pressure or convince anyone to do it. If I’m not met with enthusiastic excitement and support, I don’t pursue it.

Sometimes I contact people directly through email by looking them up on the NiaNow website. Many times I am in contact with someone already thanks to Facebook. And in some cases, I’m connected to someone by someone I’ve already connected to using one of those first two methods. I am very amenable to work with. I don’t have a set fee or a set of hard and fast demands for my appearance. As long as I can arrive with River and teach my class with him in the room, I’m happy. I expect some sort of pay, and I have been paid anywhere from $25 to $200 for a single class but I will work with whatever situation I’m driving into.

This trip is going to be my longest yet. I’ve broken it down into six legs, each one taking about a week:



Across the North:
Leaving Seattle and driving due East, stopping in Coeur D’Alene, ID first. Then I’m taking a bit of a detour to the north to stop in Kalispell and see Flathead Lake. After a stop in Missoula, back to heading east and stopping in Bozeman and Miles City in Montana, Fargo North Dakota and then finally Duluth.

Great Lakes:

This leg actually begins in Duluth on Lake Superior. I’ve arranged it so that I can spend at least one night on the shore of each lake and also didn’t want to miss visiting the major cities along the way. So I’m stopping in Roseville, MN to see Minneapolis and in Brookfield, WI to see Milwaukee and Lake Michigan. Then we’ll stop in Schiller Park, IL which is near Chicago and then in Mentor, OH, which is halfway between Cleveland and Lake Erie. We’ll scoot up to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls where we can see Lake Superior and making this an international trip, we’ll also visit Toronto. Then, on our way back down to Ann Arbor, MI, we’ll stop on the shore of Lake Huron to have lunch at a park.

Midwest:
The midwest leg includes stops at Indianapolis, IN, Caseyville, MO (which is near St. Louis), Overland Park, KS (which is near Kansas City), and Midwest City, OK. (near Oklahoma City).


Texas:
My stops in Texas are Dallas for two days, Houston for two days, Corpus Christi, Austin, San Antonio and Fort Stockton. All told we will be eight days in Texas.

Southern Desert:
The desert cities will be Carlsbad and then Las Cruces, NM, Tempe, AZ and then 29 Palms, CA.



West Coast:
My plan is to first visit Ventura, and then Monterey, San Francisco and Redding in California. Then I’ll stop in Medford, Eugene and Portland in Oregon and finally one stop in Olympia, WA before heading back home to Seattle again.
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At the time of this writing, I have four teaching gigs set up for the seven week journey. I’m in communication with lots of people and talking about setting up plenty more.

I really enjoy this part of the trip as much as I enjoy taking it. If you’re reading this and you have an interest in discussing the possibility of including your city in our itinerary, please contact me. Or if you know of someone on my path and think I should be talking to them about setting something up, please introduce us. Or, if you would love to meet River and I and/or would love to experience my ROCKIN Nia routine, but you don’t live along our proposed route, please talk to me anyway and perhaps we can include your town on our next trip.

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