My mom (Cora) and I leave tomorrow on our cross-country, Washington to Florida, exciting adventure. YIKES! But also, YAY! Over the past three weeks, as pieces have been falling into place (including an awesome sponsorship from HOYA, an eyeglass manufacturer) and the schedule has been sorted, and re-sorted a dozen times, I’ve been thinking of how impressed I am with rock bands setting up their tours. (Obviously, setting up tours is not limited to rock bands–think political campaigns, international and local tour companies, event planners– but perhaps because my fiancee’s brother’s band Cataldo is going on tour at the same time as us, I’ve been thinking about it more). The process of setting up a cross-country tour is pretty fascinating, especially when neither my mom or I have done something remotely like it before.

First, we decided the date that we wanted to arrive in Florida. This was mostly due to the fact that I am getting married at the end of November and wanted to have a few weeks in Seattle between the Lit Lab adventure and the getting-married adventure, so we decided we should be in Orlando, FL by the end of October.

Then, we determined the places where we had the most connections/possibilities and decided how many days we wanted in those specific places (usually, we planned 2-4 days).

After that, we factored in a week for Denver where we will babysit my 3 awesome cousins while my aunt and uncle go on a little trip to celebrate 22 years of marriage.

Talking over the phone and email, we wrote down a tentative schedule, which I then transferred to a Google calendar set-up that we both could access.

Then, we contacted places to let them know we would be in this place at this time.

What is interesting about setting up a tour is how exact you have to be, without knowing exactly what the road conditions or weather will be, whether places can accommodate you at a certain place on a certain date, and what happens if you decide you want to shift one place a day forward or back. (What happens is obvious: everything else gets shifted one day forward or back). Thank goodness for online maps that give you driving directions. I have a lot of respect for those who planned trips by using a physical map and scale rather than plugging in, “Seattle, WA to Sacramento, CA,” on an online map.

But we have done it! We have a route! And here it is:

Thursday, September 15th (Tomorrow!): Drive from Seattle, WA to somewhere in Oregon about 7 hours away

Friday, September 16th: Drive from somewhere in Oregon to Sacramento, CA.

Saturday, September 17th: Storytime at the Galt branch of the Sacramento Public Library system. Drive to San Francisco, CA.

Sunday, September 18th: Drive from San Francisco, CA to San Jose, CA.

Monday, September 19th: Event at school in San Jose, CA in the morning. Drive to Battle Mountain, NV.

Tuesday, September 20th: Drive from Battle Mountain, NV to somewhere in Wyoming.

Wednesday, September 21st: Drive from somewhere in Wyoming to Denver, CO.

Thursday, September 22nd through Tuesday, September 27th: Denver, CO

Wednesday, September 28th: Drive from Denver, CO to Lincoln, NE.

Thursday, September 29th: Event at Elliot Elementary School in Lincoln, NE

Friday, September 30th: Drive from Lincoln, NE to Minneapolis, MN

Saturday, October 1st – Sunday, October 2nd: Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN

Monday, October 3rd: Event at schools in the Twin Cities. Drive in afternoon from Minneapolis, MN to somewhere in route to Chicago.

Tuesday, October 4th: Arrive in Chicago, IL. Event at night at a school.

Wednesday, October 5th: Chicago, IL.

Thursday, October 6th: Drive from Chicago, IL to Detroit, MI.

Friday, October 7th – Sunday, October 9th: Detroit, MI

Monday, October 10th: Drive from Detroit, MI to Cleveland, OH.

Tuesday, October 11th: Drive from Cleveland, OH to Newark, DE.

Wednesday, October 12th: Event at Simon Eye Associates in Newark, DE. Drive from Newark, DE to Summit, NJ.

Thursday, October 13th – Saturday, October 15th: Summit, NJ

Sunday, October 16th: Drive from Summit, NJ to Rockville, MD.

Monday, October 17th: Drive from Rockville, MD to Winchester, VA.

Tuesday, October 18th: Drive from Winchester, VA to Richmond, VA.

Wednesday, October 19th: Drive from Richmond, VA to Wilson, NC.

Thursday, October 20th – Sunday, October 23rd: Wilson, NC

Monday, October 24th: Drive from Wilson, NC to Fletcher, NC.

Tuesday, October 25th: Drive from Fletcher, NC to Savannah, GA.

Wednesday, October 26th: Drive from Savannah, GA to Orlando FL.

Arrive!

Phew, that was really long typing it all out, especially since I realized that many of the event details are still getting filled in. But, in the (grammatically incorrect) words of Rebecca Black, “We, we, we so excited. We so excited.”

p.s. You may have thought my title was a misnomer since really, it seems like the only way we are like a rock band is that we are going on tour.  However, we also are awesome, as (many) rock bands are. 😉 Instead of rocking out hard to music, we rock out hard to books, storytelling, costumes, props, games, AND music.