PREPPING TO HEAD OUT ON TOUR

Part of preparing for a substantial voyage in the completion of an assortment of tasks.  Like most of you out there, I used checklists, and enlisted in the help of others, as I brought together all the things I could anticipate needing.  One thing I had forgotten a little along the way though, was that leaving home for a month is always a little scary.  It was a good reminder for me and remains a good reminder for all of us, because so often we ask our students/children to do things that are scary.  I consistently ask students to trust me with their future or assure them that they will be fine traveling across the country to attend a new school.  Even leaving a student at a new place, takes a certain confidence and trust.  We forget sometimes to acknowledge the significance of the fear of change so it was nice to go through that process a little bit again; to remember what it feels like to head out into the unknown, relying only upon the assurances of others that it will be okay.  I have never traveled across this nation by car (my ship is actually a 2012 Toyota and not the amazing little motorcycle you see in the photo) and so this trip will contain a bunch of firsts for me.  Thankfully, the voyage does include the safe harbor of a few close friends interspersed along the way.

I will certainly miss my little home on campus.  For a year now, Cottage Four (Hubbard) has been the place I call home.  As a student I lived in Cottage Five, so there is an incredible sense of familiarity to my surroundings.  However, there is a lot of good that I feel can come about by heading west.  So many of our students now apply and attend to colleges ALL over the United States.  For me to have the opportunity to spend a month of my summer exploring some of the places that are now familiar to so many of our students, is an amazing opportunity.

And, it also marks an opportunity to take my little fuzzy friend along with me.  Gus has not been afforded the opportunity to participate in the majority of my travel throughout the world.  As he grows older, it seems a particularly enjoyable way to spend a month, with a co-pilot so fuzzy and genuine. I imagine that many of the people on campus will miss seeing him staring out the window, waiting for me to come home.